You may have heard the dietary advice: Avoid white food. This recommendation puts complex information into a catchy phrase without providing enough details. While colorful foods are nutrient-rich, there are foods that lack color that are healthy too.

The white foods that the slogan above refers to are sugar and white flour, primarily. Common sources of sugar and white flour are candy, cookies, pastries and white bread, which all are low nutrient foods. Regular sugar in small amounts is acceptable  (emphasis on small).

Salt also may show up on that list of white foods to avoid. Most recent studies have confirmed that Americans consume too much salt. A 2012 study reported the average intake of 3,330 mg of sodium per day, not counting salt added at the table. The recommendation for the general population is to limit salt to no more than 2,300 mg per day. For those over the age of 51, people with diabetes, chronic kidney disease or high blood pressure the recommendation is to limit sodium to 1,500 mg per day. Consuming too much salt has been linked to an increased risk of death or disability from high blood pressure, stroke and heart disease.