If you’ve been around Live Simply for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed that when it comes to baking, I lean towards using one particular flour: einkorn. I’m often asked, “What is einkorn flour? Is einkorn gluten-free? Can you sub einkorn for white flour?” This post is the ultimate guide to einkorn flour with the best recipes.

I’ll share everything you need to know to use this delicious, healthier, ancient grain in the kitchen with success.

Is Einkorn Gluten-Free?

Einkorn is NOT a gluten-free grain.

This means einkorn is not safe if you have celiac disease (an autoimmune condition). According to celiac.org, about 1 in 100 people have celiac disease. It’s worth repeating, if you have celiac disease einkorn is NOT an option.  

Personally, as someone with a gluten sensitivity (I do NOT have celiac disease), I’ve found that I digest einkorn well, along with wheat breads and baked goods that have gone through the sourdough process (which makes grain easier to digest). This is why so many of the recipes on the blog feature this ancient grain.

What’s the Difference Between All-Purpose and Whole Wheat Einkorn Flour?

• Whole grain or whole wheat einkorn means that nothing has been removed.
• All-purpose einkorn resembles more of a white flour, while whole grain or whole wheat einkorn looks whole wheat flour.
• All-purpose means that some of the bran has been removed. It’s the easiest flour to digest since some of the bran has been removed (the hardest part of a grain to digest). All-purpose einkorn is also lower in phytic acid.

• Whole wheat einkorn is ideal for most rustic breads (quick breads or yeasted sandwich breads), pancakes, or waffles.
• All-purpose einkorn lends itself nicely to lighter baked goods like muffins, sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cookies, and chocolate cake or vanilla cupcakes.

How Should I Store Einkorn Flour?

• Einkorn is a staple in my real-food pantry, but I don’t store the flour in the dry pantry.
• It’s best to store the whole grain (berries) or the milled flour in an air-tight container in a cool place.
• The berries and flour will keep this way for about 6 months.

My Favorite Einkorn Recipes

Here are a few of my favorite recipes that are easy to make when you’re just getting started with einkorn. These recipes will help you get used to the feel of einkorn, in both a batter and dough form. If you want more recipes, check out 10 All-Time Best Einkorn Flour Recipes.

1. Pancakes

This recipe uses either whole grain einkorn flour or all-purpose flour. The pancakes are one of the easiest ways to experiment with einkorn flour.

I also love to make einkorn sheet pan pancakes or turn the pancakes into mini muffins for dunking in maple syrup.

3. Pizza Dough

Pizza dough is a great way to get a feel for yeasted einkorn dough. This recipe calls for active dry yeast. You could certainly substitute this ingredient for a couple tablespoons of sourdough starter and extra resting time. You’ll notice that this recipe calls for very little kneading, something you don’t generally find with a wheat-based recipe. Remember, yeasted einkorn dough is much stickier than wheat dough, so flour the surface (parchment paper) and the dough before rolling it out.

4. Cookies

Is there anything like a fresh-from-the-oven cookie? A great introduction to the delicious flavor of einkorn flour is to make einkorn chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal cookies (with raisins or chocolate chips, if you’d like), or sugar cookies.

5. Dumplings

This chicken noodle and dumpling soup is my favorite recipe to make during the fall and winter months. The dumplings are what make this chicken soup AMAZING and they’re made with einkorn flour.

Best Einkorn Recipe Sites

• I have a bunch of einkorn recipes here on the blog.
• Jovial also shares recipes on their site and Carla Bartolucci, the founder of Jovial, wrote a cookbook dedicated to using this grain. In the book, she also dedicates a lot of time to making sourdough with einkorn.
• Naturally Ella is another great resource for einkorn recipes. Erin, the founder, is a vegetarian and has written several recipes using einkorn berries.
• Einkorn.com is another source for recipes. The recipe database isn’t the easiest to search through, so you’ll need to do lots of scrolling to find what you want.

If you want to branch out and experiment on your own, Jovial has a fantastic resource on their site for troubleshooting how to do this.

Even More Delicious Einkorn Recipes

SEE ALL

Einkorn Oatmeal Cookies (Chocolate Chip or Raisin)

10 Einkorn Flour Recipes Ranked All-Time Best

What is Einkorn Flour? Ultimate Guide With Recipes

Einkorn Cinnamon Roll Muffins

Einkorn Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

Honey-Sweetened Applesauce Carrot Cake (Einkorn Flour)

The post What is Einkorn Flour? Ultimate Guide With Recipes appeared first on Live Simply.

Why Pack a Healthy School Lunch?

School requires a lot of energy and focus. And it’s hard to have both when you’re hungry or running on nutrient-less food.

Food plays a key role in a child’s ability to focus and have the stamina to make it through the day (along with getting enough sleep at night, movement throughout the day, etc.). As a former teacher, I’ve seen the effect food (or lack thereof) can have on a child’s mood, behavior, and ability to focus. And I’m sure you have, too. This is why packing nourishing (real-food based) lunches is important.

What Does a Healthy School Lunch Look Like?

Everyone has an opinion about what’s “healthy.” So how do we determine what’s “healthy” and what’s not?

Knowing what’s healthy is very easy when we look at how healthy people for generations (before the age of ultra-processed food) prepared and consumed foods. Here’s what real, traditional food looks like.

• Grass Fed, Pastured Meats: Animals that have been raised and fed as they were intended when created, with grass underneath and the sun overhead. We use all parts of the animal, including the bones for nourishing broth. Chicken, beef, lamb, pork, and wild game.
• Eggs: From chickens that have been raised on pasture, roaming free with lots of sunlight.
• Fats: Naturally-occurring fats that have nourished healthy families for thousands of years, such as: butter from grass-fed cows, coconut oil, ghee, extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, tallow, and lard. Learn more about fats and oils 101.
• Grains, Nuts, and Seeds: Whole grains and minimally-processed with an emphasis on ancient grains and variety: spelt, kamut, einkorn, even whole wheat. Also, ancient practices, such as sourdough bread, if possible. Also: beans, nuts, and seeds.
• Fruits and Veggies: Preferably in season and grown as local as possible, using organic practices. Including lots of fresh herbs. Cooked, raw, and fermented. While organic produce is encouraged, I don’t always buy organic produce. I use the EWG list when shopping at the store. And if purchasing from a local farm or market, many farms aren’t “certified organic” but use organic practices.
• Dairy: Raw or pasteurized and full fat from grass-fed cows, or goats or sheep. I only recommend purchasing raw milk if you know the source and have checked out the farm for cleanliness and safety. Pasteurized milk can be found in the store. I recommend avoiding ultra-pasteurized milk, since this milk has been heated to such a high degree that it kills everything. Anytime you see the words low-fat or fat-free you know a lot of junk has been added to compensate for the loss of nourishing fat. Dairy includes: milk, cheese, cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, kefir (a fermented yogurt drink), cottage cheese.
• Salt: Real, unrefined salt that hasn’t been stripped of its nourishing minerals. I use Real Salt.
• Seafood: Raised in the wild versus a fish farm.
• Sweeteners: As close to the natural state as possible, such as: raw honey, pure maple syrup, and minimally-processed sugars. Learn more about Sweeteners 101.
• Beverages: Water and beverages made with real ingredients: tea, coffee, kombucha (a fermented tea), milk (from nuts, seeds, or dairy). For the lunchbox, water is usually the best option. If your child is obsessed with juice, wean them off by diluting juice with more and more water in a reusable water bottle.

9 Food Swap Ideas for a Healthy School Lunch

Swap 1: The Lunchable

Flip over any Lunchable next time you’re at the store and ask yourself, “Could I buy these ingredients at the store right now? Are they real ingredients?” Nope!

Your kids don’t need to forgo the Lunchable, just skip the ultra-processed one and go for a homemade Lunchable that will sustain and nourish.

Choose this instead…

• Crackers, real cheese, and sliced meat (turkey, ham, roast beef) or use shredded chicken (cook a chicken and shred the meat to use for lunches). Using silicone muffin cups will help divide your lunch container (see my favorites here) into small Lunchable-like sections.
• For a pizza lunchable, make pizza dough (sourdough or quick yeast) and cut the dough into small rounds. Bake the mini rounds for about 12-15 minutes. You can store the pizza crusts in the freezer. Pull out a few pizza crust rounds for the lunchbox and add pizza sauce and shredded mozzarella. My kids also love Applegate brand pepperoni.

