We hear a lot about ‘whole foods,’ there’s even a grocery store named after them…but what ARE they? After a term has been out there for a while…and we’re still not sure what it means…admitting our ignorance can feel like those situations where we’ve asked somewhat their name is. And asked again. And again. And we still can’t remember their name! It gets a bit embarrassing.
The funny thing is, lots of people aren’t sure what a whole food is. There. The secret’s out and now we can move on. 🙂
The definition of a whole food is:
food that has been processed or refined as little as possible and is free from additives or other artificial substances.
Thank you, Google definitions. The basic idea is that the food is still recognizable as something that was grown or raised. It doesn’t mean you can’t cook anything; it just means that real ingredients that still looked like a fruit, vegetable, nut, bean or piece of meat were used in the recipe. The more ‘messed with’ the food is (added preservatives, sugars, salt, etc), the less ‘whole’ it is. Which brings up another point…whole foods are really on a continuum. An apple straight from the tree is 100% whole. Take that apple and make some home made apple sauce that blends in the skins and doesn’t add sugar (so basically you just have pureed apple) and it’s still pretty close to 100%. Remove the skins, add some sugar and maybe some preservatives to keep the sauce a light color and you’re getting closer to 50% whole (I’m totally making that number up, but you get the idea). The more we mess with a whole food, the more incomplete it becomes because we’re taking away some of the vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients that were originally present.
Sometimes it’s easier to look at the opposite to define a word. The opposite of ‘whole’ would be ‘incomplete.’ So, if I’m cruising the aisles of my local grocery store and get overwhelmed trying to figure out if a food is whole or not, I could ask myself, ‘Is this food incomplete? Was anything removed from it’s original version?’ The answer to this question can help us get a general idea of where the food lies on the continuum between whole and completely processed.
Why do I care if a food is whole? The simple answer is, because our bodies function dramatically better when we ingest food as it is found in nature. Want to reverse/improve high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease, diabetes and hundreds of other health conditions? Eat a variety of fresh produce, nuts (not covered in salt/sugar), beans, lentils, whole grains, quality dairy (if you tolerate it) and meat/eggs. Nutrition won’t solve all that ails us, but it will make a huge difference.
Need some examples to get you started? Here are a few on a continuum from ‘whole’ to ‘completely processed/incomplete’.
- Wheat Berry Salad (https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/wheat-berry-salad-recipe2-2011998 ) which uses whole wheat berries ——> Sprouted Grain Bread, which uses several whole grains and limits added sugars/preservatives —->White bread. You know, the stuff you can squish up into a little ball. It can do that because most of the nutrients have been removed.
- Steel Cut oats (https://cookieandkate.com/2016/perfect-steel-cut-oats-recipe/) or Old Fashioned oats (http://www.cookinglight.com/recipes/basic-oatmeal-recipe) —-> Plain Instant Oats you made at home and added some fruit/honey to —-> Packet of Instant Oats with added flavorings/sugar/preservatives.
- Fresh or frozen green beans —-> Canned green beans —> Green bean casserole.
In each of these examples, the ‘whole’ version is using an ingredient (wheat, oat, beans) in it’s whole form…no part has been removed or significantly altered (the Old Fashioned oats are squashed, but nothing has been removed). As we go through the continuum, the foods have been altered in some way. Either sugar or preservatives have been added (bread, beans) OR part of the food has been removed (Instant oats).
Quick reminder: almost no one eats whole foods ALL the time…even health professionals. Most people’s goal is to eat them most of the time and to use lightly processed foods as needed to make our lives more sane…and highly processed foods (hello ice cream!) as occasional treats. You get to pick what works best for your body, preferences and lifestyle. 🙂
