Whole fresh foods should be the basis of what we all eat, whether our metabolic type is protein type, carbohydrate type, or mixed type.
Whole foods, whether meat, vegetable or fruit, do two things. First, they provide all the nutrients that nature put into the food, not just as a sum of nutrients, but even more, as a synergy of nutrients that work together because they naturally interact within the living plant or animal. When we eat these foods, which have been connected with our entire existence as a species, the total health benefit to us is much greater than the sum of the parts.
The second practical advantage of eating whole fresh foods is that they substitute, by their sheer bulk, the chemicals and denatured food derivatives that we might otherwise eat.
But many of us work non-stop and when we get home there is no time or energy to do anything but nuke half-synthetic processed food in the microwave? How do we get into this trap? And can we get out of it?
According to Dr Kenneth Proefrock, NMD, a huge part of the problem is not knowing what you’re going to eat on Thursday night until Thursday night. By that time, your tummy has rung the dinner bell, and there just happens to be about four fast food outlets at your freeway exit. (Funny how those fast food places are located right there when the stomach growls.)
The big key, says Dr. Proefrock say, to getting out of the fast food and nuked food trap is planning. Plan on the weekend what you will eat for every meal during the coming week. Your menu does not have to be set in stone; leave room to juggle for occasional spontaneity, but provide for enough of your own homemade food to eat each time you get hungry.
STREAMLINE PRODUCTION
So how do you make your own homemade whole food and keep your day job too?
Here are several steps to streamlining your efforts and maximising your productivity of your kitchen, while keeping your time spent there to a minimum.
Clear enough freezer space to store several containers of the food you will cook. Then on the weekend, plan all of your meals for the week, and go to the supermarket once to buy your whole food ingredients.
Consolidating your grocery shopping into one trip saves time, compared with shopping for a few items everyday. Plus, with whole foods, you only need to go around the periphery of the supermarket where they are located, rather than taking time to go up and down the interior aisles where the processed foods are.
Once you’ve brought home all the groceries, cook all your meals for the week at the same time. This way, instead of standing at the stovetop each day for each meal, you are there for one longer session during that week. The trick is to cook big portions and freeze the smaller quantities that you and your family will eat throughout the week.
If you cook for a family, a large recipe will probably be good for two dinners (on alternate days) during the week, as well as a lunch or two. If you live alone, you will get at least four meal portions with half of them saved for the following week. At this point you don’t have to spend any more time throughout the week than you would on TV dinners.
PRE-CUT VEGGIES
A food processor will work well for foods that you want to chop finely. Make freezer bags full of pre-cut vegetables that you can then defrost as needed during the week. One bag might contain pressed garlic with coarsely chopped string beans, which a few days from now you can sauté in coconut oil for a few minutes.
Another bag might contain chopped carrots, onions and tomatoes, along with cabbage that you cut into quarters. Sprinkle some caraway seeds into the bag. When you’re ready to make a meal of it, you can cook it a portion of it in a cup of chicken broth for a delicious meal of balanced nutrients.
CROCK-POT FIESTA
Make use of big cooking vessels for your weekend cooking fiesta. A large crock-pot will lend itself well to your whole foods recipes. Here you don’t need a food processor.
Chop vegetables coarsely, in much larger chunks than you can get away with in a stovetop meal. This saves a lot of time. Put an organic beef round or two turkey legs or a whole organic chicken on top of the vegetables, add a few cups of water, and-or tomato sauce, perhaps with balsamic vinegar. Sesame oil and tamari may be used instead, for marinade. Finally, add whole leaf herbs as you like. After practicing once or twice, you will have a huge crock-pot meal thrown together in 5 to 10 minutes. Set it on “low†in the morning, and you’re done ’til dinnertime. In cool weather, you could do the same in the regular oven, in fewer hours, using a Dutch oven type covered pot.
USE A TOASTER OVEN
Now it’s a Tuesday morning, and you’ll need something for dinner. Defrost one of the meals you prepared on the weekend. In the evening when you’re ready to cook it, place it into a serving dish in a toaster oven rather than a microwave. Toaster ovens have several advantages over microwaves. They are smaller and quieter, and often cheaper. However, those benefits are far outweighed by their health advantage, because microwave rays are unhealthy radiation. When you microwave in a plastic container, it drives the phthalates of the plastic right into your food, which gives an otherwise excellent meal a toxic twist you definitely do not need.
Also, microwave radiation leaks throughout the whole kitchen from most microwave ovens, creating an unhealthy atmosphere for adults, children and pets. For re-heating in your toaster oven, you’ll need one or two Pyrex-type serving dishes, about a litre each. Re-heating your pre-prepared meal for two or three people in a toaster oven will take 10 to 15 minutes, not very much longer than a microwave.
