We have been discussing things from more of a quantitative perspective so far in this article series. You now know HOW much you should eat, but we also have to discuss WHAT you should be eating. This “what” aspect, we will call the qualitative aspect (e.g. the diet quality aspect).
Just because you get the quantitative side of things dialled in doesn’t mean you have everything dialled in. We know that there are better and worse ways to set up a diet from a quantitative aspect (i.e. a diet can have better or worse calorie and/or macro targets), but it should be fairly intuitive (and I would say common knowledge) that there are better and worse ways to actually eat to hit those targets.
Eating a diet that is composed of lots of fruits, vegetables, complex carbohydrates and lean meats, is obviously different from a diet that is composed of refined carbohydrates (sweets/candy/sugar) and protein powder.
While we may be able to set both of these diets up in a way that they still have the same calories and macros, there is clearly a difference in how the body will respond to these diets.
This is obviously very hyperbolic, and nobody would generally suggest you eat sugar and protein powder as your diet, but it does illustrate the fact that we know that there are better and worse ways to set up a diet.
However, like most things, there is actually a continuum or spectrum with this. Just because there are better and worse ways to hit your calorie and macro targets, this doesn’t mean that we can never consume “junk food” as part of a good diet, and in reality, it is the broader diet that really matters, rather than any singular food (i.e. your diet isn’t “bad” just because you have one “worse” choice in there, as the broader, average diet quality dictates things rather than singular foods or nutrients, especially if they are consumed infrequently).
The diet quality does seem to matter, and there seems to be a synergistic effect when you get both the diet quantity and diet quality dialled in.
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Table of Contents
Understanding Diet Quality
To more fully understand diet quality, we have to discuss why the qualitative side of the diet is actually important. You hopefully understand why diet quantity is important, as we have already extensively covered this in previous articles in this series. But it is very easy to get excessively focused on calories and macros, and forget that how you actually hit those targets is important too.
There are a variety of reasons why diet quality is important, but the main ones of importance for us right now are:
- Micronutrient intake.
- Health.
- Satiety.
- Dietary adherence.
Micronutrient intake: Certain diet patterns increase the likelihood that you will actually be able to achieve your daily micronutrient (vitamin and mineral) requirements more than others. We want to make dietary choices that allow us to get the micronutrients we need, as micronutrient deficiency or inadequacy will hold us back from accomplishing our health, performance and body composition goals.
Health: Certain diet patterns are more closely correlated with better health outcomes, both in terms of lifespan (amount of years in your life) and health span (the quality of those years). While this is somewhat related to micronutrient intake, certain diet patterns are also associated with better health outcomes by virtue of what they don’t include too (such as high saturated fat). Certain diet patterns are associated with better health span, which isn’t easily measured (compared to lifespan which is easily measured by virtue of your age). While we may not know all there is to know about why certain diet patterns are associated with better health outcomes, we do know quite a lot about what these diets look like, and thus can make food choices that are more in line with the healthier diets.
Satiety: Certain diet patterns tend to leave you more or less satiated (satiety is the feeling of fullness, so a high-satiety diet is one that leaves you feeling fuller for longer). Higher satiety diets seem to be a key part of both facilitating weight loss, and then also maintaining that weight loss long-term. We don’t just want to optimise body composition in the short term, we want to maintain good body composition long term, as that is more closely correlated with better long-term health outcomes (especially with regards to the various “lifestyle” related health conditions like cardio-metabolic disease(s)).
Adherence: Certain diet patterns are associated with better dietary adherence (to both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the diet). While this is related to satiety to some degree, these don’t fully overlap. While feeling fuller for longer (higher satiety) generally improves adherence, sometimes diets on paper that are high satiety can lead to a lack of adherence. This may be due to individuals craving certain foods or feeling excessively restricted from eating certain foods.
So we want to make food choices, and create a diet pattern, that increases the likelihood of us getting all the micronutrients we need and that keeps us feeling adequately satiated, while also maintaining/increasing our dietary adherence.
A diet set-up like this will more than likely lead to better long-term results in health, body composition and performance.
The thing is, most people already know what good food selection looks like. So I am not going to labour the point and make a mockery of your intelligence and tell you that fruits and vegetables are better for you than “junk food”. You already know this.
