 "Photo: Hannah Schaefer / UCD Advocate")
Many of us in our day-to-day lives attempt to choose the healthier option when faced with difficult dieting decisions. Choices such as “Bag of chips or apple?” seem fairly obvious.
However, when breaking down into healthy vs. healthy who’s to say what’s what?
Thankfully, your local Whole Foods Market has the answers, with its new program, Health Starts Here.
According to Dani Little, a Whole Foods nutritionist, the program is intended to “promote the health of [Whole Foods’] stakeholders and team members through healthy eating education.”
The new program is based on three basic principles for healthy eating choices. Choose plant-based, nutrient-dense, and whole foods—foods that are as unprocessed and unrefined as possible—as you plan your meals.
One of the other major factors that makes this program so effective, according to Little, is their healthy eating partners policy. Customers may choose one of two 28-day programs that best fit their personal choices.
“Eat Right America is one of the programs. Written by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, this program focuses more on micronutrients and how to avoid excessive empty calories,” Little said.
Eat Right America has a system they call ANDI scores which you will see posted around the store. ANDI scores stands for Aggregate Nutrient Density Index, which monitors the count of micronutrients per calorie of food. The higher the ANDI score, the better it is for you, according to Little.
Eat Right America, Little said, involves a website that customers can join where they will answer simple yes or no questions, discuss what they like to eat, identify family health, and measure themselves, so that they get a plan suited best for them to get in shape and be less likely to contract many diseases.
Customers also have the choice of The Engine 2 Diet by Rip Esselstyn, which is an easily read and understood book, according to Little, to help readers lose weight and lower cholesterol levels.
“What I love about this book is that you don’t have to jump in, full-fledged, right away,” said Little. She explained that you can dive right into the diet or let a four-week plan slowly wean you off unhealthy foods.
“I am really excited about this program,” Little said, but she isn’t the only one. When the plan was explained to student Ashley Dunkle, a UC Denver freshman who frequents Whole Foods, she was intrigued.
“I think it will heighten my nutritional understanding,” Dunkle said.
Tess Olson, a UCD sophomore majoring in education, has her reservations, however.
“It sounds like a great program if you have the time to learn the system and the money to allot for it,” she said.
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