Swap 2: Fruit By The Foot

Fruit By The Foot (and other similar fruit roll-up type products) are a very popular lunchbox option. Let’s take a look at the ingredients of this popular lunchbox choice…

Sugar, Maltodextrin, Corn Syrup, Pear Puree Concentrate, Palm Oil. Contains 2% or less of: Carrageenan, Citric Acid, Monoglycerides, Sodium Citrate, Acetylated Monoglycerides, Malic Acid, Xanthan Gum, Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), Locust Bean Gum, Potassium Citrate, Natural Flavor, Red 40.

Sugar, sugar, and MORE sugar with some artificial dye (listen to this podcast to learn about the concerns with artificial dye) and the mysterious “natural flavor.”

Choose this instead…

• Real fruit leather: Real fruit leather is made by pureeing fruit, then spreading the puree into a thin layer and dehydrating that layer of fruit. The end result is a delicious and naturally sweetened (thanks to the fruit) fruit leather. I love the brands BEAR and Wild Made. You can also make fruit leather.

Swap 3: Peanut Butter

Most peanut butter options are filled with additives that take this natural, real food from healthy to unhealthy (full of sugar and PUFA oils like vegetable, soybean, and sunflower oil).

Choose this instead…

• Peanut butter made with just one ingredient: peanuts. Or, go with the two ingredient option: peanuts and salt. Nothing else is needed. If you’d prefer to make your own, you can easily do that, too.

This goes for all nut and seed butters. Due to nut-free requirements at many schools, sunflower butter has become popular for school lunch. Just like with peanut butter, don’t assume a food is “healthy” or real. Always flip the jar over and read the ingredient list, no matter what the marketing on the front of the jar may tell you.

Swap 4: Jelly

Everyone loves a classic peanut butter (or sunflower seed butter, if your child attends a nut-free school) and jelly sandwich. The only real option is to make a PB& J at home (Crustables are far from a real food–read the ingredient list next time you’re at the store).

Let’s take a look at the ingredients used to make strawberry jelly….

Strawberry Juice, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Fruit Pectin, Citric Acid

Store-bought jelly is basically sugar, sugar, and MORE sugar. That’s it! This isn’t going to sustain or nourish a child. Instead, what this product will do is send a child on a sugar high and then instant crash after lunch, which makes it hard to learn and focus late in the day.

Choose this instead…

• Jam or preserves: Instead of jelly, choose jam or preserves. Jelly is made with fruit juice. Jam and preserves are made using the whole fruit which means you’re getting the fiber to help balance out the natural sugars in the fruit.
• Low sugar or fruit juice sweetened: Choose a jam or preserves made with fruit, pectin, and either fruit juice or sugar (as a sweetener). I love BioNature brand which is fruit juice sweetened to add just a touch of sweetness to the jam. You can also make your own jam. I have a very easy 10-minute recipe in Simplified School Lunch and there are many recipes online.

Swap 5: Sandwich Bread

People have been enjoying and sustaining themselves with bread for thousands of years. So why is bread suddenly evil and to be feared? Why are we suddenly having issues with gluten and bread? The answer…

There’s the way we’ve modified wheat today, the way we grow it and how we treat it, the way we strip and bleach wheat to make it more appealing, and the way bread is made today. We’ve cut major shortcuts in a process that was once very natural and beautiful in order to mass produce unhealthy bread products.

Choose this instead…

• Sourdough: Sourdough is the way our ancestors enjoyed bread for thousands of years, dating all the way back to ancient Egyptian civilizations. A true sourdough is made with flour, water, salt, possibly olive oil or butter (for a sandwich bread), and a sourdough starter (a natural yeast made from just flour and water and the bacteria in the flour and air). During the sourdough process, the wheat is predigested by the bacteria in the starter, resulting in an easy to digest, nutrient-rich food. You can buy sourdough (find a baker at a local farmer’s market or bakery in your area) or make your own.

Swap 6: Crackers

Once again, ultra-processed food companies have taken a food that was once made using real ingredients and time-honored traditions and cut major shortcuts to mass produce a crappy food product.

When it comes to the lunchbox, my kids love crackers to go along with cheese cubes, hummus, or in their homemade Lunchable. You don’t have to avoid crackers, just know what to look for.

Choose this instead…

• Crackers made with real ingredients: When looking for crackers, flip over the box and check out the ingredient list. Ask yourself, “Could I find these ingredients in the store and make this recipe at home?” If the answer is no, then put the box back. A real food option’s ingredient list will look like this: wheat flour, yeast or sourdough starter, olive oil, honey, salt. My favorite brands include Firehook, Jovial (sourdough crackers), and Simple Mills (gluten-free).
• Homemade crackers: If you’d prefer to make your own crackers, you can do that.

Swap 7: Applesauce 

Most applesauce is made with a ton of extra sugar, most of time in the form of high fructose corn syrup, which is a highly-processed food additive.

Choose this instead…

• Unsweetened applesauce: Apples are already plenty sweet, so when purchasing store-bought applesauce, choose applesauce without any extra sweeteners.
• Organic applesauce: Apples are one of the “dirtiest” foods year after year for pesticide use. The Dirty Dozen List from the EWG ranks apples as being the fifth “dirtiest” produce item. For this reason, I recommend choosing organic applesauce when possible.
• Homemade applesauce: Make your own applesauce when apples are in season. Try this Instant Pot recipe or this slow-cooker recipe.
• Apples: Another option is to skip the applesauce and pack sliced apples in the lunchbox. Toss the apples with lemon juice or cinnamon to prevent them from browning at school.

Swap 8: Flavored Yogurt 

Flavored Yogurt Ingredients: cultured pasteurized grade A nonfat milk and milk, sugar, strawberries, blueberries, water, red raspberries, blackberry puree, modified food starch, pectin, carrageenan, natural flavors, elderberry juice concentrate (color), citric acid, vitamin A palmitate and vitamin D3

Flavored yogurts might sound healthy (I mean, who doesn’t want berry flavored probiotics in a cup?), but they’re usually loaded with sugars (over 25 grams per serving), natural flavors (that mystery ingredient), and sometimes even artificial colorings, preservatives, and synthetic vitamins (difficult for the body to use). The one above contains fruit, but many don’t even contain fruit despite being labeled as a “strawberry” yogurt. This includes yogurt cups and popular yogurt sticks/tubes.

Choose this instead…

• Plain yogurt: Purchase plain yogurt and flavor it with honey, maple syrup, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and/or fruits (frozen fruit will melt and create a fruit-on-the-bottom consistency). I recommend whole milk yogurt or you can make your own.
• Dairy-Free plain yogurt: Look for plain yogurt with ingredients you could purchase from the store and use in your kitchen. Many of the plant-based yogurts contain an ingredient list that rivals the ultra-processed foods. Just because it’s plant-based doesn’t mean it’s made with real ingredients.
• Make your own yogurt sticks/tubes: If your kids love yogurt sticks/tubes, you can make your own with simple and nourishing ingredients. Check out my recipe here.

Swap 9: Ranch Dip

There’s something so magical about ranch dip. It can turn a veggie-hater into a veggie-tolerator. While that’s amazing, the ingredients used to make this popular “kid dip” aren’t so amazing or even real. Let’s take a look…

Vegetable oil (soybean and/or canola), water, egg yolk, sugar, salt, cultured nonfat buttermilk, natural flavors (soy), less than 1% of: spices (mustard), dried garlic, dried onion, vinegar, phosphoric acid, xanthan gum, modified food starch, monosodium glutamate, artificial flavors, disodium phosphate, sorbic acid and calcium disodium edta as preservatives, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate

Vegetable oil? Natural flavors? Modified food starch? MSG? No thank you!

Choose this instead…

• Homemade ranch: Not only is homemade ranch actually good for you, it also tastes amazing! This is one of the most-loved recipes on the blog because it’s loved by the whole family, both kids and adults.

The post 9 Food Swap Ideas for a Healthy School Lunch appeared first on Live Simply.

My Go-To Pantry Staples

When it comes to pantry ingredients, I like to think about what will make multiple meals. This is one reason why I recommend keeping a list of go-to meals and repeating them often. I’ll provide you with my list of go-to breakfast ideas in a minute. With meals on rotation, you can stock your pantry in an intentional way according to your needs.