While you may have some questions about certain foods, you would probably be able to identify “good” and “bad” food choices 99% of the time. So I am not going to spend much time or energy on ranking various foods in order of “goodness” or “badness”. Instead, I want you to think broader and understand what a better diet pattern looks like.
Generally Good Food Guidelines
There are multiple ways to actually set up a diet that would lead people to consider the diet quality to be quite high. There is often a lot of variation between the specifics of these diets, and most of the conversations about this stuff online get lost in arguments over whether or not a specific food or food grouping is higher or lower on the diet quality list.
Instead of contributing to that noise, I want to focus on diet quality from the perspective of the commonalities between diets that generally result in a high likelihood that you will get all the micronutrients you need, while feeling adequately satiated. Adherence is multi-factorial, but there are certain components of the diet that also increase the likelihood of high adherence.
With that in mind, the following guidelines generally result in a diet quality that is quite high, regardless of the exact specifics of the foods you choose.
The diet should be calorie appropriate.
Regardless of the individual, they are simply not going to reach their goals if their diet is not calorie appropriate.
This doesn’t mean everyone should be in a deficit, eating at maintenance or a surplus, or any generic calorie target. It means that the diet should have the right amount of calories for that individual’s goals.
Unfortunately, you see it all too often, where people are eating good food choices, but they are eating too little or too much for their goals. While their food selection may be good, their diet is not calorie appropriate for their goals.
Alternatively, you will see people who eat an appropriate amount of calories, but their food selection leaves a lot to be desired.
However, when used correctly, making sure the diet is calorie appropriate gives you a base from which to make better food choices. Better food choices also make eating a calorie-appropriate diet easier.
It is far harder to stick to a calorie deficit if you are always hungry, so choosing foods that are low calorie and high satiety will obviously make sticking to the calorie target easier.
Conversely, someone who struggles to eat enough food for their caloric demands (i.e. athletes and people with manual labour jobs) may actually be better served by choosing (some) foods that are more refined and less satiating.
So the calorie allotment will dictate food selection, and food selection will dictate whether you can adhere to that calorie allotment. They are both very intimately intertwined.
Focus on lean proteins.
Most healthy diet patterns put a large focus on choosing lean protein sources.
There is nothing inherently bad about fattier cuts of meat. However, it is much easier to craft a diet that is conscious of calories, the other macronutrients and overall health, if you select leaner cuts of meat.
It is very easy to overeat calories when selecting certain cuts of meat, especially if their fat content is quite high. So it is a good idea to select leaner cuts of meat.
However, the exact types of meat will still vary based on the individual’s goals and needs. If you are an individual that has low iron levels, you may need to choose more red meat. But you may be someone with an elevated risk for intestinal cancer, and you may need to select very low levels of red meat.
So the exact source may change, however, by keeping your focus on lean protein sources, you have much more ability to really dial the diet in to the individual’s needs.
The only real exception to this would be including fatty fish in the diet. This is because fatty fish usually contain higher levels of omega 3s, which can be hard to get in the diet elsewhere (other than supplementing with them).
Focus on fruits and vegetables.
One aspect of the diet that seems to be universally healthy across the globe is fruits and vegetables.
Regardless of the exact diet paradigm followed, the healthy diets all seem to have a high intake of fruits and vegetables. There are some exceptions, but this is usually due to a lack of fruits and vegetables in that environment.
So it makes sense to include more fruits and vegetables in the diet.
This is one of the easiest ways you can ensure you get the vitamins and minerals you need. You can micromanage this stuff on an individual micronutrient basis, or you can simply focus on getting enough fruits and vegetables in the diet.
In general, good food selection practices are to eat a variety of colours of fruits and vegetables, and try to get somewhere between 5-15 servings of fruit and/or vegetables per day (a typical serving is half a cup of cooked vegetables, one cup of raw leafy vegetables, or a medium-sized piece of fruit).
Getting a variety of colours and keeping intake high, will ensure that micronutrient needs along with fibre needs are looked after, but it will also ensure that a variety of phytochemicals and bioactive compounds are consumed.
Focus on slower-digesting carbohydrates.
Generally speaking, focusing on slower-digesting carbohydrate sources is better for most goals.
