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Why Your Food’s Backstory Matters for Your Health—and What to Do About It

September 13, 2026

When you pick up an apple, a steak, or a piece of salmon at the grocery store, it looks like one thing: food.

But your body experiences its entire backstory.

Your apple was shaped by the microbes, minerals, fertilizers, and pesticides in the soil. Your steak was built from what the cow ate and how it was raised. Your salmon will nourish you based on the quality of its diet, water, and environment. 

And if you pick up processed stir-fry sauce or ice cream for dessert‚ you’re ingesting whatever the factory used to make it: emulsifiers, preservatives, dyes, sweeteners, or other ingredients added for texture, flavor, color, or shelf life.

Food quality goes much deeper than calories, protein, carbs, and fat.

Where your food comes from—and what happens to it along the way—can influence its nutritional composition, your exposure to agricultural chemicals, your gut microbiome, and potentially much more. 

Here are the simple grocery store swaps for meat, seafood, produce, and processed foods that can make a real difference in what ends up on your plate. 

Meat, Poultry, and Eggs 

When animals eat grass, roam outdoors, and live in humane, low-stress environments, the nutritional profile of their meat, milk, and eggs improves dramatically. 

Take beef and omega fatty acids, for example.

Your body needs a balance of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids—ideally a ratio of around 1:1 or 2:1—or it may tip your body into an inflammatory state. The omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of grass-fed beef sits close to 3:1, which aligns well with our evolutionary biology. Grain-fed beef, on the other hand, can have ratios as high as 35:1. Because this input shapes your body’s omega balance, the type of beef you choose for your barbecue matters for far more than taste. 

You’re not just what you eat. You’re what your food ate. 

How to Pick the Best Source

▶ Opt for 100% grass-fed and grass-finished meat whenever possible. 

This is usually higher in omega-3 fats, antioxidants, and CLA, a beneficial fat linked to metabolic health. (“Grass-finished” means the animal ate grass or forage for its whole lifespan.) 

▶ Look for pasture-raised poultry and eggs. 

While this claim isn’t regulated by the USDA, it typically means the animal was allowed to roam freely outdoors rather than in a crowded indoor feedlot. And, in the case of birds, it indicates each animal was given at least 108 square feet of space, with access to shelter. Pasture-raised eggs in particular are richer in choline (critical for neurotransmitters), omega-3s, and carotenoids. It’s also a far more humane practice that considers animal welfare.

Seafood

You’ve likely heard the term “wild-caught” when it comes to seafood. This means the fish lived and fed in its natural ecosystem—rivers, lakes, or the open ocean. There’s also “farm-raised” fish, which indicates that the fish was raised in a fish farm or net pen. 

In general, wild-caught fish tend to contain a higher proportion of omega-3 fatty acids and more diverse micronutrients because they eat a natural diet. However, seafood sourcing can’t always be reduced to one label. Species, feed, water quality, fishing or farming practices, contaminant exposure, handling, and testing all help determine the quality of the fish you eat—and that’s where being a smart consumer is critical. 

How to Pick the Best Source

▶ Look for transparency before picking your seafood. 

Where did the fish come from? How was it raised or caught? What did it eat? Has it been tested for contaminants? I’m a big fan of the brand Seatopia because it’s responsibly sourced, regeneratively farmed seafood that’s transparently tested for quality and heavy metals. Everything is certified sustainable—and it’s a healthy source of both omega-3s and delicious meals. 

Whatever seafood you choose, knowing about its journey to your plate gives you more useful information than a single word on the package.

▶ Check for the “Certified Sustainable Seafood” label, if you’re unsure. 

This is a third-party certification from the Marine Stewardship Council that indicates the fish comes from a fishery that protects ecosystems, avoids overfishing, and minimizes environmental damage. 

Plants and Produce

Long before a vegetable reaches your refrigerator, it has spent months interacting with a living ecosystem beneath the ground.

Minerals, organic matter, fungi, bacteria, water, plant roots, and farming practices all interact there. And the resulting soil quality directly influences the vitamin, mineral, and phytonutrient content of plants you end up eating. 

However, much conventionally grown produce relies on practices that ultimately harm the soil—and often, us.  

Just think: Herbicides like glyphosate, pesticides like organophosphates, and other agricultural chemicals have been associated with increased risks of depression, anxiety, neurodevelopmental issues, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and several cancers.^1–3 These chemicals can also interfere with neurotransmitter function, disrupt your gut microbiome, and drive inflammation.

While industrial practices can produce cheaper food, it’s often at the cost of soil health and biodiversity. 

How to Pick the Best Source

▶ Choose organic when you can. 

