Healthier Eating Challenge: How to add more nutrients to your diet

This is the fifth day of the 5-day well eating challenge. To start over, click here.

This week we thought a lot about our eating habits: we tested our knowledge about ultra-processed foods, explored them with our senses, prepared tasty snacks and went grocery shopping.

Before this challenge, I would throw food into my cart without thinking. Now I’m a dedicated label reader and I consider how food has been processed before I buy it.

I still eat ultra-processed foods. And that’s okay. But Dietary Guidelines for Americans states that 85 percent of our diet should be so-called “nutrient-rich”. This includes foods that are high in nutrients and have little added sugar, saturated fat, or sodium. A diet well-off in nutrient-dense foods can certainly contain UPF, but experts recommend focusing on whole foods such as vegetables and fruits, legumes, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, seafood, lean meats and poultry.

You may not be able to get to 85 percent right away (or ever), but you can consider today’s challenge a good first step.

Well Challenge Day 5: Add produce to your plate

Today let’s try something you can do all year round. If you regularly eat ultra-processed foods at meals – such as a packaged fruit bar for breakfast or a frozen meal for dinner – continue doing so, but add one fruit or vegetable to your plate. It could be an apple for breakfast or broccoli for dinner.

“Then don’t look at it as, ‘What do I need to get rid of?’” said Linda V. Van Horn, chair of nutrition at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Eating meals that are well-formulated and balanced in nutrients such as protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals is more crucial than eliminating UPF, said Kevin Hall, a nutrition and metabolism researcher at the National Institutes of Health. “The most crucial thing is the overall profile of what’s on your plate, not individual dishes,” he said.

“Not all ultra-processed foods are bad for you,” Dr. Hall added, and not all unprocessed foods are clearly good for you. “Just because grandma made it doesn’t mean it’s well.”

So keep the chicken tenders, says Dr. Hall, but pair them with some vegetables. Over time, he added, incorporating edibles into meals can improve health.

Eat a fruit or vegetable in one meal a day for a week. Next week, see if you can add a fruit or vegetable to two of your daily meals, advises Dr. Van Horn.

These behavioral changes, Dr. Van Horn says, may prompt people to continue the diet because they may start to feel better or realize they like the flavors of fresh produce.

Here are some other things I plan to do to keep the momentum going this year:

I plan to continue eating flavored yogurts, but I will cut down on soda and processed meats. These latter two items have been more clearly linked to health risks than other UPFs. This was discovered by Josiemer Mattei, an associate professor of nutrition at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in her research examining the links between ultra-processed foods and heart health. “And this is what literature constantly shows,” she said.

I will learn more about the food I buy. When entering this challenge, I used an easy-to-use database called Real foodthat will lend a hand you choose less processed options from over 50,000 foods.

TrueFood analyzes nutritional facts and ingredient lists provided by the manufacturer and suggests alternatives that are rated as less processed.

And since affordability is a factor in food choices, here’s a guide eat well on a budget from Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

I wish you a well 2025.