Eat Right America Program

I did the Eat Right America Program for a month to see what the program is like, and if I would like to recommend it to people who wish to practice healthy eating. The Eat Right America program is the one that was being advertised through Whole Foods Market. I wanted to give you the pros and cons to the program.

It is different from any program I have ever seen, and is not a diet, although you will be encouraged to eat differently than you have ever eaten before. It is all about eating healthy, eating mostly veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds, a small amount of whole grains, and a limited amount of animal products. The program encourages eating the most nutritional foods for the calorie buck, therefore broccoli would be a better choice than meats that are full of saturated fat and cholesterol.

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What I Really Liked about the
Eat Right America Program

• To start the program, you fill out a short survey about what you eat, and your health statistics that you know, like your cholesterol, vitamin D. levels etc. It is helpful to have a copy of your latest doctor’s lab work up readily available. 

• You are then given your Nutrition Prescription, which is a nutrient assessment and health evaluation with suggestions, and your scores in the different areas of health. This was a computer generated report from the survey you do. It is your program and compares where you are, to where you need to be. It is all generated with your personal information. It was awesome!

• You are given an eating plan for you, and 28 days worth of computer generated emails on a specific topic of the day and often times, a 3 minute video with ideas. These were awesome!
  

• You are also given a menu for the day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. These looked great.

• You have access to the ERA café which is their forum.

• Books and Videos that could support you are available, and seem reasonably priced.
  

• I love the ANDI food scoring system developed for rating the nutrient density of foods. I am not sure if this will actually stand in the scientific community because there are still so many undiscovered phytochemicals, but I love that they tried to come up with a scoring system!!! Yeah!

• The program really attempts to educate you on the reasons why certain types of foods are better for you than others.

• There is a positive focus on what you can eat versus what you can’t eat! Your new life will be salad oriented!

• I loved that controlling food cravings was presented in the handout, however there was not a lot of information in the site about cravings. I would love to see this developed more.

• The healthy recipes all looked great, although I did not eat them because I already eat fairly similar to this and have my own healthy recipes that I love.

What I Did Not Like about the
Eat Right America Program

• This is a very different way of eating than most American’s are familiar with. Eating mostly fruits, and veggies, seeds and nuts and limited grains, and just 12 oz of animal products is encouraged per week, which is not much. No processed foods, or junk foods are really allowed. Get rid of all junk food is what they say! Only real foods, which I personally loved, but I think it would be very difficult for the average person.

• There was not a lot of talk about fiber. I think it should have been included on one of the earlier days because this new diet will cause gas. People go from eating little fiber to basically living on fiber. They will feel bloated, and this was touched on, but not really addressed, just hang in there, and it will get better. I think it would have been better to have a 2 week period to build up to the diet before people start.

• I am not sure if people can give up all processed foods. I know it is best, and I try to personally do this anyway, but I do not see most people doing this for the long term.

• People are being deprived of some of the foods that they love, and the pamphlet says no deprivation.

• This way of eating calls for you to eat three meals, or less per day according to your hunger. No snacking is encouraged. They believe that your body works better when you are not constantly digesting food. I am not sure about this. Do smaller more frequent meals help your blood sugar, or is it better to eat 3 meals?

My Recommendation about the Eat Right America Program

I really loved this program, if you are looking to completely redo how you eat and eat for health. It would definitely be considered a complete lifestyle change though. I wish they would include more information about food cravings, emotional eating, and mindless eating. This is a healthy eating plan, but much of the weight control battle is not what you eat, but how you eat.

I would encourage everyone to try the plan just to learn how to put together some great healthy recipes that are full of veggies! It is not that expensive, and you will learn much to help you on your road to eating healthy!


You can try the Eat Right America Program out decide for yourself!