First, let’s talk about ingredients to stock in your pantry (dry pantry, fridge, and freezer) that will make a variety of breakfasts, along with dinners, snacks, and lunches:

• beans and lentils
• rice
• whole chicken and chicken thighs (love TrailBale Farm locally, find a local farm in your area at eatwild.com)
• frozen and fresh veggies and fruit
• leafy greens (including the tops of carrots and beets which are edible)
• fresh herbs (now is a good time to grow a few of your own) and dried herbs
• garlic
• onions
• canned tomatoes (I like Jovial brand)
• pasta (again, partial to Jovial—just love their pantry items like tomatoes and pasta)
• broth (I love Kettle & Fire Bone Broth and Bonafide Provisions and homemade)
• flour (einkorn, spelt, and wheat)
• tortillas (I like Siete Family Foods, Rudis Organic, or homemade)
• tuna
• oats
• butter
• extra virgin olive oil
• cheese (always parmesan in block form and a cheddar)
• milk of some sort or nuts to make milk if I can’t get dairy milk (learn more about real food dairy here)
• salt (I buy a large 10lb tub of Redmond salt and it lasts forever)
• honey or maple syrup (preferably both)
• eggs (love Trailbale Farm locally)
• ground beef (love Providence Cattle Company locally)
• bacon
• bread

My Go-To Pantry Breakfast Ideas

As I mentioned, I keep a list of rotational breakfast ideas. This list makes meal planning easy and quick and also makes it easy to stock common pantry ingredients. Plus, there’s a serious money-saving advantage to doing this.

I also use daily repeated themes to keep meal planning simple. I repeat these themes for at least a month or two. Within these themes there is a lot of variety that may be planned using my list of recipes/ideas (I keep breakfast ideas and dinner ideas on one list). Here are some theme ideas. Choose a theme for each day (or repeat a theme a few times in a week). Keep these themes going for a month or longer. Each week, sit down and plug in specific recipes to that day’s theme. Meal planning made easy!

• Oatmeal Theme: A broad theme that includes anything oat-based (traditional oatmeal, overnight oats, baked oatmeal, breakfast cookies, oatmeal cups, etc.)
• Egg Theme: A broad theme that includes anything made with eggs
• Smoothie Theme: Any smoothie
• Casserole Theme: Anything casserole related such as: egg casserole, French toast casserole, oatmeal casserole
• Muffin Theme: Any muffin, from savory to sweet muffins
• Breakfast Bread Theme: quick breads, toast, fancy toasts like avocado toast
• Yogurt Bar Theme: Yogurt with a variety of toppings (granola, seasonal fruit, nuts/seeds, chia jam, etc.)
• Granola Theme: Any granola served with milk or yogurt
• Pancake Theme: Any variety of pancakes
• Waffle Theme: Any variety of waffles
• French Toast Theme: Any variety of pancakes, from a baked French Toast to sticks to traditional French Toast
• Hash Theme: Any variety of hash made with veggies, meats, and/or eggs
• Scrambled Theme: Scrambled eggs made in a variety of ways with mix-ins like bacon, sausage, salsa, or veggies
• Omelet Theme: Any omelet
• Breakfast Cookie Theme: Any breakfast cookie
• Frittata Theme: Any frittata
• Egg Cup Theme: Any egg cup (like an egg muffin)
• Porridge Theme: Any warm porridge-like breakfast, such as warm oatmeal, millet, einkorn, or quinoa bowls mixed with a variety of toppings from fruit to nuts and seeds to honey or maple syrup
• Breakfast Taco Theme: Make breakfast tacos in a variety of ways using roasted veggies (hash), eggs, sausage or bacon, and toppings (salsa, sliced avocado, fermented veggies)
• Cold Cereal Theme: There are companies making cereal with real ingredients (like One Degree brand). This is a fun theme that I occasionally add to our schedule. The kids love it when this theme is included in our month’s rotation. If you don’t want to use store-bought cereal, granola is a nice substitution.
• Soup Theme: Yes, unusual but can be a nourishing breakfast theme and option.

Pantry Breakfast Ideas

Now let’s talk specifically about breakfast ideas using pantry staples. Below, I’m breaking down in a pantry staple-by-staple format various recipes you can make with my core pantry ingredients.

Oats

Oats are one of the most versatile ingredients in my pantry. Oats contain phytic acid which makes them hard to digest. To break down the phytic acid, you can soak the oats overnight to make them easier to digest. I love sprouted oats from One Degree as there isn’t a need to soak them overnight. That said, if you can’t find sprouted oats, don’t stress about it. You can use oats whole or grind them up to make oat flour for baked goods.

• Warm Oatmeal: If you’re using sprouted oats (One Degree brand), you don’t need to soak the oatmeal overnight as called for in this recipe.
• Overnight Oats
• Baked Oatmeal
• Breakfast Cookies
• Oatmeal Cups
• Granola: This is a master recipe so you can use it to make multiple granola variations.
• Almond-Oat Pancakes
• Oat Waffles

Eggs

Eggs are a nutritional powerhouse and inexpensive when you factor in how many meals you can make with just a dozen eggs. When it comes to buying eggs, look for pastured eggs (meaning eggs from chickens raised on pasture) and avoid vegetarian eggs. Chickens eat bugs and all sorts of other “non-vegetarian” foods. Pasture-raised is the key importance here, even over organic. I go through a dozen eggs a week, sourced from a local farm. If you’d like to find local eggs in your area, check out Eatwild.com.

Most egg dishes may be prepped in advance. Of course, there’s no need to do this for scrambled eggs or fried eggs but for a frittata or quiche, which require spending more time in the kitchen, you may want to make the recipe on the weekend and enjoy the leftovers for a few breakfasts early in the week.

• Frittata: This frittata recipe calls for specific veggies, like mushrooms, but you can sub in any variety of veggies: try cherry tomatoes or chopped zucchini. If you don’t have bacon, no worries, skip it. A frittata is a super versatile dish so experiment with what you have on hand.
• Avocado and Egg Toast: One of my favorite easy breakfasts. Cook an egg, mash an avocado, toast up some bread and you have an amazing breakfast.
• Egg Burritos: This is a great make-ahead recipe or try a “loaded” egg burrito. Feel free to use a variety of veggies and/or leafy greens with these burritos.
• Scrambled Eggs: Basic but essential and a staple in our home. Add some fresh herbs, leafy greens, or cheese while cooking for something extra. Or, load up scrambled eggs on toast or focaccia for an egg sandwich.
• Egg Muffins: Think egg omelet meets muffins. Use a variety of veggies or leafy greens to make these muffins.
• Traditional Omelette
• Breakfast Casserole: A hearty casserole you can make on the weekend and enjoy later as a “cook once, eat twice” breakfast.
• Soft or Hardboiled Eggs
• Breakfast Sandwiches: I just made a bunch of these with homemade sourdough English muffins. They’re perfect for the freezer and a morning breakfast that doesn’t involve messing up the kitchen.
• Herb & Zucchini Egg Bake
• French Toast: If you want plain French Toast, just skip the banana in this recipe.
• “Fried” Eggs: I shared how to cook the perfect “fried” egg in this Instagram Story tutorial.
• Breakfast Tacos: Scramble eggs, add sautéed veggies and/or bacon, top with salsa, cheese, cilantro, sour cream, whatever you like.
• Breakfast Quesadillas

Flour

Flour is a staple that will make a multitude of foods: bread, pizza, cornbread, tortillas, biscuits, and more. I recommend creating a sourdough starter (using flour and water), which you can use to make sourdough bread, waffles, focaccia (for an amazing breakfast sandwich with some scrambled eggs), muffins, English muffins, and more. My favorite flours to keep on hand: einkorn, spelt, all-purpose flour, whole wheat, cornmeal, and almond flour.

• Biscuits
• Make a Sourdough Starter
• Sourdough Bread
• Sourdough Muffins
• Tortillas: (einkorn) Make breakfast tacos with scrambled eggs, bacon, sautéed veggies, cheese, salsa–whatever you want.
• Pancakes(einkorn)
• Almond-Oat Pancakes (almond flour and oats)
• Waffles (einkorn)
• Gluten-Free Waffles (almond flour)
• Almond Flour Banana Bread (almond flour)
• Master Muffin Recipe (einkorn)
• Blueberry Muffins (almond flour)
• Carrot Cake Muffins (almond flour)

Bread

As I mentioned above, you can use flour to make a sourdough starter and this will give you years worth of bread. A sourdough starter is a natural yeast and the way people made bread for many generations. A sourdough starter is a living organism, full of good bacteria, that makes grains (including grains that contain the gluten protein) easier to digest. I think most of the issues we see today with gluten sensitives is due to the type of bread (and other highly processed foods) we consume. That said, bread is a wholesome, nourishing ingredient to add to the breakfast table, particularly when it’s made in the traditional way (sourdough).

