Dr. Joel Fuhrman in his best selling book Eat to Live described the concept of a nutrient-dense diet and its remarkable health promoting disease reversing qualities. The simple formula for a health life is summarized in this elegant equation: H=N/C or Health=Nutrients/Calories. Food at its basic level supplies us with nutrients to maintain cell function, the necessary raw materials for maintenance and repair, and energy. The energy from food is supplied in the form of calories from protein, carbohydrates and fats. The majority of people make decisions based on this level of understanding leading to diets that are high protein, low carbohydrate, low fat, and complicated by hours of impossible calorie counting. The micronutrients including the vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and anti-oxidants are also supplied by the food we eat, but do not affect the total caloric value. These micronutrients are the key building blocks that are essential for optimal cell function and are critically important to your future health.

Every day your body requires more than 90 nutrients for optimal function including 60 different minerals, 16 vitamins, 12 amino acids, and 3 essential fatty acids. This does not include the 8000 different phytochemicals and yet unstudied compounds in raw fruits and vegetables that maximize cell function and activity. If you are not obtaining these from your daily diet, your body will beg borrow and steal and long as possible until the systems can no longer meet the demands. It is at this point that disease begins to take hold and life suddenly changes.
Life is supported and maintained by the macronutrients protein, carbohydrates and fats, but lasting health is found in the micronutrients. Consider your daily diet of approximately 2000 calories. You could meet your caloric needs by eating a diet of pure sugar, meat, cereal, French fries, or candy bars. This will keep you alive and your body would continue forward on this diet as long as possible but disease and system failure will occur at a future date because the cells are not receiving the materials they need to functional optimally. If however, your goal is health, then you should strive to fill each calorie with as many micronutrients as possible. In effect nutrient packed calories.
For example, consider all of the processed foods in the center isles of your supermarket. Do they contain high levels of anti-oxidants, phytochemicals, minerals and naturally occurring vitamins per calorie? Now compare these foods to a cup of spinach or broccoli. Which food has more nutrients per calorie? Which foods are more likely to support and enhance your health? And which foods should make up the majority of your daily intake? Now let's compare two diets. Both contain 2000 calories but obtain their total caloric intake from very different sources. Imagine you are a typical person living in an industrial city eating "modern" foods. Breakfast might include a bagel or bowl of cereal and coffee. Before lunch you might indulge in a donut, candy bar or soda to get by because you are feeling tired or "hypoglycemic". Lunch on the go includes a soda, chips and a sandwich with a cookie for dessert. About 3pm you are again feeling faint so you eat another snack perhaps crackers. Dinner includes a piece of meat, bread, potato and a cooked vegetable. Before bed a bowl of ice cream or the left over cake from the birthday party tops off the days food consumption. How many true nutrients were contained in this day's 2000-calorie consumption? Not very many by my count. Contrast this with the following highly nutrient dense diet. Breakfast begins with a banana berry smoothie containing broccoli, kale and spinach and a handful of raw almonds. Mid morning snack includes an apple and water. Lunch is comprised of a large fresh salad, carrot, piece of fruit, and left over vegetable soup. Before dinner a kiwi is consumed followed by a dinner of salad, raw vegetable plate, sprouted grain bread, and vegetable minestrone. How do the nutrients per calorie compare with the first diet? Who do you think will likely suffer the ravages of disease?

If your goal is to live a long healthy life then the nutrient dense diet should be the foundation for your daily food consumption. Begin each day with the goal of eating as many nutrient dense foods as possible-spending your calories on foods with lasting value and benefit- and then simply do your best. Remember it is not about succeeding or failing with your daily diet but rather doing your best each day to promote health one bite at a time.