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MY TOP 9 NUTRIENT-DENSE FOODS

by Kevin Rutherford 0 Comments

Overeating is a big issue in the United States, and now all around the world. One of the reasons for this is that we are eating "empty calories" or foods that are nutrient-depleted instead of nutrient-dense. Monoculture, synthetic fertilizers, and mismanaged grazing are just some of the reasons we are losing nutrients from our soil.

A bit about hunger and appetite here. Us, as human beings, get hungry because our body needs nutrients to live and thrive. If we didn’t have this strong drive to eat, we could easily get distracted and forget that we need food. So having a healthy appetite is key to our survival. We’ve all heard that overweight people have poor willpower which is absolutely untrue and, quite frankly, has screwed up a lot of people and their association with food. The appetite is such a powerful force. You’re not going to white-knuckle it and fight through, not eating out of sheer willpower alone. It’s just not going to happen. You may get away with it for a bit, but that’s not exactly a good thing.

Now, you can eat a poor diet and still feel full. However, you won’t have any energy because your body didn’t get the nutrients it needs. What your body is looking for is nutrition. If you keep eating food that has no nutritional content it will never really satisfy your appetite — so you just keep eating. Say you’re eating empty calories, your body searches those calories for nutrients and runs through them unsatisfied. So what does it do? It asks for more, and more! You get hungry sooner than you would if you had a whole nutrient-dense meal. This is precisely what we mean by nutrient-dense food here at Let’s Truck.

Below are nine really great foods that are considered nutrient-dense. Try incorporating them into your day or week:

1. Wild-caught Alaskan Salmon

Be careful when you choose your salmon, not all salmon is created equal. Most of the salmon that you get in the grocery store or restaurant will be farm-raised Atlantic salmon. If you can get wild Atlantic Salmon, that would be healthy. There is a huge difference between the nutrients in farm-raised Atlantic salmon and the wild-caught Alaskan Salmon.

To make it even easier for you, we carry canned Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon in our online store.

2. Bone Broth

Rich in collagen and the amino acids glycine and glutamine. These three components together make it very supportive for our gut health. Bone broth is a very nutrient-dense, healthy food. It is also very gut healing. When you hear us talk about gut healing, bone broth is a big part of that. To make it even easier for you, we carry bone broth in our online store. It comes in an eight ounce tub or in small sticks, and all you do is add hot water and stir. It is a great way to incorporate bone broth into your diet.

3. Liver

Number three, which should probably be number one but a lot of people just don’t like it. Liver is probably the number one super food when it comes to nutrient density. It is rich in iron, B vitamins, vitamin A, and is good for immune support and energy. Now, the type of liver matters but all liver is good. Don’t be afraid, many people have said over the years that you shouldn’t eat liver because the liver is the organ that stores all of the toxins in the body. This is a misconception and a myth, the liver does not store toxins, the liver filters toxins. The toxins get stored in the fat of the animal. That’s why we like to eat grass-fed pastured animals that don't have a lot of toxins. The liver is just as safe, if not safer, than other parts of the animal because toxins are not stored there. So don’t worry about that. Looking at liver, your best source for nutrient density is grass-fed beef liver. Again, the same place that you’re going to get your grass-fed beef from, you can get your liver from also. That is going to be your healthiest most nutrient-dense form of liver. Pork is pretty nutrient-dense also. Chicken liver isn’t as nutrient-dense as beef liver but it is way more nutrient-dense than almost any other foods. Some people find that chicken liver is easier to eat. Chicken liver pate is a great way to get started on adding liver into your diet.

If you don't like the taste of liver but would like to get the benefits, we have Beef Liver supplements in our online store.

4. Organic pastured eggs

Pastured organic eggs, and especially the yolks, are very nutrient-dense. They are one of the best foods for our eyes. Eggs are rich in choline, a type of B vitamin, as well as lutein, zeaxanthin, vitamins A and E, copper, and folate. Pastured eggs are two to three times rich in all of these nutrients and definitely worth the extra money.

5. Sprouts

You know, I’ve always seen sprouts and wondered why do people even eat those things? What’s the point? Sprouts are literally just baby plants. You take a seed and let it sprout, just like if you were going to grow a plant, but you eat it before it ever gets very big at all. The reason why sprouts are so healthy is because that seed contains every bit of nutrition that the plant needs to grow to its full maturity. When it gets to its full maturity, the way we tend to eat it, it has used up a lot of those nutrients. I’m not telling you to not eat adult plants, but sprouts are even better. All the nutrition is concentrated into that sprout to make the plant healthy.

Sprouts are easy, you can throw them on a salad or top just about any dish with them. They are also very easy to grow. You can find sprout growing kits and grow sprouts in just a couple of days.

6. Raw garlic and aged black garlic

There are some people that won’t react well to garlic because of the sulfur. There are some people with certain conditions that actually benefit from a low-sulfur diet. That is a specific case, otherwise people in reasonably good health would not have to worry about that. Raw garlic is excellent, slightly cooked or the less it's cooked the better. There is a trick to garlic, before you use it you want to chop it up and let it sit for five or ten minutes. There’s a chemical process that goes on that makes more of the nutrients in the garlic available when you do that. You do want to eat as much of your garlic as close to raw as possible, that is when it has its most valuable properties.

There is another product called aged black garlic, it’s actually fermented black garlic. It’s hard to find. Every once in awhile I find it at a health food store. When I do, I buy it. It has an amazing taste and it is even more nutrient-dense than raw garlic.

7. Greens

We’ve heard a ton about this food, kale, because it is very high in nutrients. For a green, it has a very good carbohydrate to protein ratio, it has a good omega-3 to omega-6 ratio, and it’s rich in vitamins A, C, and K1. Kale is another excellent nutrient-dense source to add to your diet.

8. Oysters

Rich in zinc, which is good for hormonal health, especially for men. It also has B vitamins and Omega-3 fats.

9. Avocados

These are another great nutrient-dense food. It has healthy fiber and lots of monounsaturated fats, one fat that everyone agrees is healthy. It also is rich in potassium and magnesium, two of our electrolytes, which is good for low-carb because we need a lot of electrolytes. Avocados are a perfect keto food, high in fiber, fat, and has good minerals.

Now, let me make a claim. If you ate a properly prepared nutrient-dense whole food diet one-hundred precent of the time, starting as a child by the way, you would be outrageously healthy. It really is as simple as that. Most of the diseases, problems, and symptoms we face today are strictly because of the food that we eat. Now having said that, I realize that for most of us it is too late to start doing it as a child, I have five decades of not eating all that great which is common for us.

There is no time like the present. The sooner you start eating a properly prepared nutrient-dense whole food diet, the healthier you’re going to be. The more often you eat that way, the healthier you’re going to be. It’s not easy, to make lifestyle changes, I get that. Just because something isn’t easy doesn't mean we should say, "Oh well, we can’t do that all of the time so we just won’t bother."

This is part of my favorite phrase, doing the hard work. Doing the hard work of being healthy is doing what it takes to seek out the nutrient-dense whole food. It requires planning, research, time, and effort. I can promise you that if you want to be healthy, this is the key. Nothing, and I mean nothing, works better than nutrient-dense whole food. The more of it you eat, the healthier you’re going to feel and the healthier you’re going to be.