• Eggs in a Hole
• French Toast Casserole
• French Toast: If you want plain French toast, just don’t include the banana in this recipe.
• Avocado Toast
• Toast Ideas
• Bacon, Egg, Cheese Sandwiches: Toast sourdough or your favorite bread, scramble an egg or two and top with some shredded or sliced cheese. Add a few avocado or tomato slices or sprouts if you’re feeling extra.

Yogurt

Yogurt is a cultured, fermented food that’s made from milk and good bacteria (cultures) that are added to the milk. Purchase plain yogurt and flavor it yourself with honey, maple syrup, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and/or fruits (frozen fruit will melt and create a fruit-on-the-bottom consistency similar to what you’ll find in the store). I like Stonyfield, Organic Valley, and Maple Hill Creamery brands. I recommend whole milk yogurt or you can make your own.

If you’re dairy-free, look for plain yogurt with ingredients you could purchase from the store and use in your kitchen. Many of the plant-based yogurts contain an ingredient list that rivals the ultra-processed foods. Just because it’s plant-based or probiotic-rich (all yogurt should be probiotic rich since it’s a fermented/cultured food and contains live bacteria) doesn’t mean it’s made with real ingredients.

• Yogurt Bar: Set out a variety of ingredients for a DIY yogurt bar. This is a great one for the kids and the whole family.
• Make-Ahead Fruit & Yogurt Cups
• Yogurt Sticks
• Yogurt and Granola 
• Yogurt and Seasonal Fruit or Frozen Fruit 
• Add a fruit compote to your yogurt 

Leafy Greens

Leafy greens include lettuce and spinach, but I’m also talking about the more obscure greens that we might otherwise toss, like the greens on top of beets and carrots or Swiss Chard or bok choy or cabbages. When it comes to breakfast, leafy greens can be added to omelettes (just sauté the greens first), topped on toast (like an avocado toast with some sprouts or arugula) or added to a breakfast casserole or frittata or egg muffins.

• Pesto Omelette: Blend up carrot tops (the leafy green tops of carrots), radish tops (the leafy tops of radishes), pea shoots, kale, or spinach with nuts, parmesan cheese, lemon juice, salt, and olive oil. Make an omelette and add a tablespoon of pesto and some cheese. Add some sautéed veggies if you want as well. Here’s a good recipe just for the method. Use pesto for dinner another night (a pasta night or in place of tomato sauce on pizza) or as a sandwich spread or drizzle over roasted veggies or meat.
• Omelette Cups: The recipe calls for spinach, but you can add any chopped green. Swiss Chard or kale work well.
• Breakfast Hash
• Frittata: Use a variety of greens to make this egg dish.
• Smoothies: Add kale, spinach, carrot tops, sprouts, or even lettuce to a smoothie.
• Leafy Green Omelette: Sauté any leafy green (spinach, kale, Swiss Chard) with some veggies (tomatoes, zucchini, onion–anything like that). Then make an omelette and add the sautéed greens and veg along with cheese as the omelette filling.
• Avocado Toast: I love the spicy addition of arugula on avocado toast with an egg.
• Egg and Sausage Breakfast Casserole: This recipe calls for spinach, but yet again you can use whatever leafy green (such as kale or Swiss Chard) that you have on hand.
• Sautéed Greens: Add sautéed greens to side of eggs.

Fresh Herbs

Fresh herbs aren’t something I would buy just for breakfast, but they are an all-around amazing ingredient to keep in the fridge. When stored properly, they’ll keep in the fridge for weeks. I love to use fresh herbs on breakfast meals. Here are a few ideas.

• Mint: Sprinkle chopped mint on top of yogurt with fruit and granola, or just sprinkle on top of fruit for a fruit salad medley. So refreshing!
• Cilantro: Add to a breakfast taco or burrito or top on eggs.
• Parsley: Chop and add to an omelette or top on scrambled or fried eggs.
• Rosemary: A favorite addition to a frittata or breakfast casserole. Whisk the herb with the egg mixture, then pour over veggies and bake. The rosemary adds just the right touch of extra flavor to a dish like this.

Veggies

I always have veggies in my fridge. From October to May, most of the veggies come from local farms via the farmers market. Learning how to cook a few basic meals that can include a variety of veggies has been key to being able to pick up anything and use it to make nourishing meals. For example, hash is a breakfast that can be made with a wide variety of veggies: white potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, bell peppers, onions, etc. Just roast or sauté the veggies with some oil and salt (or add chopped bacon as well) until soft and crisp. Serve with eggs. Here are some of my favorite ways to use veggies to make breakfast meals.

• Hash: Try this baked hash with eggs (use sweet potatoes or white potatoes) or this sausage and sweet potato hash.
• Avocado Toast
• Add to Smoothies: Sure, most of us picture smoothies as fruit-heavy drinks, but they can also include veggies. Freeze steamed zucchini, steamed cauliflower, steamed butternut squash or carrot chunks or beets, or raw avocado chunks and add to smoothies. Here are some veggie smoothie ideas. I also love this beet smoothie.
• Frittata: Use any variety of veggies to make this veggie-heavy egg dish.
• Sweet Potatoes: The best roasted sweet potatoes! I love to enjoy these for breakfast, topped with nut butter, cinnamon, and banana slices. So good!
• Omelette Cups: Use any variety of veggies in omelette cups. Sauté peppers, broccoli, bacon, zucchini, onions–so many options. Add some cheese, if you want, and salt and pepper. Then bake.
• Muffins: Stir shredded zucchini or carrots into this muffin batter or try this gluten-free carrot cake recipe.
• Spinach Pancakes

Fresh or Frozen Fruit 

Fresh and frozen fruit is another staple to keep stocked for breakfast and snacking. I try to stick with seasonal produce, which is easy to spot even in the grocery store because seasonal produce (what’s currently growing and being harvested nearest to you) is generally on sale. For example, strawberries, when in season, will cost $3-5 for a container (in our area), but out-of-season (when they’re shipped from very far away), they’ll cost $7+. Now, there are some things that won’t ever be seasonal to my area, such as apples and pears. We just do the best we can and outsource as needed.

• Oatmeal: There are so many ways to add fruit to oatmeal. Try this Triple Berry Oatmeal Bowl, or this banana oatmeal, or this apple-cinnamon oatmeal.
• Yogurt Bar: Set out a variety of ingredients for a DIY yogurt bar.
• Make-Ahead Fruit & Yogurt Cups
• Yogurt Sticks
• Baked Pears: A delicious way to enjoy pears for breakfast when they’re in season. Pair with yogurt and/or granola.
• Baked Apples: Pair with yogurt for a delicious breakfast.
• Yogurt with Seasonal Fruit or Frozen Fruit
• Add a fruit compote to your yogurt 
• Chia Pudding with Berries
• Muffins: Use this base recipe to stir in any variety of fruit: strawberries, blueberries, or chopped apples.
• Pancakes: Top your pancakes (or waffles) with fruit or fruit compote or add fruit to your pancake batter (like these blueberry pancakes)–just be sure to chop up large pieces of fruit into smaller pieces.
• Baked Oatmeal: Add blueberries, chopped apples, or even sliced bananas.
• Overnight Oats: Add any variety of frozen or fresh fruit.

Bacon

Bacon gets a bad rap as an unhealthy food, but bacon is just another cut of the pig. When it comes to bacon, I recommend sourcing from a farm (large or small) that raises pigs on pasture, as they were intended. Niman Ranch is a great brand found in the store. Bacon can be enjoyed once cooked and eaten as-is or just use a few strips (chopped) as flavoring to make an egg dish or a hash. I keep a few bags of bacon in my freezer (usually from a local farm or Butcher)

• Oven-Baked Bacon: When making strips of bacon to enjoy as-is, I prefer the oven method.
• Frittata: Bacon can add amazing flavor to a frittata. You only need a couple of slices for this dish.
• Omelette Cups
• Bacon’n’Egg Bundles: Eggs baked in a bacon crust. This recipe calls for using a lot of eggs and bacon. You can reduce the recipe for a family-size version.
• Bacon, Egg, Cheese Sandwiches: Toast up sourdough or your favorite bread, scramble an egg or two and top with some shredded or sliced cheese. Add a few avocado slices or tomato or sprouts if you’re feeling extra. You can also do this with homemade biscuits or English Muffins.
• Breakfast Tacos: scramble eggs and cook bacon, top with salsa, cheese, cilantro, sour cream–whatever you like.

