If you could eat the perfect meal, what would it be?

I don’t think that there’s one perfect meal. I think that you can easily enjoy many. In fact, if you follow some of the Healthiest Way of Eating principles, all of your meals can be perfect.

To create a perfect meal, all of the foods included should be:

Nutrient-rich
Whole and natural
Minimally processed and minimally cooked
Organic, humanely, and sustainably produced
From varied food groups and should vary within food groups. For example, don’t have a meal containing just fruits or whole grains or vegetables. And if you’re consuming several types of vegetables, for example, don’t have them only be one type (example, all root vegetables); rather, have them reflect a variety (example, one root vegetable, one salad green, and one crucifer)
Focused on vegetables and plant foods in general and not be overly focused on animal-based foods.

Nourishment always matches with a person’s current state of health and place in life.

Nourishment is dynamic, not static. A person’s nutrient needs can change overnight, and they can change back and forth, sometimes dramatically. There is not one single food, or even combination of foods, that can provide optimal nourishment meal-by-meal, day-by-day, over any length of time. Nourishment simply does not work that way.

Our nourishment goals are changing goals. They change as we change, and they always depend on a variety of foods that cannot be accomplished in any one meal. The seasons of the year, for example, can be an important backdrop for our food variety, and optimal nutrition can often mean seasonal eating that varies between winter, spring, summer, or fall.