I'll never forget walking through the bulk department of the original Seattle Whole Foods Market, and having a fellow team member grab my attention by saying,

"Hey, I thought beans, nuts, and whole grains were healthy?"

Dead stop. What? I turned around and said, "well yeah, what makes you think otherwise?"

The team member was putting up signage in the department that showcased a scoring system created by one of the Whole Foods Market medical advisory board members, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, MD. The scoring system was called the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index (ANDI).

ANDI was designed as an educational tool to help consumers live up to Dr. Fuhrman's definition of health, H = N/C, meaning Health = Nutrients / Calories.

Since the ANDI ranks foods based on how many nutrients compared to how many calories a food has (also called nutrient density), dark leafy greens were at the top of the chart.

It's no secret that fruits and vegetables are mostly fiber, water, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants (the micro-nutrients), giving them higher ANDI scores. 

And while this makes sense, it wreaks of the moralistic view of foods and doesn't promote a balanced all foods approach to eating.

Listen to the episode to learn why and what science has to say about the nutrient-dense version of healthy eating. 

For full show notes visit www.alpinenutrition.org/blog 

For more non-diet nutrition insights visit @alpinenutrition on Instagram and Facebook

Get additional blog posts and resources for intuitive eating during menopause on my website www.alpinenutrition.org

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