Tortillas

Tortillas are a staple always found in my freezer. I like Siete brand, Rudi’s Organic brand, or homemade tortillas. Tortillas can be used to make breakfast, lunch, or dinner meals.

• Breakfast Burritos: Try this make-ahead sausage and cheese option or this loaded sheet pan option.
• Breakfast Tacos: Scramble eggs, add sautéed veggies if desired or bacon, top with salsa, cheese, cilantro, sour cream–whatever you like.
• Breakfast Quesadillas: I usually skip the beans.

Milk (yogurt)

Milk is a staple used to make many different dishes, from waffles to pancakes to biscuits. If I can’t find dairy milk (read more about what to look for when buying dairy), I’ll make my own with nuts (almonds and cashews are my preferred choices, but sunflower and pumpkin seeds also work.)

Cheese

Now, I’m not talking about a processed cheese product. What I am talking about is real cheese. This means cheese that is produced with real milk or cream through a culturing/fermentation process. Fake cheese is usually labeled as a “cheese product” and has a long ingredient list, such as: cheddar cheese, whey, water, protein concentrate, milk, sodium citrate, calcium phosphate, milkfat, gelatin, salt, sodium phosphate, lactic acid (as a preservative), annatto and paprika extract (for color), enzymes, Vitamin A palmitate, cheese culture, and Vitamin D3. Real cheese is made with, for example, just: milk, rennet, enzymes, salt.

I prefer to purchase cheese in block form and shred or slice it myself. I find this to be the most economical and versatile way to buy and use cheese. I keep parmesan cheese and cheddar on hand the majority of the time along with goat cheese for snacking.

• Shred on Eggs: Top your eggs with cheese or stir into scrambled eggs.
• Tacos: Make breakfast tacos (scrambled eggs and toppings of choice on a tortilla) and top with cheese
• Frittata: Add cheese to your frittata during the last few minutes of cooking.
• On the Side: When we were France last year, I had cheese every morning on the side of fruit, roasted tomatoes, eggs, hazelnuts, and a croissant. Serve a few slices of cheese on the side of your breakfast. Bon appétit!
• Omelette: Cheese is what makes an omelette amazing. Sprinkle in some feta or shred some parmesan or cheddar during the last few minutes of cooking.
• Egg and Sausage Breakfast Casserole: This recipe calls for spinach, but yet again you can use whatever leafy green (such as kale or Swiss Chard) that you have on hand.
• Bacon, Egg, Cheese Sandwiches: Toast up sourdough or your favorite bread, scramble an egg or two and top with some shredded or sliced cheese. Add a few avocado slices or tomato or sprouts if you’re feeling extra. You can also do this with homemade biscuits or English Muffins.

Butter

Butter is another staple to have on hand for making a wide variety of recipes, from sautéing veggies to making biscuits and cooking eggs. I even blend butter in my coffee every morning (using a blender).

The post Pantry Breakfast Ideas: What to Stock and Make From Your Pantry appeared first on Live Simply.

In the past two weeks, the world has changed significantly. If you’re reading this post in 2021 (or later), you’re probably curious about what’s happening, so let me bring you up to date: a virus called COVID-19 has spread around the world, shutting down entire countries, economies, making everyone buy all the toilet paper (no idea why toilet paper became the must-have necessity) and forcing people to self-isolate in their homes.

Of course, this means most of us are now looking for ideas on what to make with basic pantry staples. Today, I’m going to break down pantry dinner ideas for you. We’re going to talk about easy meals you can make with a few essential pantry ingredients.

My Go-To Pantry Staples

When it comes to pantry ingredients, I like to think in terms of what can be used to make multiple meals. This is one reason why I recommend keeping a list of go-to dinners and repeating these meals often. I’ll provide you with my list in a minute.

First, let’s talk about ingredients to stock in your pantry (dry pantry, fridge, and freezer) that will make a variety of dinners, along with breakfasts, snacks, and lunches:

• beans and lentils
• rice
• whole chicken and chicken thighs (love TrailBale Farm locally, find a local farm in your area at eatwild.com)
• frozen and fresh veggies and fruit
• leafy greens (including the tops of carrots and beets which are edible)
• fresh herbs (now is a good time to grow a few of your own) and dried herbs
• garlic
• onions
• canned tomatoes (I like Jovial brand)
• pasta (again, partial to Jovial—just love their pantry items like tomatoes and pasta)
• broth (I love Kettle & Fire Bone Broth and Bonafide Provisions and homemade)
• flour (einkorn, spelt, and wheat)
• tortillas (I like Siete Family Foods, Rudis Organic, or homemade)
• tuna
• oats
• butter
• extra virgin olive oil
• cheese (always parmesan in block form and a cheddar)
• milk of some sort or nuts to make milk if I can’t get dairy milk (learn more about real food dairy here)
• salt (I buy a large 10lb tub of Redmond salt and it lasts forever)
• honey or maple syrup (preferably both)
• eggs (love Trailbale Farm locally)
• ground beef (love Providence Cattle Company locally)
• bacon
• bread

My Go-To Pantry Dinner Ideas

As I mentioned, I keep a list of dinners that we regularly rotate. This makes meal planning easy and quick and also makes it easy to stock common pantry ingredients on repeat. Plus, there’s a serious money-saving advantage to doing this.

Now, you may wonder, “But don’t you get bored with cooking the same meals over and over?” The answer is yes and no.

Many of the dinners on my list are easy to adapt and change based on what’s available. For example, a stir-fry can be made with a variety of vegetables. Nachos or tacos can be made with beans instead of meat and a variety of toppings may be changed up and offered. There are many different soups to make on a soup night and the same goes for a pasta night.

I also keep a list of recipes that I want to try, that also use basic pantry ingredients. I love the following cookbooks for inspiration:

• Defined Dish
• SkinnyTaste: Fast and Slow
• The Clever Cookbook
• Homemade Pantry

Here’s my list of go-to dinners:

• stir-fry
• chicken and rice
• bowl-style meals: rice or any grain (millet, quinoa, etc.), roasted veggies, protein, homemade salad dressing to drizzle over the top
• salad with homemade dressing: add a protein for a heartier meal
• roasted whole chicken and a salad or veggies
• pot roast
• chicken fajitas
• ground beef tacos
• nachos: either chicken, ground beef, or beans on top with variety of topping
• quesadillas
• soup
• pasta: anything pasta, like ziti, spaghetti and meatballs, pasta with pesto and veggies or a protein
• roasted chicken thighs with veg or a salad and/or bread or even cornbread
• casserole

Pantry Dinner Ideas

Now let’s talk specifically about dinner ideas you can make from pantry staples. Below, I’m breaking down in a pantry staple-by-staple format various recipes you can make with my core pantry ingredients.

Beans and Lentils 

Dry beans are inexpensive, last forever, and can be used a variety of ways. Once you have beans, you just need a tried-and-true way to cook them (I prefer the Instant Pot or slow-cooker) and then you can use them in many different ways. If you don’t want to go the dry bean route, canned beans are also great to keep in the pantry, or a mixture of both. I always keep chickpeas, black beans, pinto beans, and lentils in my pantry.

• Hummus (chickpeas): make a traditional hummus, add roasted beets for a pink hummus, or add fresh herbs (I love basil, mint, and/or parsley) for an herbed hummus.
• Tuscan Beans (cannellini beans): serve with a salad and a protein
• Brothy Beans (baby lima, or cannellini beans, or chickpeas): serve with a salad and a protein or on toast
• Bean and rice bowls (black or pinto beans): cook black or pinto beans, add to a bowl with rice and various toppings like salsa, guac or avocados, sliced radish, sour cream, cilantro.
• Chickpea Tuna-Like Salad (chickpeas): think a tuna salad meets chickpeas, but without the tuna.
• Chickpea Salad (chickpeas): toss together chickpeas with a few veggies and you have a delicious lunch or side for dinner.
• Crispy Chickpeas (chickpeas): bake chickpeas until crisp and then toss in salads as a crunch or enjoy as a snack.
• Bean Burritos: this particular recipe is also freezer-friendly, so make a bunch and freeze to enjoy throughout the week for lunch.
• Pinto Bean Fajitas: use black or pinto beans in this recipe, along with onions and peppers (or use a frozen pepper mix) and mushrooms, and make homemade fajitas.
• Lentil Soup
• Black Bean Soup: a recipe I hope to share soon for the Instant Pot. You can also try this one for the slow-cooker.
• Spiced Chickpea Stew
• Lentil Tacos
• Nachos
• One Pan Chicken and Rice with Chickpeas and Chard

Rice

I usually stock both brown and white rice in my pantry. Both have their place. For brown rice, I prefer to soak the rice overnight in water to make it easier to digest, then drain and use to prepare a meal. For white rice, I just rinse and use to make a meal since it’s easier to digest. I prefer jasmine and long grain rice. For brown rice, I like to use the Instant Pot to cook the rice. For white rice, the stove-top is quick and easy or the Instant Pot.

