In other words, what 5 fruits and/or vegetables eaten in a day or put into a smoothie provide the most, or greatest variety of, nutrients and minerals?
What I use every day (casual athlete for 20+ years) and learned from tons of podcasts:
smoothie: spinach (or kale but max 2 times a week), banana, avocado, blue/blackberries + yogurt
salad: spinach/kale(see above), lionsmane mushroom, avocado, green peas and broccoli
Edit: LPT never ever ever put broccoli in smoothies
So Dr. Fuhrman, far from perfect and subject to lots of criticism, came up with the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index (ANDI) and nutritarian diet. I’m not all the way on board with a lot of what he says but he has a mnemonic I feel is useful for this proposed smoothie:
GBOMBS stands for Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, and Seeds.
These tend to be the foods with the strongest inverse correlation with cancer. For a smoothie obviously kick out onions first, then greens can be a variety, spinach, spring greens and chard are relatively inoffensive flavours. Peas count as a bean, also wouldn’t kill the flavour. Mushrooms… err… Maybe let’s go for an apple there (covers the quercetin lost from the onion omission). Blueberries are the daddy but any berry is healthy. Lastly seeds I’d go for flax or chia as a vegan for omega-3s. But most people could do with some more ALA regardless.
I’d say mostly cruciferous vegetables (kale, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts) they alone tend to be the most “nutritious” of any fruit or vegetable and contain a good amount of vitamins and minerals (plus decent source of fiber and protein). But other vegetables such as carrots, bell peppers, spinach provide a pretty good range as well. For fruit I would stick to berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries) as they tend to be lower in sugar as well.
Cruciferous vegetables (kale, broccoli), berries (blueberries), pulses (beans, lentils), sweet potatoes, flaxseed.
Perhaps black beans with sweet potatoes washed down with a kale, blueberry and flaxseed smoothie.
The most nutrient dense foods from land are sprouts.. There have been many excellent suggestions but they’ve missed the sprouts. When a seed germinates it’s at it’s nutritional peak generally about 3-5 days from when it bursts, depending upon which seed. The energy required to bring the seed to life is the time in it’s life cycle when it’s at it’s energy peak. So consuming it at that moment in time will yield the most nutrient density. Having said that, we need to rotate our foods as all different foods have different vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, etc.,that humans need for optimal health. Even eating the same vegetable from two different farms could provide different minerals depending upon the quality of the soil. Plants draw their nutrition from the soil they grow in. The best advice would be definitely add lots of sprouts, broccoli, which many said to never add, can be added as broccoli sprouts which are MUCH more palatable and arguably the best sprout for it’s anti-cancer prevention perspective due to it’s sulfurophane content. Sunflower sprouts are high in plant protein, pea shhots give a nice earthy flavour etc. Rotate a bunch of sprouts everyday and try not to eat the same foods for 3 days. Rotate the colours of your food as every different colour provides different phytonutrients. Add fruits in season for peak nutrition, failing that, as I’m also in Canada, frozen fruits and vegetables are frozen at their peak immediately after harvest, so they could actually be more nutrient dense than waiting for a fruit or vegetable to arrive from a different country that’s been picked too esrly and ripens along the way. Often with chemical residue to control it’s ripening. If you can buy organic. The most nutrient dense foods from the sea are sea vegetables, someone suggested moss which is an excellent suggestion. Other things like spirulina, chlorella, marine phytoplankton, phycocyanin. And functional mushrooms in the form of dried powders were also an excellent suggestion. Mushrooms are one of the healthiest functional foods, excellent options are reishi, cordyceps, chaga, lions mane, maitake. I would look up each to see what you might feel is best for you. Smoothies can hide a lot of functional foods and powders that can boost your nutrition so have fun. And be adventurous. Try green banana flour for resistant startch and baobab powder for fibre. Camu camu, orange peel, a little mucuna puriens, and on and on. Happy smoothing!!! P.S And look up growing sprouts on your kitchen counter, especially broccoli. Super easy, cheap and will yield peak nutrition.
Keep it simple: Buy Farm to Table and test in your kitchen. Intact nutrition per food item is kept when minimally processed.
Also, I don’t know who needs to hear this (exactly what the sentence entails) Broccoli and Onions DO NOT belong in a smoothie. (what’s wrong with you? 🤣)
I would make a salad, first I would make the dressing: mayonnaise with a dash of pomegranate juice, olive oil (or any other organic, unadulterated oil) and then mix and add another spoon of mayonnaise, and then put spinach and mushroom over it and add other fruits and vegetables you like… and I would add some tuna or beef to make it taste great. This would be the best nutrition-giver.. << lol
I get frozen organic fruits & veggies & put in blender usually kale,blueberries, strawberries,raspberries, mangoes, pineapple, carrots, & I’ll buy an orange or use oj..I use different fruits together but always put kale in
Variety gives broadest nutrition.
But… soybean, kale, chia, sweet potato, and oat. 100g of each exceeds the U.S. recommended daily allowance for vitamins A, C, K, B1, B2, B7 and B9 and minerals calcium, phosphorous, copper, magnesium, iron, zinc, manganese and selenium. 200g of each also exceeds the RDA for vitamins B3, B5 and B6 as well as potassium. That leaves vitamins D, E and B12 and chloride, sodium, iodine, and possibly chromium, molybdenum, cobalt and fluoride.
We don’t consider mushrooms plants. If we expanded the definition to include all non-animal foods, I would recommend spirulina.