Whole Food Month

How to complete Whole Food Month

Ultra-processed means industrially formulated: additives, refined oils, sweeteners and ingredients you wouldn't keep in your own kitchen. Eating around them for 30 days pushes you toward foods in roughly their original state and tends to reset appetite and snacking habits, because whole foods are far harder to overeat.

1. Learn the quick test: flip the package, and if the list is long or full of words you can't picture as food, it's out.
2. Shop the edges of the store (produce, meat, fish, eggs, plain dairy) and treat the center aisles as mostly off-limits.
3. Replace your usual processed snacks in advance with fruit, nuts, yogurt or boiled eggs so reaching for something easy still works.
4. Cook in batches, since whole-food eating collapses fast when there's nothing ready and you're hungry.
5. Check condiments and drinks too: many sauces, breads and 'healthy' bars are ultra-processed.

Tips

• Minimally processed staples are fine: plain oats, canned beans, frozen vegetables, butter, natural yogurt.
• Restaurant meals are the hardest to verify, so favor places that cook from raw ingredients, or eat at home.
• Don't aim for perfect macros; the only rule this month is ingredient quality, not calories.

What counts as done

Thirty days where everything you ate would pass the label test, with no ultra-processed packaged products.