• Bowl-Style Meals: cook rice (or use old rice from the fridge), roast up veggies, and prepare a protein (beans, chicken, fish, meatballs, steak), add a homemade sauce (like vinaigrette dressing or pesto). Combine the ingredients in a bowl for a bowl-style meal.
• Instant Pot Chicken and Rice
• Chicken and Rice Soup
• Stir-Fry
• Vegetarian Fried Rice 
• Veggie Fried Rice 
• Italian Spinach and Chicken Casserole
• One-Pan Chicken and Rice with Spinach
• One Pan Chicken and Rice with Chickpeas and Chard
• Roast Salmon with Fresh Herbs and Coconut Rice

Whole Chicken

A whole chicken is the most budget-friendly, versatile meat you can buy, in my opinion. With one whole chicken, you can make enough meat to stretch multiple meals and 12 cups of chicken broth with the bones. Stock a couple of whole chickens in your freezer and you’ll always have the availability to make multiple meals.

• Cook a Whole Chicken: roast up a whole chicken, or if you want to reduce the time and create the crispiest skin use the spatchcock method, or use the slow-cooker approach or Instant Pot. Serve the chicken for dinner or lunch, or shred the meat and store in the fridge or freezer to make multiple meals.
• Quesadillas: add cooked and shredded chicken to quesadillas.
• Nachos
• Fried Rice
• Sandwich Meat: add the shredded meat to bread to make a sandwich in place of deli meat.
• Chicken Salad: serve on bread, in a tortilla as a wrap, on a salad, with crackers. Try this deli-style recipe or this sour cream and dill recipe or this curry chicken salad.
• Salad: add shredded chicken to any green salad.
• Chicken Noodle Soup
• Chicken Pot Pie
• Stir-Fry: Instead of using chicken breasts, add leftover cooked chicken during the last few minutes of cooking.
• Italian Spinach and Chicken Casserole

Frozen or Fresh Veggies 

Along with seasonal veggies, I always keep carrots, celery, onion, and garlic in the fridge since these ingredients are used in multiple ways to make various meals.

• Roast: roast up a tray of whatever veggies you have on hand to serve with dinner or go with roasted tomatoes and add them to pasta or top or crusty bread.
• Veggie Hummus: add a roasted beet to your homemade hummus or a couple of roasted carrots.
• Baba Ganoush: put your eggplant to use in this tasty Middle Eastern dip.
• Slaw: a great way to use cabbage (a long-lasting veggie), serve with tacos, nachos, or as a salad. During the winter, try this winter-veggie slaw.
• Salsa: use tomatoes to make this fermented salsa.
• Veggie Spaghetti Sauce
• Add to Smoothies: freeze steamed zucchini, steamed cauliflower, steamed butternut squash or carrot chunks or beets, or raw avocado chunks and add to smoothies. Here are some veggie smoothie ideas.
• Fried Rice
• Veggie Fried Rice: use cauliflower and broccoli in this fried rice recipe.
• Chicken and Veggie Fajitas: use peppers and onions and fresh tomatoes to make a fajita dinner and homemade salsa.
• Veggie Fajitas: use peppers and onions and mushrooms and beans to make vegetarian fajitas.
• Blended Veggie Soup: roast up veggies on a sheet pan and blend with broth to make a soup.
• Tomato Soup: a roasted veggie soup made with tomatoes and peppers and onions. Serve along side grilled cheese.
• Soup: make a variety of chunky soups or creamed soups.
• Hash: make a hash for breakfast with sweet potatoes and peppers and sausage or use white potatoes and spinach and eggs.
• Make a Sheet Pan Meal: sheet pan meals combine meat and veggies all on one sheet pan to make a meal. Try this meatloaf meal with ground beef and potatoes and spinach or this meal with potatoes and spinach and chicken or this salmon and veggies meal.
• Pork Cabbage Dumplings: one of my favorite ways to use cabbage.
• Frittata: use any variety of veggies to make this veggie-loaded egg dish.
• Sweet Potatoes: the best roasted sweet potatoes and you can use this same method to make amazing baked white potatoes.
• Veggie Fries: cut carrots, parsnips, or any potato into strips and then roast with olive oil and salt at 425F until crisp.
• Zucchini Boats: stuff zucchini for a tasty meal.
• Nachos: the veggies are more of the topping here, but I love to make ground beef, chicken, or bean nachos (just add the cooked protein to the tortilla chips and top with cheese then broil until the cheese melts) and then top with veggies like radish slices, lettuce, green onions, red onions, and avocado slices.
• Summer Vegetable Casserole: made with zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, and basil.
• Zucchini Lasagna: This is a bit labor-intensive, but it’s so good! Use zucchini as the noodles in this lasagna. This is a good one to make on a slow weekend.

Leafy Greens

Leafy greens include lettuce and spinach, but I’m also talking about the more obscure greens that we might otherwise toss, like the greens on top of beets and carrots or Swiss Chard or bok choy or cabbages.

• Salad: use a variety of greens, even fresh herbs in a salad.
• Sauté: sauté beet greens (the leafy tops of beets), Swiss chard, bok choy, baby spinach or kale with some olive oil, salt, and garlic. Squeeze lemon over the top if they taste bitter and top with parmesan cheese (if desired).
• Egg Muffins: add baby spinach (or kale, Swiss chard or beet greens) to an egg mixture to make egg “muffins.”
• Frittata: use a variety of greens to make this egg dish.
• Pesto: Blend up carrot tops (the leafy green tops of carrots), radish tops (the leafy tops of radishes), pea shoots, kale, or spinach with nuts, parmesan cheese, lemon juice, salt, and olive oil to make a pesto to toss with pasta or top on bread or use as a pasta sauce.
• Smoothies: add kale, spinach, carrot tops, or even lettuce to a smoothie.
• Stir-Fry: add leafy greens at the end when cooking a stir-fry, just chop first.
• Hash: add leafy greens at the end of cooking a hash.
• Soup: during the last few minutes of cooking, stir in chopped leafy greens of choice.
• Quesadillas: add spinach, kale, or even Swiss Chard to a cheesy quesadilla.
• Enchiladas: this recipe is for chicken enchiladas, but you can use the recipe to make a variety of fillings. Sauté veggies like zucchini and greens or sweet potatoes and beans.
• One Pan Chicken and Rice with Chickpeas and Chard
• One-Pan Chicken and Rice with Spinach

Herbs

Herbs bring a meal to life. With their bold and rustic flavors, they can transform a salad from okay to AMAZING and turn ordinary chicken thighs into a fragrant and delicious dinner. I like to keep a handful of dried herbs on hand and a few fresh herbs: cilantro, basil (which is very seasonal so with the appropriate season), and parsley. Learn how to store herbs here.

• Pizza Sauce (dried herbs): make homemade pizza sauce to go with homemade pizza dough. Mix together: 2 cups crushed tomatoes, 2 tsp oregano, 1 tsp basil, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp onion powder, salt and pepper to taste.
• Chimichurri Sauce (fresh herbs): use to marinate fish, chicken, serve over a steak or a different protein. You can also use carrot tops (the tops of carrots) to make this sauce.
• Make Broth (fresh herbs): add to a slow-cooker or Instant Pot, along with water and chicken bones and/or veggies to make broth/stock for soups.
• Toss in Salads (fresh or dried herbs): chop up any fresh herbs (mint, parsley, basil, etc.) and add to a salad or add a few sprinkles of dried herbs.
• Vinaigrette (fresh or dried herbs): add herbs to a homemade vinaigrette
• Pesto (fresh herbs)
• Ranch Dressing (dried herbs)
• Toss in Soups (fresh or dried herbs): add flavor to any soup by adding a sprig of thyme or rosemary or some chopped parsley or basil or even cilantro. Of course, many soups call for dried herbs as well.
• Hummus: add herbs to homemade hummus to make an herbed hummus.
• Frittata: herbs paired with eggs = a delicious dinner!
• Roast Salmon with Fresh Herbs

Canned Tomatoes

I always keep several jars of canned tomatoes stocked in my pantry along with tomato paste. Crushed and diced tomatoes are my favorite and what I find to be the most versatile when making meals.

