Acai Berry | Acai Fruit | Acai Antioxidants | News

Eating whole foods is an important part of getting the nutrition you need to be healthy. Whole foods are foods that preserve the same shape, freshness and nutritive qualities that they have while they are growing on trees, vines, in the soil or on bushes.

When foods are processed, chopped, crushed or otherwise altered, they begin to lose some of their nutrients. The longer it takes to get those processed foods to you, the more nutrients they lose. Also, high heat and excessive cooking also removes nutrients from foods.

There are some ways to preserve some of the nutritive value, however. Freezing foods immediately once they have been harvested retains most of their nutrients. Refraining from overcooking the food also retains nutrients.

Here are some tips to get the whole food nutrition you need:

• Choose fruits and vegetables that are ripe and fresh
• Don’t overcook food; instead, steam it carefully
• Frozen foods have nutritive value as long as it was frozen right after it was harvested (and frozen as close to whole food form as possible)
• Frozen foods lose value once they get “freezer-burn”
• Whole grains are also essential to a whole food diet
• Whole grains are those that have not undergone extensive processing. While eating whole grain bread and pasta is OK, also remember to choose whole grain rice, couscous and millet that hasn’t been processed.