Rating Foods

The most common question I get, especially when I teach classes on food/nutrition, is: How do you feel about ______ product.

I'm going to try to break it down simply here in a Daily Diner style A-F grading system:

A Foods- are anything real and whole. Undamaged by refining, processing, microwaving, irradiation and grown in soil that is nutrient rich. This also means our animals (if you eat animals) are raised on food that is natural to them. Water is the only drink we need. Teas are good for you too---they contain many phytonutrients.

B Foods- lightly refined or processed. B foods are in my house and consumed daily. Examples would be pasteurized milk and other dairy products, sprouted grain bread, sprouted grain pasta, etc.

C Foods- These foods are okay if eaten sparingly. The problem is these foods are the ones that most Americans consume daily. Watch your intake. Boxed Cereal, pasta (both white and wheat), 100% juice, sweetened yogurt, coffee, etc.

D Foods- All your delicious high quality desserts.

F Foods--ANYTHING WITH ARTIFICIAL INGREDIENTS or a long, long, long list of ingredients. Red dye #40 is not found in nature. Neither are neon blue sports drinks. Artificial sweeteners. All fast food, anything that comes from a box that only requires a microwave to re-heat. We do not need to eat "F" foods, they DO NOT provide us with any nutrients. They have no point, they bring no value. (convenience is not a value, it's an excuse.)

Special Note on B, C,and D foods: make sure you read the ingredient list--there should not be any big words that sound like a science experiment. Keep the ingredients list minimal--no more than 10-12 ingredients. All ingredients should come from "A" or "B" food groups.

Make sure your foods have ingredients that are natural to them (this is huge). An example: look at sour cream. Sour cream is dairy only. If your sour cream has corn starch or tapioca as a filler/thickener put it down and find another brand. Yes corn starch and tapioca are natural to the world but they are NOT natural to sour cream.

get it? got it? good.