A food hierarchy is a great way to reduce the time and energy it takes trying to figure out what to eat to maintain healthy body composition.

Eating according to our established food hierarchy is a daily habit that will help us build a winning health routine.

The first category of food in my food hierarchy is meat.

Meat is 100% digestible because there are no fibers, no lectins, no phytic acids, all these things are problematic for the body and create the need for more resources, more energy for digestion.

Meat is also loaded with satiation and with amazing fatty acids if you get it from a good source. When I say meat I’m talking about beef, some chicken turkey, bison, buffalo, halibut, salmon, shrimp, oysters, eggs.

Number two on my food hierarchy is vegetables.

Vegetables are beautiful with all of their phytochemicals. They’re loaded with nourishment and they pair beautifully with meat products because all of those colors can make up for a lot of the oxidation that happens when we are cooking meat.

I would also suggest cooking your vegetables to get the most benefit from them and cooking itself also breaks down a lot of cell walls making them much more digestible. It is the rare person who can eat a ton of raw vegetables and not end up with some kind of digestive distress, gas, or bloating, if not in the short term over the long term because of the cell walls.

Number three on my hierarchy is fruit.

Fruit is delicious and is a great addition to breakfast or as a snack or post-dinner dessert with some goat yogurt or heavy cream.

I would consume whole fruit vs. juicing and try to limit cooking with fruit because it really does break down into very simple sugars and that can have a big effect on your blood sugar levels.

Number four is nuts and seeds.

If you have an autoimmune condition or you’ve got digestive issues then I would skip seeds because they have a lot of chemicals in them that can be really challenging for the digestive tract.

If you eat tons of nuts and seeds and you already have some GI issues you can end up with diverticulitis and the like. So if you’re going to eat nuts and seeds, I would cook, roast, sprout, soak, or bake nuts and seeds to pre-digest them and break down the really intense cell walls to get rid of the lectin activity.

Number five is beans and lentils.

Beans and lentils have a lot of soluble fiber and are great for mopping up bile salts in the small intestine, however, many people have a low tolerance for beans and lentils. If you can handle beans and lentils then just be sure to cook them.

Number six is grains.

If you’re gonna eat grains, I would sprout and soak them to remove all of the chemical matter. Otherwise, they can cause a lot of irritation in the bowels and increase leaky gut syndrome, leading potentially to autoimmunity down the road.

You can buy pre-soaked or pre-sprouted grains, that’s pretty much what we do the majority of the time we’re not usually sprouting and soaking them ourselves.

So let’s accumulate health and consider trying out this hierarchy that I’m suggesting. Give it two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, just see if it helps you get the body you want, get the mind you want, the energy, the better sleep, the better digestion that you desire.

What does your food hierarchy look like? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.