Test Your Nutrient IQ

How smart are you when it comes to making nutrient dense food choices?

Nutrient IQ is a scoring system that allows you to rate your diet by adding up points for the day. Foods are assigned points based on their nutrient content and contribution to good health. You can adjust the points based on the size of the serving you eat.  As you might expect, the foods that have a high Nutrient IQ score are straight from nature—primarily vegetables, fruit and legumes, while refined, processed foods provide few or no points. Even though attention should be placed on nutrient-rich foods, it is also important to achieve micronutrient diversity and to eat an adequate assortment of lower-ranked plant foods in order to obtain the full range of human dietary requirements. Try to include some Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries and Seeds in your diet every day. Think G-BOMBS!

Nutrient IQ encourages you to make better food choices and allows you to see how your diet varies from day to day. It demonstrates the nutritional value of colorful plants compared with that of animal products, oils, and processed foods. In case you haven’t guessed, selecting a variety of vegetables, fruit and beans will provide the highest daily scores. 

Use these target scores to see how your diet measures up:

Improving your daily score is about making better, more nutrient-dense food choices, not eating more food.

To move up from Smart to Brilliant to Genius, you need to increase your servings of green leafy vegetables and cruciferous vegetables and make sure your daily menus include a well-rounded assortment of other high-nutrient IQ vegetables as well as beans, fruit, berries and seeds.

The serving sizes listed in the widget above are convenient measurements; they are not necessarily recommended serving amounts. Adjust your scores based on the amount of the food that you eat. For example, the table lists 90 points for 1 cup of broccoli, so if you have 2 cups, give yourself 180 points. If a medium tomato is worth 60 points, then give yourself 30 points for eating half. If a vegetable, fruit, bean or whole grain food you are looking for is not listed in the table, assign it a value based on a similar food item. Assume that most processed, refined foods and anything made with refined white flour and white sugar provide zero points.

Please note that you do NOT have to score foods and keep track of points to eat a Nutritarian diet and be healthy. You do not have to keep track of your calories. This is a motivational tool to help you to learn how to eat more healthfully. You only have to understand how to lay out a healthful and nutritionally balanced menu, and then stick to it.

Achieving superior health is well within your reach and it can be delicious!

My great-tasting recipes are among the most nutrient-rich in the world and I have assigned Nutrient IQ points to some of them so you can see how much they contribute to your daily scores. Enjoy a well-rounded selection of smoothies, breakfast items, soups, salads, dressings, main dishes and desserts and be confident that they are providing you with the highest amount of vitamins, minerals and other phytonutrients.

The points are based on convenient kitchen measures. They are not necessarily recommended serving amounts; Adjust them based the size of your serving.

When you make the right choices, you can live better and be healthier.