High watermark nutrition is when you’re feeling good about what you’re eating and that nutrition is helping you look and feel your best.

How do you make food choices? Health? Flavor? Habit? Convenience? Cost? Sustainability? Social influence? Emotions? Religious or cultural beliefs? Personal values? All reasons are valid. Nutrition can be a loaded subject.

To nix complicated we’ve distilled things down to some common ground, the foundations of what we feel constitute high watermark nutrition, and let you take care of the nuances.

We believe that high watermark nutrition includes a diet that is:

Built on a foundation of whole foods. Whole foods retain more nutrients, contain more fiber than their refined counterparts, and with nothing else added, put you in control of the sodium, sugar, trans fats and preservatives you’re consuming.

Built around the plants. We call this “plant-centric”. Whether your diet is all plants, or mostly plants, let them dominate the plate.

Colorful. The colorful pigments in plants are antioxidants, protecting the plants from UV sunlight. In people, they’re associated with a range of health benefits – the wider the range of color in the diet, the wider the range of health benefits. And let’s not forget, a colorful plate is just plain beautiful.

 Flavorful. Healthy doesn’t need to be bland! Let’s face it, we need to enjoy the foods we eat. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) speaks to the 5 flavors – sweet, salty, bitter, sour and spicy. Ayurvedic medicine adds ‘astringent’ to the list. A well-curated collection of quality herbs and spices can move meals from old to bold.

Tuned into the seasons. When you eat foods in season, this defaults to eating more locally grown produce while at its peak of freshness and flavor, and when inclined, preserving, freezing, dehydrating seasonal fresh produce for future use.

Minimizes food waste. Having an efficient system for meal planning, grocery shopping, food storage, food prep and cooking helps to minimize waste. Also, knowing the shelf life of foods in the pantry, freezer and refrigerator helps keep ahead of food spoilage.

In proportion to needs. Even in the context of a plant-centric, whole foods diet, there can be too much of a good thing! Waiting to eat until you’re hungry, practicing some variation of intermittent fasting or simply choosing portions with intention, all count toward high watermark nutrition!

The nuances of high watermark nutrition will be individual.  It’s not our place to tell you what to eat, rather to help you develop systems that make healthy eating less complicated, more consistent and exceedingly pleasant.

Bon appétit!