Whole Foods Challenge | St. Peter's Health

The St. Peter’s Health 2024 Whole Food Challenge is starting October 7th. It is free and open to the public.

This self-guided challenge is intended to help you understand how to incorporate whole foods into your meals. Whole foods include fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains (like oats, brown rice, barley, etc.), legumes, nuts and seeds. Adding whole foods can help improve overall health by lowering the risk of chronic illnesses, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.

This four-week challenge includes free materials to help you:

Learn more about whole foods
Add more whole foods into what you are already eating
Build long-term healthy habits

Get started

After completing the form below, you will be signed up for email messages that will provide an introduction to the challenge and walk you through the 4 steps over the next 4 weeks.

It may be helpful to follow along with this challenge by completing a Nutrient-Dense Food Checklist each day of the challenge. This will help you see your progress on how many foods you have incorporated from the beginning to the end of the challenge. Use the link below to print off your checklist.

Nutrients-dense Foods Checklist

Week 1: Understand Whole Foods

The first step of any whole foods challenge is to become familiar with what whole foods are. They are briefly described above, but the first week you will be provided with more information on how to identify whole foods and processed foods.

Week 2: How to Read Nutrition Labels

Once you are able to identify whole foods, you will receive information about how to read a nutrition label. What are some key nutrients we are looking for in our foods? We can use nutrition labels to interpret what our foods are made of.

Week 3: Incorporating More Whole Foods

Now that you know how to identify whole foods and how to read a nutrition label, you are ready to put this knowledge to action! Increasing fruits and veggies can be a great place to start. Suggestions and tips on incorporating more whole foods will be provided this week.

Week 4: Setting Yourself Up for Success

This challenge runs for 4 weeks, but we want you to maintain these habits for life! Learn more about how to develop sustainable, long-term changes by setting SMART goals. This type of goal is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.

Registration coming next fall...

Registration gives you access to:

A welcome email to help prepare for the start of the challenge
Information throughout the challenge to help prepare and keep you motivated including:
- Informational newsletter segments
- Breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes
- Guided questions to work through

More Insight about Whole Foods Before You Start This Challenge

It’s important to know what classifies something as a whole food. Typically, whole foods are products that are minimally processed. This isn’t to take away from the fact that some processed foods can definitely be incorporated into a nourishing and healthful diet. Our health goals are determined by our overall habits and the lifestyle choices that we make.

Whole foods have wholesome ingredients from these five food groups: fruits, veggies, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. Meat and plant-based proteins can also be considered a whole food, but for this challenge we will be focusing on the first five listed.
Whole foods may or may not have a nutrition label and/or ingredient list. Think—a bunch of bananas at the grocery store does not come with a nutrition label. In contrast, some whole foods may be more processed than others. Take a bag of frozen broccoli, for example. This product is processed because it has been pre-chopped and frozen. It also includes a nutrition label. This is still a great, whole food option!

Health Benefits of Whole Foods