Nutrition Boosting Tips
The Daily Dozen is the best nutritional guideline currently available. If you’re anywhere close to following it, you’re doing better than almost everyone around you. But there’s always room for improvement! There are tons of little gems of knowledge that we can use to boost nutrition across a variety of foods.
We're building a comprehensive list of practical evidence based nutrition tips. When you make a meal plan, click the "Nutrition Tips" button to get a list of all the tips applicable to your specific meal plan. Below is the full list. Are we missing something? Contact us here and let us know!
Blueberries
Choose wild blueberries when you can.
They have twice the antioxidant capacity of conventional blueberries
Garlic
Garlic creates artery relaxing compounds via a reaction triggered by cutting or crushing it.
To maximize production of these compounds, cut or crush the garlic ten minutes before cooking it.
Onions
Choose red onions when you can.
They have more antioxidants than white onions.
Watermelons
Watermelons continue to ripen after harvesting.
Phytonutrient content increases with ripeness, so you can benefit by keeping them out of the refrigerator for several days to ripen further.
Grapes
Choose black or red grapes when you can.
Green grapes have about 40% less antioxidants than red or black.
The Dirty Dozen
Choose organic foods when you can to avoid pesticide exposure, but particularly for the Environmental Working Group's Dirty Dozen Foods. These are the worst offenders in terms of pesticide residue.
The Dirty Dozen Foods for 2021 are: strawberries, spinach, kale/collards/mustard greens, nectarines, apples, grapes, cherries, peaches, pears, bell & hot peppers, celery, and tomatoes.
Black Pepper + Turmeric
Consider adding black pepper to dishes containing turmeric.
It boosts the absorption of the turmeric phytonutrient curcumin by 2000%.
Cruciferous Vegetables
Sulforaphane is a beneficial phytonutrient found in cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, collards, cauliflower, cabbage, bok choy, arugula, turnip, radish, watercress, or mustard greens).
Sulforaphane is created via a reaction triggered by chopping the vegetable. To maximize sulforaphane production, chop cruciferous vegetables 40 minutes before cooking. If frozen, this strategy will not work, but you can still boost sulforaphane production by adding some mustard powder to trigger the reaction.
Cabbage
Choose red cabbage when you can.
It has up to 8x more antioxidants than green cabbage.
Carrots
Cooked carrots have more phytonutrients than raw.
To maximize phytonutrient content, cook carrots whole and cut them up after.
Purple carrots are healthier than orange carrots due to their higher antioxidant content.
Apples
Choose Red Delicious or Granny Smith apples when you can.
They have more antioxidants than other common varieties. Red delicious takes first place, with Granny Smith being a close second.
Gala, Fuji, and Golden Delicious have only about 65% as many antioxidants as Red Delicious and Granny Smith.
Celery
Cooked celery is better than raw. It increases in antioxidant content when cooked!
