Whole foods + Sunshine = Healthy

When I was in Europe, my friends saw vitamin supplementation as an "American" thing. My friend Andrea was a firm believer that you could get all the nutrients you needed from a whole foods diet.

I think that the latest post by the Healthy Skeptic really takes a good hard look at the idea that whole foods maybe matter more than vitamin supplementation. I was relieved to see that I am taking merely the ones he recommends.

Then there is the recent post on the Fanatic Cook's blog that Melissa mentioned on Hunt.Gather.Love today.

I have often wondered what to eat to get some of the nutrients I need. (Especially when I really can't convince my husband to eat fish...) Real Simple has a primarily lightweight series of articles on what to eat to get what nutrients. It is an interesting site. Not heavy on research, but lots of common sense, and good pictures...

Along the same lines is Kitchen Daily which supports a "healthy" diet (code for whole grain, lean meat, lots of veggies diet). Fortunately they emphasize whole foods, and do have some very good recipes--I just avoid ingredients I don't eat like soy...

Here is another site that lists foods you can eat to get your vitamins.

The one thing that I notice is that very few of these sites list ratios--such as how much vitamin A is in say, an apricot--so in general, if you are trying to determine how much of a vitamin rich food you need to get your levels up, it can be really difficult. And most of the information I can find is based on the RDA, which is often outdated as is recognized by statement like this one about vitamin D.

One site I discovered recently which I think is an excellent whole foods support site is The World's Healthiest Foods. (This site has strong ties to Bastyr University which is about a ten minute drive from where I live and is the largest university for natural health arts and sciences in the U.S.)

The site has lots of good information and recipes. The founder, George Mateljan, studied food and cooking for a large part of his life, and while the site is not Paleo or Primal, it is a good resource regarding whole organic foods and nutrition.

I still have not found the ideal resource for nutrient in foods, and will continue to look. Do you have any website resources that would be valuable to share? I always look forward to exploring new sites and absorbing new information...