Nutrient-Dense Foods Are the Key to Good Health

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"The Intelligent Gardener: Growing Nutrient Dense Food" by Steve Solomon is a practical, step-by-step guide to growing produce of the highest nutritional quality.
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A typical “black house” of the Isle of Lewis derives its name from the smoke of the peat burned for heat. The native Gaelic fisher folk use native food and have excellent teeth.
A typical “black house” of the Isle of Lewis derives its name from the smoke of the peat burned for heat. The native Gaelic fisher folk use native food and have excellent teeth.

Centuries of agriculture have depleted our soils causing the nutrient-density of fruits, grains and vegetables to decline dramatically, but the health of effects of eating foods that are not nutrient dense are widely misunderstood. This excerpt from The Intelligent Gardener (New Society Publishers, 2012) by Steve Solomon explains nutrient-density and the role it plays in achieving better health for you and your family.

You can purchase this book from the MOTHER EARTH NEWS store:The Intelligent Gardener: Growing Nutrient Dense Food.

Nutrient-Dense Foods

Achieving a nutrient dense diet involves perfecting three things. First: some entire food classes are more nutrient dense than others; we need to avoid foods with little intrinsic nutritional content. Second: some batches or lots of the same kind of food can be far more nutrient dense than others. These differences can be due to genetics, but usually have more to do with the soil on which the foods were grown and sometimes at what stage of maturity they were harvested. Finally, some foods have been devitalized, that is, processed so as to reduce their nutrient content. White flour and refined vegetable oils are two glaring examples.

Different productions of the same type of crop can vary greatly in nutritional quality. The same variety of wheat can have very different protein levels depending on the soil and, to a lesser degree, according to the amount of rainfall that year. Some varieties of same kind of vegetable have far higher levels of vitamins and minerals. So, the same is not really the same.

  • Published on Sep 20, 2013
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