Tired of eating the same boring veggies every week? Let's talk about nutrient diversity—the health hack nobody's buzzing about but should be! It's not about being perfect or following strict rules; it's about bringing more color, flavor, and fun to your plate while feeling amazing.

In this episode of Salad With a Side of Fries, host Jenn Trepeck explores why micronutrients matter just as much as macronutrients. Learn how eating a variety of colored vegetables, embracing seasonal eating, and experimenting with different vitamins and minerals can improve gut health, support immune function, and enhance healthy aging. Hear practical strategies for adding dietary variety without complicating your routine, plus why the holidays offer a perfect opportunity for nutrient-rich foods.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

✅ Why nutrient diversity and micronutrients are just as important as tracking your macros, and how eating a limited variety of foods puts your body into survival mode, affecting everything from energy levels to bone health and metabolic function.

✅ The power of eating the rainbow—how different food colors indicate specific vitamins and minerals like iron, folate, beta-carotene, and antioxidants, and why incorporating plant-based foods with various phytochemicals supports immune support, digestive health, and reduces chronic disease risk.

✅ Practical strategies to increase dietary variety without overwhelm, including shopping at farmers' markets, using frozen organic vegetables, cooking with global spices, and creating rainbow meals that make seasonal eating easy and affordable.

✅ How the holiday season offers a hidden opportunity for nutrient diversity through festive foods you don't normally eat, and why developing a sense of culinary adventure helps improve gut microbiome diversity and overall wellness.

The Salad With a Side of Fries podcast, hosted by Jenn Trepeck, explores real-life wellness and weight-loss topics, debunking myths, misinformation, and flawed science surrounding nutrition and the food industry. Let’s dive into wellness and weight loss for real life, including drinking, eating out, and skipping the grocery store.

TIMESTAMPS:  

00:00 Introduction to nutrient diversity as the overlooked health tool and how micronutrient variety impacts satiety, energy levels, and overall wellness during the holiday season

06:59 Understanding micronutrients versus macronutrients and why vitamins and minerals deserve more attention in wellness conversations than just tracking macros

08:48 The World Health Organization recommendations for daily fruit and vegetable intake

10:12 Why we're not getting nutrient diversity: the food industry focuses on taste over nutrition, lack of crop rotation, and produce picked before ripening loses connection to soil nutrients

14:42 Three crops (rice, wheat, maize) provide over half of the world's plant-based calories, yet lack the phytochemicals and bioactive compounds needed for optimal health

16:46 Research linking dietary variety to reduced type 2 diabetes risk, lower metabolic syndrome, improved cognitive function, and better gut microbiome diversity

18:26 Eating the rainbow: how different food colors signal specific nutrients—green for iron and folate, orange for beta-carotene, red and purple for antioxidants

22:39 Cravings and listening to our bodies

33:17 Practical tips for becoming a "varietarian," including organic options, seasonal eating, using global spices, and shopping at farmers' markets for inspiration

38:35 Using frozen organic vegetables for affordability and convenience while maintaining nutrient-rich variety throughout the week without food waste

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

💎 Nutrient diversity through micronutrients is critical for preventing chronic diseases—studies show eating 30+ different plant foods weekly creates a favorable gut microbiome compared to eating 10 or fewer, impacting everything from cognitive function to metabolic health.

💎 Different food colors represent distinct vitamins and minerals: green vegetables provide iron and magnesium, orange foods offer beta-carotene for immune support, red and purple contain antioxidants for blood flow, and white foods like mushrooms support bone health and circulatory system function.

💎 Limited dietary variety triggers sensory-specific satiety, causing you to eat larger volumes to compensate for missing nutrients, while also creating metabolic adaptation where your body enters survival mode rather than thriving with optimal energy levels.

💎 Simple strategies make nutrient-rich eating accessible: shop farmers' markets for seasonal produce, use frozen organic vegetables for affordability, cook foods in different ways (roasted, steamed, in soups), experiment with global spices, and challenge yourself to create rainbow meals with multiple food colors.

RESOURCES: 

Become a Happy Healthy Hub Member

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A Salad With a Side of Fries

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About Uncomplicating Wellness

Text ‘Book’ to 833-801-0500

Code TREPECK for 10% OFF

Text ‘kGoal’ to 833010500

Nutrition Nugget: Antioxidants

Ep. 321 Metabolic Adaptation and Restoration

Nutrition Nugget: Varietarian  

Nutrition Nugget: Work The Globe

QUOTES: 

09:02 "I don't know why people aren't talking about the micros. We need a variety of vitamins and minerals." - Jenn Trepeck

15:06 "When people continue to eat less and less variety, when we're only getting a handful of nutrients or always getting the same nutrients, the human body is less resilient to illness or disease, and it puts the body in a state of stress." - Jenn Trepeck

19:43 "If we can think of how many different colors we put on our plate? When I work with the kids and families, I ask how many colors can we get on the plate at a time?" - Jenn Trepeck

41:21 "Nutrient diversity, the variety of micronutrients is going to show up in your life in other ways. It's going to show up in that satiety, in energy, and it will show up in the little things, feeling satisfied, enjoying the food." - Jenn Trepeck

41:52 "Maybe this is the dark horse of the holidays that you're eating, things you don't otherwise typically have. It's inherently variety. Maybe it's an overlooked gift of this season." - Jenn Trepeck

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