• Chili
• Pizza Sauce: make homemade pizza sauce to go with homemade pizza dough. Mix together: 2 cups crushed tomatoes, 2 tsp oregano, 1 tsp basil, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp onion powder, salt and pepper to taste.
• Spaghetti Sauce (Bolognese Style)
• Shakshuka
• Enchilada Sauce (tomato paste)
• Veggie Spaghetti 
• Spaghetti and Meatballs: make the sauce and meatballs on the stove-top or in the Instant Pot.
• Sloppy Joes
• Italian Spinach and Chicken Casserole

Pasta 

Oh pasta, so many ways to use thee. I keep a handful of pastas in the pantry: spaghetti, elbow, penne, and lasagna noodles. My favorite is Jovial Foods brand, the brown rice pasta in particular.

• Mix with Pesto 
• Serve with Spaghetti Sauce and Meatballs: make the sauce and meatballs on the stove-top or in the Instant Pot.
• Homemade Fettuccini Alfredo 
• Mac and Cheese: make mac and cheese on the stove-top or in the Instant Pot.
• Pasta Salad 
• Baked Ziti with Roasted Veggies 
• Ziti with Meat
• Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup (Spaghetti Noodles)
• Pan Roasted Cauliflower Pasta

Broth/Stock 

Broth/stock is a nourishing liquid made by simmering veggies and bones (chicken, beef, etc.). The liquid may be used to make soups, cook rice, make enchilada sauce, or even just sip for a nutrient-rich drink. Broth/stock is easy to make (find my chicken recipe and beef recipe). I also like to keep boxes (or bags) of store-bought broth in the pantry and freezer. My favorite brands, include: Bonafide Provisions (in the freezer section) and Kettle & Fire (in the dry goods section).

• Instant Pot Chicken Noodle Soup
• Tomato Soup
• Chicken and Rice Soup
• Leek and Potato Soup
• Tuscan White Bean Soup
• Sausage, Kale, White Bean Soup
• Fall Vegetable Soup
• Turmeric Chicken Pot Pie Soup
• Garden Minestrone Soup
• Lentil Soup
• Broccoli Cheese Soup
• Loaded Cauliflower-Baked Potato Soup
• Chicken and Quinoa Taco Soup
• Creamed Roasted Butternut Squash

Flour 

Flour is a staple that will make a multitude of foods: bread, pizza, cornbread, tortillas, biscuits. I highly recommend creating a sourdough starter (using flour and water), which you can use to make sourdough bread, waffles, focaccia, and more. My favorite flours to keep on hand: einkorn, spelt, all-purpose flour, whole wheat, and cornmeal.

• Cornbread
• Biscuits
• Make a Sourdough Starter
• Sourdough Bread
• Tortillas
• Corn Tortillas
• Pita Bread: a recipe I hope to get up next week.
• Pancakes
• Waffles

Tortillas

Tortillas are a staple always found in my freezer. I like Siete brand, Rudi’s Organic brand, or homemade tortillas.

• Quesadillas: so many options. Add shredded chicken and cheese, sautéed peppers, beans, or go with a classic cheese and greens. You can even make breakfast quesadillas.
• Tacos: add ground beef, chicken, or eggs to make breakfast tacos. Add lettuce, cheese, salsa, etc.
• Fajitas: add a chicken and veggie filling or bean and mushroom filling.
• Burritos: add whatever protein you want, along with rice and any toppings. Or, make breakfast-style burritos.
• Enchiladas: this recipe is for chicken enchiladas, but you can use the recipe to make a variety of fillings. Sauté veggies like zucchini and greens or sweet potatoes and beans or go with ground beef mixed with taco seasonings.
• Taquitos
• Tortilla Pizzas
• Wrap: add meat, veggies, hummus, and/or cheese to make a wrap.

Tuna

Tuna, the staple that will keep in the pantry and make multiple meals. I like Yellow Fin Tuna in olive oil and salt, if I can find it.

• Tuna Salad: make a basic tuna salad with a can of tuna, mayo, mustard, red onion (chopped), and celery (chopped). Top on bread, make a tuna melt by placing the tuna on bread, then top with cheese and melt under the broiler for a few minutes, or serve with crackers or in a tortilla to make a wrap.
• Tuna Patties
• Tuna Pasta 

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Extra virgin olive oil is what I use as the primary oil in my kitchen. I use it for roasting, making salad dressing, and drizzling over food. For high temperature cooking (such as frying), I prefer avocado oil, which is also a staple in my pantry.

• Vinaigrette Salad Dressing 
• Roasted Veggies 
• Roasted Tomatoes
• Creamed Veggie Soup: use olive oil to make a cream soup.
• Drizzle Over Bread: make toasts (and serve with cheese, tuna salad or chicken salad, top with avocado, roasted tomatoes, or enjoy as-is). To do this, drizzle bread slices with olive oil, broil until crisp, and serve.
• Homemade Focaccia
• Croutons
• Sauté/Cook Food 

Ground Beef 

Ground beef is inexpensive (compared to other cuts) and super versatile. I get a few pounds of ground beef every couple of weeks from a local farm that raises cows on pasture (grass). If you’d like to find local beef in your area, check out eatwild.com

• Meatballs: cook them in the Instant Pot or the oven.
• Burgers: Here’s a fun recipe to make, but just ground beef formed into patties and then sprinkled with salt and pepper and grilled is perfect, or try smashed burgers.
• Taquitos
• Ground Beef Tacos
• Shepherd’s Pie
• Hamburger Soup
• Meatloaf
• Mini Meatloaves
• Stuffed Peppers
• Stuffed Poblano Peppers
• Beef Mongolian Meatballs

Chicken Thighs

Chicken thighs are an inexpensive and easy-to-cook piece of meat. They’re also super forgiving in that you can slightly overcook them (you know, you forget to pull them out at exactly the right time) and they won’t taste bland and dry like chicken breasts.

• Chicken and Rice
• Chicken, Potatoes, and Spinach Sheet Pan Meal
• Crispy Chicken Thighs
• One-Pot Chicken and Veggies
• Chicken Taco Meat
• Chicken and Quinoa Taco Soup
• One-Pan Chicken and Rice with Spinach

Cheese

Now, I’m not talking about a processed cheese product. What I am talking about is real cheese. This means cheese that is produced with real milk or cream through a culturing/fermentation process. Fake cheese is usually labeled as a “cheese product” and has a long ingredient list, such as: cheddar cheese, whey, water, protein concentrate, milk, sodium citrate, calcium phosphate, milkfat, gelatin, salt, sodium phosphate, lactic acid (as a preservative), annatto and paprika extract (for color), enzymes, Vitamin A palmitate, cheese culture, and Vitamin D3. Real cheese is made with, for example, just: milk, rennet, enzymes, salt.

I prefer to purchase cheese in block form and shred or slice it myself. I find this to be the most economical and versatile way to buy and use cheese. I keep parmesan cheese and cheddar on hand the majority of the time, along with goat cheese for snacking.

• Grilled Cheese 
• Cheeseboard 
• Mac and Cheese: make it on the stove-top or in the Instant Pot.
• Cheeseburgers: grill ground beef (in pattie form) with salt and pepper then top with cheese during the last few seconds.
• Salad: I love to shave parmesan cheese slices or crumble goat or feta into a salad–trust me, add cheese to your salads!
• Top on Tacos or Fajitas 
• Tuna Melt: make a tuna melt by placing tuna salad on bread, then top with cheese and melt under the broiler for a few minutes.

Milk (or nuts to make milk)

Milk is a staple used to make many different dishes, from homemade mac and cheese to pancakes (pancakes can be dinner) to soups and biscuits to ricotta cheese. If I can’t find dairy milk (read more about what to look for when buying dairy), I’ll make my own with nuts (almonds and cashews are my preferred choices, but sunflower and pumpkin seeds also work.)

