Diet is the foundation of health. Of body composition, of hormones, of mental health, or lack thereof. With a poor diet it’s impossible to perform at and accomplish your best. It’s unfortunate that the word diet, meaning in this case way of eating, has become synonymous with eating a certain way for a certain length of time in order to lose weight or in rarer cases, gain muscle. However diet is far more than that. As I just said diet is the foundation of health.
Get your sleep right, get exercise right, but get diet wrong and you’ll be running on a hamster wheel going nowhere. Get diet right and your mind, body, and even spirit will be allowed to perform at their peak. And by get diet right I mean more than just cutting out the cakes and cookies and eating more protein. Though there are certainly worse starts.
So many focus on macronutrition when micronutrition is where the magic really happens, though both are important. Carbs, proteins, and fats are important to get right and in the right quantities, however when all one focuses on is macronutrients or even worse simple calories then they’re missing out on the bigger picture of health and peak function. Calories are important and play a role in health and macronutrients an even bigger one but micronutrients is where the mind, body, and spiritual benefits are to be found.
Achieving The Impossible Quest
But here’s the problem. Carbs, fats, proteins that’s three things and we can keep track of three things. However break down all the micronutrient all the vitamins and minerals and all that goodness and we’re looking at a whole lot of things to track, way beyond the average person’s time or capabilities. And proteins, carbs, and fats are better understood than the murky world of micronutrition. However get micronutrition right and you’ll be well on your way to getting macronutrition right and therefore calories.
But how do we go about this? Do we take a multivitamin and supplements to make sure we’re getting all that we need? No, synthetic vitamins range from not working at all to being downright dangerous, you need real food from real sources. There’s no getting around this as a human. Pills are for making rich men richer, not for aiding anyone’s health. Ditch the pills, powders, and the like. Eat real food from real sources. But what does that look like?
There are a couple big things to look at here. The first and most important is identifying the most nutrient dense food and making sure that those foods make up a big part of our diets. A scoop of protein powder and a slice of liver both contain twenty grams of protein yet the micronutrient content of each is worlds apart. Not to mention that the liver’s protein is natural and therefore likely to work better. But that begs the question what are the most nutrient dense foods?
First thing to look for is food that was grown naturally and that had as little “modern” influence as possible. Vegetables that were grown on nutrient rich soil, not treated with poisons and pesticides, given water that isn’t tainted, and then prepared properly for consumption. Wild caught fish that lived free and ate their natural diet. Grass fed cows and the like. Game like deer, elk, and the like. As close as nature as you can get.
But let’s go even deeper than this. After all not all foods, even when prepared in the best way possible are even. What are the big ones that we’re looking for give us the best shot at hitting our micronutrient needs? Well first off there needs to be balance. You need different food groups depending on who you are and what you have access too. Micronutrient needs are not the same across a population, they vary from individual to individual and depending on what’s going on in your life at that time.
Nature’s Big Hitters
So let’s look at some of the most nutrient dense foods that you should be including for proper hormonal health, body composition, mental functioning, and life enjoyment in general. The first are eggs and I mean the whole egg. Fitness nuts say eat the whites only and other crowds say eat the yolk only. Well I’m saying eat both, they’re both in there for a reason. Eggs are one of nature’s multivitamins containing vitamins and minerals important for hormonal health, skin health, and just about everything else.
Organ meats are another big one, with liver perhaps being the most nutrient dense food in existence. Eat your organs, all of them. heart, kidneys, brain, balls, and everything else that you can get your hands on. Try sweetbreads, not a bread. Try blood pudding. Try haggis, try whatever your culture’s traditional organ dish is, they all have one. You may have to look back a ways but its there.
Boils the bones. Make bone broth by boiling the proper bones and bone stock by boiling the ligaments and cartilage. Look how to make bone broth and bone stock. You want to eat nose to tail and everything in between. Muscle meats are great but if that’s all you’re eating then you’re really missing out.
Real dairy is also good. Whether it’s milk fresh from the cow, goat, sheep, or even camel or the grand variety of cheeses out there. Tropical fruits are great sources of vitamin C, honey has a ton of good properties, sauerkraut is amazing. Salmon and other fatty wild caught fish are stuffed with good things. Fish eggs are another great choice.
Drink water, kobucha, kefir, kvass, and the like.
Get out of the chicken breast, rice, and broccoli mentality. That’s a great way to starve your body of so much of the nutrition that it needs. Hunt, fish, butcher and grow your own food. Stop throwing away the good parts. Do this and you’ll find that not only does your body change but your mind and even spirit along with it.
Focus on micronutrient first and foremost then macro second and calorie a distant third.