There are exceptions to this (such as post-workout or for individuals with high carbohydrate requirements), but in general, it is best to try and steer food selection towards slower digesting carbohydrate sources.
Whole grains and minimally processed carbohydrate sources seem to be best.
Focus on healthy fats.
Focusing on foods that contain healthy fats and foods that are higher in omega 3’s is generally a beneficial practice.
We generally want to focus on the mono and polyunsaturated fats, and have them make up the bulk of our fat intake.
Foods that are high in saturated fats should be de-emphasised in the diet and ideally, keeping saturated fat intake below ~10% of the diet is recommended.
Learning what foods are higher in saturated fat, and then trying to reduce their inclusion in the diet or swapping them out for monounsaturated fats or complex carbs generally is associated with better health.
Eat a diversity of foods throughout the day/week.
Most people eat the same foods day in and day out, and thus only expose themselves to a narrow range of nutrients. Focusing on consuming a diverse variety of foods both each day and throughout the week will ensure that nutrient deficiencies are less likely, and that the diet is actually contributing to both a better dietary nutrient profile and dietary enjoyment.
Eating the same foods every day is generally not all that enjoyable, and if you don’t create a diet that you can see yourself doing years into the future, then you are just creating a plan that leads to failure at some stage.
Eat a generally minimally processed diet.
It is generally a good idea to avoid processed foods. While in some cases it may make sense to include some processed foods, the basis of the diet should be minimally processed foods.
Some people like to call this the “JERF” principle, with JERF being an acronym for “Just Eat Real Food”.
Real food generally refers to foods that your grandparents and great-grandparents would recognise as food, and avoiding foods that bear very little resemblance to their “natural” form.
Eating this way generally leads to a better micronutrient intake and it also reduces the quantity of salt (sodium) consumed, both of which are generally good for health.
There are some issues with this though, as some people become obsessive about what foods are actually “real foods” and some people can actually make their diets objectively worse by being excessively focused on this.
So we generally advocate people follow an 80/20 or 90/10 approach to this. The vast majority of your diet (80-90%) should be minimally processed foods, and only a small portion of your diet should be processed foods (20-10%). This generally works for most people, but you will have individuals that respond better to more or less processed foods, so we do still have to consider the individual in this conversation. However, in general, the focus should be on eating a minimally processed diet where possible.
Final Thoughts on Understanding Diet Quality
Eating with these general food guidelines generally leads to a higher diet quality. While there are barriers to eating this way at times, and for some people/populations, if you can follow these guidelines (or at least most of these guidelines) then we would expect to see a positive return on investment in terms of health, body composition and performance.
While a variety of diet patterns can be healthy, the vast majority of healthy diets will follow most if not all of these guidelines. Of course, there are many other things we could potentially include in these diet quality guidelines, but I really did just want to introduce the concept of diet quality with this article.
If you can follow these guidelines with your diet the majority of the time, you should be in a good place with things. The guidelines also allow you to evaluate various diets that you will see promoted (marketed) online.
If a diet follows the vast majority of these guidelines, then it is more likely to be a healthy diet. However, if the diet that is being promoted doesn’t follow these guidelines, or actively suggests these guidelines are wrong, then you have to question the rationale behind that diet and its healthfulness.
This doesn’t mean that healthy diets must follow all of these guidelines, but if someone is trying to convince you that a certain diet is healthier than all other diets, and it seems to run counter to the generally consistent components of various healthy diets from around the world, you should expect overwhelming evidence from the person making that claim.
In the next article in this series, I will expand on all of this and we can begin to flesh out what a higher quality diet would likely look like, at least in terms of food selection. I know it can be very difficult to actually translate all of these more abstract guidelines into what you should actually eat. But this will be covered in the next few articles!
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Paddy Farrell
Hey, I'm Paddy!
I am a coach who loves to help people master their health and fitness. I am a personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach, and I have a degree in Biochemistry and Biomolecular Science. I have been coaching people for over 10 years now.
When I grew up, you couldn't find great health and fitness information, and you still can't really. So my content aims to solve that!
I enjoy training in the gym, doing martial arts and hiking in the mountains (around Europe, mainly). I am also an avid reader of history, politics and science. When I am not in the mountains, exercising or reading, you will likely find me in a museum.