Healthy Eating And Cooking - In Real Life.
There’s no way to get around it really, making food takes time.
It has always taken time.
But for the last however many years the food industry has been telling us that cooking is HARD, it takes TIME, and that SUCKS. That we DESERVE A BREAK from how HARD and TIME CONSUMING it is. That cooking is the worst, but not to worry, someone else has a “healthy” option for us… Well, the food industry is also killing us - so let’s try and step away from it, AND from the idea that cooking is the worst and we don’t need to do it.
We NEED TO COOK, IT TAKES TIME, and THAT’S OK.
My trick is to...
TAKE THE TIME, AND MAKE IT AS ENJOYABLE AS YOU CAN.
Figure out what you can COMBINE together to make cooking a good time. This is a lifehack that can make almost anything unenjoyable a good time.
Cleaning the floors? Listen to your fav podcast.
Prepping food for the week? Have a glass of wine and watch your fav show or dance it out.
Want more time with you kids? Make them work in the kitchen with you before they get screen time.
Want less time with your kids? Make them go outside/watch a show/do something with another parent so you can do the food.
(Some of these have the added bonus of teaching your kids that food is a priority in your house, and that you’re the kind of family who takes TIME to prepare it).
The point is…
DO SOMETHING YOU LIKE WHILE YOU DO SOMETHING YOU NEED TO DO.
MAKE A PLAN.
It can be a loose plan!
But once a week sit down with your family, or yourself, and ask what people/you want to eat this week? Come up with a bunch of ideas and make a list of them.
This is ultimately where you can really get a plan going. No need for a STRICT PLAN, but a generalized IDEA.
If people want pasta, burritos, and burgers; MAKE THOSE THINGS! In the version that supports your health and dietary requirements, and if you’re cooking for multiple needs, make minor tweaks to make it work for everyone.
But also know that if you’re shopping for some grass fed ground beef to get extra so you can make burgers and pasta sauce at the same time. Or, if you’re vegan or veggie - get extra beans so you can make veggie burgers and burrito prep at the SAME TIME.
*If you want to recreate leftovers into something new for lunch, use some extra beans to make a veggie burger bowl, or a quick salad with a half an avocado to scoop into it. Use extra ground beef to make taco bowls for lunch or Greek bowls with hummus and olives and cucumbers… GET CREATIVE! When you follow these steps you’re always kinda prepared for all kinds of flavours and meals!)*
SHOP FOR THE PLAN.
For me that involves pulling things from the freezer so I’m prepared with our grass fed beef, wild salmon, or pasture raised pork. I also always buy 1 organic chicken and make it into as many meals as I can.
(More on that later)
For some this will be about getting tofu, beans, tempeh or any other protein you enjoy.
A RECIPE FOR SHOPPING FOR YOUR ROUGH PLAN:
Have a rough idea of WHAT you will eat during the week.
Go SHOPPING for those rough ideas
Add in FLEXIBILITY and making changes as you shop or the week goes on.
PREPARATION
Being PREPARED with the foods you want to PRIORITIZE in your life.
For some people that’s taking an extra half hour to prepare a foundation salad and fruits and veggies for snacks, for other people that’s prepping food that is optimal for their gut viome results.
Don’t forget! Do the thing you WANT to do WHILE you do the thing you NEED to do.
MAKE TIME
(Yes, this shows up twice. I’m that passionate about it, and also I need the reminder for myself.)
Make time to DO the stuff. It’s ok to take time to cook. It’s good. Make it good.
Often people say that on Sunday they do all the things. I get it, but also it doesn’t work for me all the time. Sometimes Sundays are beautiful and I want to be outside with my family and I don’t want to plan, shop and cook.
So, it’s not necessarily about needing to do it on one particular day.
Maybe Sunday is the day you talk it all over with your family, then after work Monday you stop and do a solid shop. That night you have the easiest healthy thing you can manage, hello grilled meat or oven roasted salmon or bean burritos - all take about 15- 20 minutes! This is CRUCIAL for me because often I have zero energy left after shopping… why does it make me so tired?
So, there you are in your fully stocked kitchen with your hungry kids milling around… pour yourself some kombucha, tell one of them they can pick a show if they peel a bag of carrots and the other one can pick a show if they wash all the celery. You talk about your day while munching on one of the peeled carrots and then they watch a show while you get some sort of prep put together to set yourself up for the next few days.
Or, maybe this all happens the next day, and it’s actually you just yelling at your kids to take off while you figure shit out… #reallife.
Maybe you don’t have children but you have to work around a crazy busy schedule and a weird room mate… we all have our things.
The point is, WE NEED TO MAKE THE TIME.
IF YOU HAVE A PLAN, SHOP WITH FLEXIBILITY, GET PREPARED, AND ACKNOWLEDGE AND ACCEPT THAT YOU NEED TO MAKE TIME — you are winning.
Also, no need to start with an ENTIRE week's worth of food. Just do 3 or so days at once. Start out small.
Also, USE LEFTOVERS not always as leftovers! AKA GETTING CREATIVE.
A roasted chicken can become:
First meal - A mediterranean salad with shredded chicken, crispy bacon or prosciutto, asparagus, canned artichoke hearts, and olives with simple olive oil and lemon dressing. Or in my house it would for sure be balsamic.
Second meal - Chicken fajita bowl on a pile of foundation salad sauteed peppers, sweet potatoes, and onion, an avocado, salsa, and some fresh lime juice.
Third meal - Bones into a stock pot to make broth, then used to make simple creamy dairy free broccoli soup (one of the most popular recipes on my blog!) with crispy prosciutto (already batch cooked earlier in the week) and a big foundation salad on the side. Technically this is MORE THAN ONE MEAL so that’s a bonus!
Fourth meal - A veggie heavy stir fry with ALL the veggies you have in your fridge, lots of garlic and ginger and coconut aminos (or tamari) served over cauliflower rice/regular rice/rice noodles/or yam noodles.
What you need to do is roast a chicken, shred ALL the meat, make the stock, have A LOT of veggies on hand, and a few rough ideas of what you can make with the meat to stretch it out as far as you can.
Some version of this is how I use ONE chicken to feed a family of 4 four or more meals.
PLAN, SHOP, PREPARATION, TIME, CREATIVITY. All done with flexibility.
ONE FINAL THOUGHT
ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS have a few emergency meal ideas in the back of your mind for those days when it all goes sideways. Realistically for me this is a couple times a week.
But I’m prepared for it and know that I can make quick mackerel or tuna salad, breakfast for dinner, or burrito bowls with beans and/or grass fed beef.
I have spent time thinking about and being prepared for these situations.
Knowing what these quick meals are and being prepared for at least one, but hopefully ALL of them at all times is essential to staying on track with eating healthy and healing foods.
Those are my ideas on being organized and constantly eating healthy foods! It takes some practice and some thought and MORE THAN ANYTHING, the WILLINGNESS to take the time for it.
Sometimes I’m up late waiting for things to finish in the oven before I can go to bed. It’s not like I’m doing lunges during that time, I’m reading or doing something I enjoy! It’s NOT A BAD THING TO MAKE TIME FOR FOOD.
Sometimes I have a chicken roasting in the oven at 8am, and sometimes we don’t have anything to eat so we have eggs and salad for breakfast AND dinner.
Let me say this again…
IT’S NOT A BAD THING TO MAKE TIME FOR FOOD.
What’s your trick?
