May I ask you a simple question? Why, in today's information crammed society, is nutrition increasingly difficult, inconsistent, and downright confusing? From the 3 recommended food groups, in the food pyramid, in the ANDI score, determining what to eat seems merely to be getting more challenging.

Around my lifetime, I've come across the government completely change it's dietary advice system on 3 separate occasions. When I walk-through the bookstore, I deliberately examine the diet and nutrition section in order to find out how many are there, and yes it never stops to amaze me the thousands of books about the subject.

It's no surprise that Americans and Europeans are getting to be progressively more obese, while rural Chinese people who consume a diet high in carbohydrates and fat manage to live longer, much healthier lives.

What exactly is the ANDI Score

ANDI, or Aggregate Nutrient Density Index is a score assigned to raw, whole-foods. This system measures the amount and array of nutrients within a food, and then ranks that food as a quotient of nutrients divided by calories. The photo to the right summarizes the foodstuff in the scale fairly nicely.

ANDI Score Dangers #1 - A Calorie is NOT a Calorie

The primary flaw with the good Dr.'s system is that it is based on the number of calories in a food. This method is critically incorrect, because, like I said previously, a calorie isn't a calorie. For example, are collard greens really far healthier than raw, wild salmon? What if you have got arthritis, or high-cholesterol?

The example above highlights the issue, which happens to be that green veggies, while remarkably healthy, will not contain much protein, although they are amino rich. To acquire an equal amount of protein like a 4 ounce serving of salmon (23 grams) , you'd need to eat almost 3 lbs of collard greens.

Healthy fats expose another weakness within the system. As a point in fact, we all know that Omega 3's are amazingly helpful for our healthy, specially in situations of inflammatory diseases. 1 gram of fat contains 9 calories, and that is equal to about 30 grams of raw collard greens. However, Salmon only ranks 39 / 1000 on the ANDI score, while collards are scored at 1000.

The main point here is the fact that the ANDI score, is a micronutrient based score, this means it takes into account particular things like vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients, but doesn't consider macronurients, IE protein, fat, carbohydrate. According to Dr. Furman,

"The more macronutrients we eat, the shorter our life-span. The more micronutrients you consume, the longer your life span."
I'm fairly certain the Omega-3 example I gave above totally disproves that premise, but here's another: walnuts. Walnuts are loaded with healthy omega 3's, along with cholesterol lowering sterols, complete proteins, and b vitamins. Yet, they're just ranked only slightly ahead of white potatoes?

The Most Significant Danger of the ANDI Score:

All the top foods on the list are wonderful providers of nutrition, so you may be wondering why I've written a counter-opinion to the system. Ultimately, I do think Dr. Furman has identified the indisputable fact that we're fatter and less healthy than previous generations, and attempted to think of a system which is focused on healthy weight loss and improved health through utilization of more nutritious foods. That part of the system I truly do appreciate.

However, the main problem is the solution to the issue engages consumers within an act of disinformation. It ultimately teaches people imbalanced, uninformed, and lazy food selection habits. By supplying people an index of foods that are low-calorie / nutrient dense, and referring to them "the most nutritious," you take away the push to figure out precisely what is being put into your body.

Within the highest level, nutrition must be easy. For instance, take in the widest selection of multicolored vegetables and fruits, wild organic caught sea fish, lean cuts of range fed beef and poultry, and various nuts, seeds, and legumes. If people could follow that advice, a nutrient scale wouldn't be necessary!