Nutrient dense foods: the secret to faster eczema recovery

What is the difference between white bread and multigrain bread? You know the latter is healthier broadly speaking, but the concept is called nutrient density. 

Want to speed up your eczema recovery for months? You MUST eat nutrient dense foods (and drinks). 

Read this article to OPTIMIZE your food choices each day. 

Don’t let a day go to waste knowing you could’ve done better!

First, how much are we expected to eat each day?

Humans have an energy intake guideline each day, depending on age, sex, body weight:

The WHO version for adults aged 19-50 (source):

• Men (76 kg): 2,900 kcal/day
• Women (61kg): 2,200 kcal/day

Asian Hong Kong version for adults aged 18-49 (source):

• Men (63kg): 2,400 kcal/day
• Women (56kg): 2,000 kcal/day

Click here for child and elderly reference values.

These figures assume an ‘average person’ with light to moderate physical activity. The numbers can vary, e.g., if you frequently exercise you require more energy, if you are very stressed and have little appetite you require less energy, etc. 

Now, you know how many calories you can eat… nutrient density is about making the best of what you eat each day. 

Without eating more than you have to, or less than you have to. Getting the same amount of energy, but with additional benefits in nutrients.

What EXACTLY is nutrient density?

Nutrient density is nutrition per gram of food.

Two examples:

• Fiber: 100g white rice (0.4g fiber) vs. 100g of quinoa (5g fiber). Each day we need up to 38g fiber. If you rely on white rice alone for fiber, it’s not a good idea. But if you consume a good amount of quinoa in addition to a nice plant-based diet in fruits and vegetables, then you’re much closer to hitting fiber requirements.
• Vitamin C: 100g apple (4.6mg vitamin C) vs. 100g strawberries (58.8mg). Each day we need up to 90mg. You could eat 10-15 apples to get your daily vitamin C intake, or simply 2-3 bowls of strawberries.

Without eating more or less, but simply by changing what you eat, you get the ‘best bang for your buck’, or, ‘the best nutrition for your calorie’. 

Eating nutrient dense foods enable you to reach your recommended daily intake with tremendously less effort. 

How is nutrient density related to eczema?

Glad you asked.

For eczema patients there’s a lifelong question to optimize our diet. Be it through food itself or supplementation. 

But how confident are you to say you are hitting all the necessary daily nutrient targets?

That’s a question even nutritionists themselves struggle to guarantee!

Adhering to dietary guidelines for all nutrients empower the body to heal and repair, to restore leaky gut, to facilitate wound healing during deep sleep.

Your goal as an eczema patient: optimize nutrition per gram to maximize adherence to recommended dietary allowances of all nutrition. 

(This is in addition to avoiding food allergens, sensitivities, and so on.)

There is actually a table showing specific quantitative targets of what you need in vitamin A, B, C, D, E and so on. But you don’t need to know them. All you need to do is follow the Harvard Healthy Eating Plate Method and you’re set.

Let’s get into some daily examples.

Common source of empty calories (NOT nutrient dense foods)

• Refined carbs: white bread, rice noodles, refined wheat-based noodles, pizza crust.
• High-carb desserts: cakes, cookies, biscuits, donuts, muffins, granola bars, and more
• Sugary drinks: soda, energy drinks, fruit juice (especially with pulp removed). Artificially sweetened beverages with zero sugar are also bad for eczema.  Sports drinks, cordials, condensed milk/syrup/cream or foam.
• Confectionary: Candy bars, chocolate bars, and hard candies
• Processed meats: Bacon, sausages, and hotdogs
• Fats with food additives: butter, shortening, and ice-cream
• Processed oils: soybean and canola oil
• Condiments: ketchup and barbecue sauce. If you must have sauce in your food, check the ingredient list and get brands that have artificial flavors
• Fast food: burgers, wraps, pizza, and more
• Alcohol: alcohol generally speaking are high in calories but low in nutrition. But if you must have a drink for social purposes, check out this post for eczema-friendly alcohol recommendations!

Tips of eat more nutrient dense in each food category 

Image Source

Grains

• Sweet potato mash over white potato mash
• Reduce carbs like rice or pasta (don’t eat the crust)
• Replace refined carbs with protein/vegetables (think in terms of your Harvard food plate)
• Swap your carbs with healthy alternatives e.g., grated zucchini or cauliflower 
• Never eat white-looking grains because they are usually processed and stripped off micronutrients (e.g., white rice, rice based noodles)
• Swap rice noodles with yam noodles, or sweet potato noodles
• Swap egg noodles with soba noodles 
• Swap white potatoes with sweet potatoes, yams, pumpkin, squash
• Never eat white bread again, swap for multigrain bread/bagel, sourdough, banana or carrot cake and muffins

Vegetables

• Eat a Rainbow diet - add more colors to your diet (e.g., berries, carrots, sweet potatoes, beetroot)
• Diversify your vegetable intake throughout the week (e.g., don’t eat lettuce and cabbage all the time, add new veggies like asparagus, beetroot, brussel sprouts, peas, kale)
• Eat a salad before your main course by routine
• Whenever possible, eat your veggies raw given then retain the most nutrition (the more you cook, the more you lose nutrient density)
• Play around with your vegetable intake. It doesn’t always have to be a salad, it can be as a side dish to your chicken breast and steak, asparagus to your salmon fillet, roasted brussels sprouts as a main dish, etc.
• Steam your veggies to retain maximum nutrition value

Fruits

• Don’t confuse fruit juice (fiber is lost) for actual whole fruits, so grab your apple and bananas
• Eat superfoods like raspberries, avocados, papayas

Seeds and nuts

• Never use commercial smooth-textured peanut butter again 
• Use almond butter (unsweetened) over traditional butter 
• Use nut butter or butter (dairy)
• Sprinkle flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, poppy seeds, sunflower seeds over your breakfast cereal/oatmeal or salad
• Throw in some nuts like cashews, almonds, walnuts to your salads, or as a snack after lunch and dinner

Animal protein

• Seafood over red meat
• Aim to have 1 serving of seafood every day, if not, then every other day
• Eat less fatty portions of meat
• Have animal protein in soup, as it retains their nutrition versus other ways of cooking like grilling or frying
• Eggs are powerful source of nutrition, have one day 
• Omega-3 rich seafood over just any seafood like prawns or lobster (can Google for such table)

Beverages

• Have smoothies mixed with multiple items instead of one, e.g., apple, pear, carrot smoothie over pure apple juice or carrot juice
• Add seeds into your smoothies 
• Coconut based coffee over traditional dairy based coffee, e.g., bulletproof coffee 

Common dishes and recipes for energy dense meal

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• Protein balls (Google for various recipes)
• Cashew snack bar
• Chia seed pudding
• Overnight oatmeal
• Avocado on whole grain toast, eggs benedict 
• Three bell pepper and pork stir fry (Chinese dish)
• Hummus dips with raw celery and carrot sticks
• Sweet potato fries, baked or air fried over deep fried
• Mixed fruits salads

Actions you can take today to speed up your eczema recovery:

1. Use the Harvard food plate to assess your overall meal macronutrient ratios (e.g., proteins, whole grains, fats/oils, fruits).
2. Within each category, list the things you usually eat whether cooked at home or from eating out. Give yourself a few ideas on how you can optimize those calories.
3. Go and buy those necessary groceries this weekend. Or find substitutes for your usual eat-out diners.

If you can follow these three seemingly simple suggestions, then you’re on the right track to speeding up eczema recovery. 

This means the difference of saving weeks to months in your recovery journey.

Why not do everything you can when you know how?

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