Optimum U Health & Wellness Food Logging & Tracking

Our food quality tracking feature helps you stay on course with eating clean and healthy.  It does this by giving you a clear visual of how much fiber, sodium, saturated fats, and sugar you consume.  We want to be getting more fiber and less of the other stuff.  If you eat more fiber and less of the other ingredients, you will most likely eat healthier with more fruits and vegetables.

Clean eating has been a trend for a while now.  What is clean eating? Clean eating is more of a dietary approach than a specific diet.

The foundation of clean eating is choosing whole foods and foods in their less processed states—choosing from vegetables, fruits, whole grains, pulses (beans, lentils, and peas), dairy, nuts, seeds, and high-quality animal and plant proteins. When possible, food choices should be organic. When choosing packaged foods with a label, foods with shorter ingredient lists are preferred, and added sugars are limited.

You have tremendous latitude in what goes into your daily diet—and the choices you make can have profound consequences for your health. But what diet should you choose? The range is truly dizzying. 

This new feature is here to help guide you along the path and make sure you stay on target no matter the "diet" you choose.

Some clean eating versions offer a genuine way to eat a nutritious diet based on fruits, vegetables, beans, and whole grains, with healthy fats and either plant- or animal-based protein food for balance—while reducing sugar and ultra-processed foods.

Other interpretations of clean eating can lead to a rigid diet that bans entire foods or food groups like grains—especially gluten-containing grains— soy, legumes, and dairy. These extremes are not supported by research, and you can develop nutrient deficiencies if your food choices are too limited. In some cases, clean eating, especially in its more rigid forms, can become less of a diet than identity and lead to disordered eating.

There's a real benefit in eating more whole and minimally processed foods, but not in fear-ing others that are nutritious.

Use our Food Quality Tracking feature to help guide you through all the names, labels, and confusion to get to a better U.