The Power of the Pantry
Fourth post in a Simple Wellness series...If we're committed to a wellness journey, we've set a vision for our health, and started down the road to resetting our food choices, then we've got to work on our pantries. What lurks in a majority of American pantries is scary. There are not a lot of 'real' foods, even though a lot of what we stock may be edible. Real foods are unprocessed, nutrient-dense, and as fresh as possible.
Have you stood and stared at your pantry or fridge lately? Seen anything edible that just isn't food? We have a few things... some salty snacks, starchy sides and sugary breakfast cereals, but we stock mostly real foods, and reap the benefits of eating them.
Real, nutrient-dense foods afford us the healthiest bang for our calorie buck. We benefit from fiber, minerals, micronutrients and phytochemicals in fresh foods. Think veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds, and whole grains. Dr. Joel Fuhrman likes to describe 'GBOMBS' as his quick label to remember 'Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries and Seeds.' If we've reset our food choices, these five categories are absolute winners to give our bodies the healthy nutrition they crave.
A great way to integrate real foods is to purge our pantries of the most processed offenders, and begin including as many real foods as possible. Then we can set simple goals in our meal planning and food preparation to have more and more of our meals feature real foods (and only real foods). Let's say we eat about 20 meals a week (7 days times 3 meals a day...) If we had one real-food meal a day, that would yield about 30% of our meals being health, and 70% being regular choices.
As weeks and months go, it can be simple to grow that ratio to 50/50, then 60/40 (so now we're closer to 2 meals a day being real food) all the way to 80/20. An 80/20 goal for real-food to standard food is valuable. At that level our cells are being nourished and we even have the opportunity to reverse some disease patterns and symptoms.
Here are some real-food meal suggestions: Breakfast can be a smoothie with greens, chia seeds and fresh fruit, or a hearty oatmeal or muesli with dried fruits and healthy nuts. Lunch could include a big salad with a small portion of fish or beans. Supper can feature a healthier meat like broiled chicken breast or salmon, with steamed veggies and a baked sweet potato.
And here and there, a regular old burger-and-fries, or pancakes-and-bacon meal is okay. Not to binge on comfort food, and blow your wellness accomplishments, but just to scratch that itch of wanting something from your 'old' pantry.
So find a great, healthful cookbook (Dr. Fuhrman publishes the 'Eat to Live Cookbook', and it's a good one) or a great book of smoothie recipes, and launch into your new, real, healthful choices.
By the Way
A critical step on a journey to a healthful 80/20 diet is the selection of snacks. Here again, ditch the packaged snacks, like crackers and candy bars, and go for the simplest real foods you can find. A piece of fresh fruit is great, or dried fruits and nuts work well too. Take your time nibbling, though, and be careful with portions, because fruit has a lot of natural sugar, and nuts pack a lot of fats that can have you bulked up on calories in no time.
No comments:
Post a Comment