BREAKFAST AND LUNCH
Use your toaster oven for breakfast. Take out some of the freezer vegetables you’ve prepared, and sprinkle some cheese, raw is preferable, over top. Heat this up for a healthy whole food breakfast; perhaps break an egg over the vegetables. Neither of these will spike your insulin levels, unlike many other dishes we have become accustomed to thinking of as breakfast foods.
Also use your toaster oven to prepare hot, healthy lunches. Invest in a good-sized thermos with either glass or stainless steel (not aluminium) interior for yourself and each family member. While eating breakfast, heat up leftovers from the previous night, or a separately defrosted meal in your serving dish in the toaster oven, again for 10 to 15 minutes. Spoon it into each thermos. Then in each lunchbox, add a fork and little containers of nuts or some fresh fruit or some celery, cherry tomatoes, cucumber or carrot sticks.
You will then have wonderfully nutritious lunches, well balanced, and appetising for all your family members. When lunches are prepared in assembly-line style, the process goes faster than if each lunch is made separately. And your savings will begin to be obvious as your restaurant and fast food expenses plummet toward zero.
SEASONAL AND ORGANIC
Take advantage of savings on seasonal produce. Get organic whenever possible. Through steadily rising consumer demand, growers are placing more organic produce into your local stores. Nature has no better gift than in-season organic blueberries.
Here is a way to extend the seasonal savings. Fruit preserves can be made unsweetened, and rely only on the natural sweetness of the fruit. Buy a case of about two kilos of berries when in season. Also buy three Granny Smith apples for pectin, which is a natural gelling agent. Peel and core the apples. Cut into small cubes (about a centimetre). Place the apple pieces in a large pot, with about one and a half kilos of washed and (if necessary) stemmed berries. (Keep the other half-kilo of the berries fresh for snacking.)
Simmer the berries and apples on low for about an hour while you are preparing your week’s worth of meals. At the end of an hour, you should have a thin fruit spread. Take a potato masher and mash any remaining chunks of apple and berries as desired. Let it cool. The texture will get a little thicker. Freeze it in pint-size containers. This makes a nice fruit spread that will keep indefinitely. You may be surprised that the berry flavour is plenty sweet enough without added sweetener. You can spread this with a nut-butter on slices of apple or pear for breakfast or snacks.
FREEZE FRESH HERBS
Don’t forget condiments. How often have you bought a bunch of parsley or cilantro (coriander) with the good intention of using all of it, only to find most of it forgotten and wilted two weeks later, shoved behind other foods?
When it’s still fresh, chop it up finely and store in Ziploc-type bags in the freezer. Then you can access it as needed for the one teaspoonful you may want, without having it wilt away before you get a chance to use it. But if you really want fresh herbs, grow them. My favourite Greek salad dressing calls for mint, oregano and parsley, which fortunately are all easy to grow, so I make sure I always have at least one plant of each growing, and I harvest sprigs each time I make the dressing. The fragrance alone of the just-picked herbs is what makes the salad.
The crock-pot, food processor, thermoses and toaster oven purchases represent a minor household investment. To recoup that investment, do yourself a huge favour and change your mindset about potable liquids. There really is no good reason to drink anything other than water (reverse osmosis or filtered or spring water). In fact, when we drink other liquids, we train ourselves to slake our thirst with tastes that are different from water, which then makes the taste of water seem strange. But our bodies are about 75 per cent water, so the only thing strange is our acquired perception of water as strange.
Leave heavy and expensive juices, teas, lattes and liquor at the store. Water is the only substance that can quench the thirst we feel and the dehydration that almost everyone experiences to some degree. Drink it as you like it, with ice or without, with lemon or without, but re-acquaint yourself with the one beverage that hydrates and moisturises all the way in to your cellular level and out to your skin: water.
COOK BIG, FREEZE SMALL
Cooking big and freezing small is the best way for a single person to enjoy fully balanced home-cooked meals. For a busy parent with children of various ages, the kids can be recruited to help, and in turn receive the nutrients they most desperately need.
Even toddlers can peel carrots, while older children can wash and chop foods. Some of our warmest childhood memories are from ordinary days and activities together with family members in the kitchen. Bestow the goodness on them too; pass the tradition to the next generation so that cooking does not become another lost art.
— By Colleen Huber, NMD
Colleen Huber (NMD) writes about naturopathic medicine for her monthly newsletter at www.naturopathyworks.com. Sourced from www.mercola.com
