The Most Important Nutrition Advice Is

Monica Salafia, RD
Mar 1, 2017
2 min read

IT'S NATIONAL NUTRITION MONTH!

This years theme is 'Put Your Best Fork Forward" and I'm here to tell you the single, most important piece of nutrition advice I could ever give to someone....

What is this advice?

It's not a 3-day juice cleanse.

It's not a macronutrient manipulation (like eat 40% carbs 20% fat...)

It's definitely not 'don't eat dairy, sugar, wheat, meat' or any other food or nutrients.

The single most important nutrition advice I could ever give someone is...

TO COOK MORE MEALS AT HOME!

Yes! That is the most important piece of nutrition advice I could tell someone. Why? Because any food we eat is likely to be more nutrient-dense than if we bought it form somewhere. Consider how much fresher your food is when you cook it yourself. Not to mention, how many more nutrients are within the foods when they are fresher without the added salts, sweeteners, and fats which help preserve foods.

Consider these examples:

Homemade Pizza versus Take Out: ~100% whole wheat dough, homemade tomato sauce, and freshly cut veggies, a light cheese

or

~refined flour crust, pre-made sauce (check out the sodium, folks!), veggies, & cheese which is less cheese more other ingredients .

Chicken, Vegetable & Brown Rice Stir Fry versus Chinese Take Out

~Fresh 100% white meat chicken, perfectly ripe veggies, a steamed whole grain rice

or

~Chicken, veggies, rice in a sticky-sweet and really salty sauce.

Blueberry Muffins:

~Half white flour, half whole wheat, fresh blueberries, apple sauce & vegetable oil...

or

~all white flour, tiny blueberries (not fresh), lots of shortening or other fats & HUGE Portions!

I can think of a million more examples. I don't mean to say "stay away from restaurants" . Heck, I love going out to eat! I also know a lot of hard working and passionate people in the industry that do an amazing job at making their meals healthier!

But the habit of getting daily fast food breakfasts, going out to eat for lunch with co-workers and popping something in the microwave for dinner is not going to do much good for our health or wallets!

So the most important nutrition advice I could ever give to someone is to simply cook more meals at home. Make it a goal to have a home cooked dinner once or twice a week or more depending on where you are at. Need help getting started? Let's chat! shoot me an e-mail mindonnutrition@gmail.com .

So keeping this little piece of advice in mind, I hope you all have a wonderful month celebrating nutrition and Putting Your Best Fork Forward!

Putting your best fork forward on Instagram? Let's Connect @monicasalafia.rd ! Use the hashtags #bestforkforward and #mindonnutrition & enter a chance to win a *special prize*