What are Whole Foods?Simply put, whole foods are unprocessed, unrefined foods.
|Photo by Angela Tague|
Fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts in the shell, unprocessed meats (think chicken breasts, not polish sausages), non-homogenized milk and raw eggs purchased from the farmer's market all qualify as whole foods.
Choosing to eat whole foods means avoiding preservatives, dyes, artificial sweeteners (including refined white sugar), fillers and extensive processing that robs foods of its nutritional value.
Look at the labels on the back of canned food, frozen foods or a package in the refrigerator. If you can't pronounce some of the ingredients, it's not a whole food.
Whole foods may--or may not be--organic.
If a plant or animal was grown with pesticides, antibiotics or other unnatural additives, the resulting food is not organic.
For further information, please visit:
United States Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Library:
Organic Production / Organic Food