Organic certification restricts synthetic pesticides, herbicides, GMOs, routine antibiotics, and synthetic hormones. 

Importantly, you don’t need to buy everything organic. The biggest impact often comes from choosing organic versions of highly sprayed produce (like berries, leafy greens, apples). Foods like avocados, oranges, grapefruits, pineapples, mangoes, and coconuts—with thick, protective skins—don’t typically need to be purchased organic. You can review the EWG’s Clean Fifteen™ and Dirty Dozen™ lists to see which foods carry the lowest and highest pesticide loads, which can help you make an informed decision when shopping. 

▶ Keep an eye out for regenerative brands. 

Regenerative agriculture focuses on restoring soil health through practices like composting and increasing biodiversity—meaning a greater variety of plants, microbes, insects, and animals coexist on the land—which can support greater ecosystem health.⁴ Healthier soil grown under regenerative conditions can also produce healthier, more nutrient-dense food.⁵ 

Some of my favorite regenerative brands include: 

• Seatopia (use code HYMAN for free shipping on your first order) 
  
  
• Force of Nature Meats (use code DRMARK10 for 10% off your order)
  
  
• Maui Nui

Processed Foods

Your food doesn’t stop changing after the farm. Often, it goes on to processing plants or factories for further preparation or packaging. 

Importantly, food processing is a spectrum, and not all processed food is bad. 

For example, almond butter is processed and can be a part of a healthy diet. Same with hummus, frozen veggies, tofu, and homemade soup. All these foods have been altered somehow to change how they’re stored or served. 

But often, modern food manufacturing breaks whole foods into components, strips out their nutrients and fiber, refines the remaining slurry, recombines parts in new ways, and adds additives, emulsifiers, dyes, sugar alcohols, and gums designed to make products sweeter, creamier, crunchier, brighter, or longer-lasting. 

Ultra-processed foods have an entirely different impact on your body than whole foods. In addition to increasing how many calories you consume,⁶ they can raise your risk of adverse health outcomes, including heart disease, diabetes, obesity, depression, and anxiety.⁷ 

How to Pick the Best Source

▶ Eat real, whole, minimally processed foods most of the time. 

You should be able to look at the food and have an idea of where it came from or how it came to be. Opt for foods that stay as close to their original form as possible. 

▶ Skip ultra-processed foods. 

These are the ones made mostly from refined ingredients—such as starches, sugars, oils, sodium, and additives—and that contain little, if any, intact whole food. Think of products like chips, crackers, breakfast cereals, white bread, soda, energy drinks, fast food, and frozen meals. Avoid these whenever possible. 

Better Food, Better Health 

Once you start noticing your food’s backstory, sourcing becomes surprisingly practical. Simple swaps at the grocery store—and checking for labels like organic, grass-finished, and regenerative—can completely change the make-up of your meals. 

Choose the upgrades that make sense for your family, your budget, and where you live. Small improvements made consistently matter more than the “perfect” grocery cart.

References

1. Zanchi MM, Marins K, Zamoner A. Could pesticide exposure be implicated in the high incidence rates of depression, anxiety and suicide in farmers? A systematic review. Environ Pollut. 2023 Aug 15;331(Pt 2):121888.

2. Liu J, Schelar E. Pesticide exposure and child neurodevelopment: summary and implications: Summary and implications. Workplace Health Saf. 2012 May;60(5):235–42; quiz 243.

3. Ahmad MF, Ahmad FA, Alsayegh AA, Zeyaullah M, AlShahrani AM, Muzammil K, et al. Pesticides impacts on human health and the environment with their mechanisms of action and possible countermeasures. Heliyon. 2024 Apr 15;10(7):e29128.

4. Tamburini G, Bommarco R, Wanger TC, Kremen C, van der Heijden MGA, Liebman M, et al. Agricultural diversification promotes multiple ecosystem services without compromising yield. Sci Adv. 2020 Nov;6(45):eaba1715.

5. Manzeke-Kangara MG, Joy EJM, Lark RM, Redfern S, Eilander A, Broadley MR. Do agronomic approaches aligned to regenerative agriculture improve the micronutrient concentrations of edible portions of crops? A scoping review of evidence. Front Nutr. 2023 Jul 12;10:1078667.

6. Hall KD, Ayuketah A, Brychta R, Cai H, Cassimatis T, Chen KY, et al. Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: An inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake. Cell Metab. 2019 Jul 2;30(1):67–77.e3.

7. Lane MM, Gamage E, Du S, Ashtree DN, McGuinness AJ, Gauci S, et al. Ultra-processed food exposure and adverse health outcomes: umbrella review of epidemiological meta-analyses. BMJ. 2024 Feb 28;384:e077310.