Monday Nutrition Tip of the Week: The Single Ingredient Challenge

One of the most sage pieces of nutrition advice I ever read was "Count Ingredients, Not Calories." The idea behind that statement is that the fewer ingredients a food contains, the healthier it is, and in turn, the healthier you will be.

Last night I wondered if I could go a whole day eating items that only had one ingredient: spinach, apple, banana, tomato, etc. Then I thought I should throw that challenge out to you, too.

Can you go one whole day eating only "whole" foods?

I should clarify a few things: first, you can mix foods. For example, a salad can contain spinach, eggs, chicken, carrots, tomatoes, green peppers, even an olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing...anything that "is what it is." All of those things have no additives, no preservatives, no triple-gluco-dynacellulose-gooseberrylicious-hydrocephalyde-with-a-twist.

What you can't have are most things that come in a box (with a few exceptions; oatmeal comes in a container, but the ingredients are only oats).

Here are a few options if you're considering this challenge:

Breakfast
Eggs
Oatmeal - add raisins, bananas, almonds

Snacks
Any fruit or raw vegetables

Lunch
Salad

Dinner
Grilled chicken
Sweet potatoes
Zucchini

You might think that you'd have to avoid bread completely, but I'd argue that you can have bread...if you make it yourself. If you were to mix all the "single ingredients" such as flour and milk together and they came out to be bread, you'd still be golden!

I guess the main point of this challenge is to embrace foods that don't have to be released from a vacuum sealed bag in order to enjoy them. Does the food even have an ingredient list? Then it probably won't be approved in this challenge.

Could you do this? What would you miss? I know I would miss my Kashi GoLean Crunch and Cheerios cereal that I snack on throughout the day.

So what do you think? Pick a day over the next week or so and make it a "Single Ingredient" day.

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Remember a couple weeks ago when I put on my 17-year-old prom dress to see if it still fit?

Beachbody is running a contest called "Shakeology Snap Your Success and Win," and I entered my side-by-side prom photos for a chance to win a free bag of Shakeology and a Beachbody exercise program of my choice. 

Will you help me win? Voting takes place on Facebook, and you can view my entry here:

http://apps.facebook.com/contestshq/contests/103232/voteable_entries?ogn=facebook&page=2

My picture is on the second to last row, last on the line. You can vote once per day until the contest ends on Thursday. (Edited to add: OK, I'm not on the second page anymore, I'm on the first. Just look for the gal in the same black dress side by side...there are only 2.5 pages of entries.)

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Workout of the Day

RevAbs: Fire Up Your Abs