Butter

Butter is another staple to have on hand for making a wide variety of recipes, from sautéing veggies for soup to making biscuits and cornbread. I even blend butter in my coffee every morning (using a blender).

Eggs 

Eggs are another staple that make multiple meals. Eggs are also a nutritional powerhouse and inexpensive when you factor in how much you can make with just a dozen eggs.

• Frittata
• Strata
• Omelette: yes, more of a breakfast, but sometimes breakfast for dinner is the best!
• Mayonnaise: at the moment, mayonnaise is hard to find in my area so making my own is the way to go.
• Eggs in a Hole: A favorite breakfast-for-dinner meal in our house.
• Scrambled Eggs 
• Egg Hash
• Omelette Cups: yes, more of a breakfast but they work for “brinner”, too.

Bread

I always keep some sort of bread in my freezer, ready to use to make sandwiches, serve as toast, make croutons, or French Toast (just to name a few uses). I recommend sourdough bread, which you can learn more about in this post. You can also make your own sourdough bread with flour, water, salt, and a starter.

• Sandwiches 
• French Toast 
• Toast with Olive Oil: drizzle with olive oil and toast under the broiler in the oven. Serve with cheese, top with avocados or chicken or tuna salad or an egg, or roasted tomatoes.
• Croutons 
• Eggs in a Hole

Peek Inside My Fridge and Pantry

I’ve created a video tour of both my pantry and fridge, so you can see exactly what I stock and how I store this food.

• Find the fridge tour here.
• Find the pantry tour here.

The post Pantry Dinner Ideas: What to Stock and Make From Your Pantry appeared first on Live Simply.

In this episode, I’m joined by Meghan Telpner from The Academy of Culinary Nutrition. Meghan shares about navigating the grocery store, food labels, how to avoid being fooled by tricky marketing and health-washing claims and how to find the healthiest food in the store. You’re going to love this discussion and the super practical tips that Meghan shares.

What's Covered in This Episode?

• What is health-washing?
• The health-washing claims that Meghan finds to be particularly popular and concerning today
• How to avoid health-washing
• How to find the healthiest food in the grocery store
• What to avoid when buying packaged food
• Helpful labels to look for when buying food
• Are calories important?
• Meghan’s hierarchy for selecting food

• Meghan Telpner’s Website
• The Academy of Culinary Nutrition (check out her courses!)
• Meghan and Josh’s podcast: Today is The Day
• Meghan and Josh’s podcast episode about food labels
• Follow Meghan Telpner on Instagram
• Follow Meghan Telpner on Facebook
• 8 Tips to Detect Health-Washing

• 8 Tips to Detect Health-Washing (from Meghan)
• Podcast episode about food labels (from Meghan and Josh)
• What is Real Food?
• 9 Healthy Food Swaps to Help You Ditch the Processed Food
• 7 Processed Foods to Stop Buying and Start Making
• How to Read Ingredient Lists

The post Podcast 053: Navigating Food Labels and Healthy-Washing with Meghan Telpner appeared first on Live Simply.

• making small intentional swaps
• learning how to cook using real ingredients

Today, we’re going to take the small swaps one step further by talking about 7 processed foods to stop buying and start making.

Need a breakdown of what real food looks like? Head over to this post.

If we’re going to “get back to the basics,” we cannot separate cooking from the real food equation. Before ultra-processed food companies dominated the food industry (which has occurred in the last 80 years and has completely changed our food system and wrecked our health), people sourced, gathered, and cooked food.

You don’t have to give up your favorite meals or foods when making the switch from processed food to real food. Instead, think about how you can make your favorites with nourishing ingredients or source from a company (or local maker) to save you time.

My best advice for a family transitioning from processed foods to real food (like we did nearly eleven years ago) is to makeover your favorite processed foods at home. This simply means recreating the very meals and foods your family loves with REAL ingredients (AKA: ingredients great-great grandma would recognize). I realize that your time is valuable and limited.

Let’s be realistic…

I realize that your time is valuable and limited.  Today, I’m only sharing 7 foods that I believe are 100% worth the time to make from scratch. Here’s the thing, you don’t need to make all of these foods right now, particularly if you’re new to real food. Instead, choose one food at a time.  I’ve also provided recipes for each swap. The recipes are family favorites in our home, so I think your family will love them, too.

7 Foods to Stop Buying and Start Making

1. Pancakes and Waffles

I grew up eating boxed waffles (Leggo My Eggo) and making pancakes from a box. The thought of making something like pancakes and waffles from scratch was very foreign to me when I first learned about real food. I thought all pancakes and waffles must be processed foods and, therefore, “bad” foods. The truth is, ultra-processed food companies have taken something that’s an old tradition, cut corners, and turned it into a cheap product made with unnecessary ingredients. Just take a look at the ingredients used to make frozen pancakes:

Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Vitamin B1 [Thiamin Mononitrate], Vitamin B2 [Riboflavin], Folic Acid), Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Vegetable Oil (Soybean And/Or Canola), Buttermilk, Eggs, Contains 2% Or Less Of Leavening (Baking Soda, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate), Salt, Soy Lecithin. Vitamins And Minerals: Vitamin A Palmitate, Reduced Iron, Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine Hydrochloride), Vitamin B12

Instead…

Make your own pancakes or waffles. If you want to save time, double the recipe and make a big enough batch to freeze for future meals. To reheat, use the microwave, oven, toaster oven, or toaster.

Recipes to Make: 

• Almond Waffles (gluten-free)
• Einkorn Waffles
• Jovial’s Whole Grain Gluten-Free Waffles
• Almond-Oat Pancakes (gluten-free)
• Einkorn Pancakes
• Whole Wheat Pancakes

2. Chicken, Beef, or Vegetable Broth/Stock

Flip over a can of soup, broth, or condensed soup and take a look at the ingredients: hidden Monosodium Glutamate (MSG–learn more about this ingredient here), fillers, and additives. These are ingredients you don’t want to put in your body on a weekly basis, particularly since these ingredients are touted as healthy. Even (most) organic options are not made with real ingredients. Most of these options contain “natural flavor” or “natural chicken flavor” which is a red flag for hidden MSG (a flavor enhancer in food products).

Instead…

Make homemade broth/stock for soups. You can use this broth/stock to make gravies, enjoy right out of the mug, as the base for a homemade stir-fry sauce, or to cook rice. You can even make condensed cream soups (used to make many casserole recipes) using homemade broth. Here are two reasons why I recommend making your own broth:

• You can’t beat the nourishment. The mineral content and gut healing gelatin alone should be enough to make your decision.
• If the nourishment factor doesn’t get you, maybe the frugal aspect will? You will not only make the most out of a whole chicken by using the bones for broth-making, but the broth itself is much cheaper than store-bought (especially the broth made from pastured chicken).

Recipes to Make: 

• chicken broth/stock (Instant Pot method)
• chicken broth/stock (slow-cooker method)
• beef broth/stock (slow-cooker method)
• vegetable broth/stock (slow-cooker method)

What to Make with Broth/Stock: 

• soup
• stir-fry sauce
• cook rice
• condensed cream soup (for casseroles)

3. Flavored Yogurt

Flavored yogurts might sound healthy (I mean, who doesn’t want berry flavored probiotics in a cup?), but they’re usually loaded with sugars, natural flavors (a mystery ingredient that doesn’t tell you exactly what ingredients are used to make this lab-generated product), and sometimes even artificial colorings, preservatives, and synthetic vitamins (difficult for the body to digest and use). Let’s take a look at the ingredient list on a strawberry yogurt:

cultured pasteurized grade A nonfat milk and milk, sugar, strawberries, blueberries, water, red raspberries, blackberry puree, modified food starch, pectin, carrageenan, natural flavors, elderberry juice concentrate (color), citric acid, vitamin A palmitate and vitamin D3

To top this off, it’s also very hard to find whole milk (full fat) yogurt in those little flavored cup versions. Giving a child, in particular, low-fat or fat-free yogurt isn’t the best option for their growing brains and bodies. The presence of fat (which is naturally there for a reason) acts as a hormone stabilizer and helps with blood sugar regulation.

Instead…

Purchase plain yogurt and flavor it yourself with honey, maple syrup, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and/or fruits (frozen fruit will melt and create a fruit-on-the-bottom consistency). I like Stonyfield, Organic Valley, and Maple Hill Creamery brands. I recommend whole milk yogurt or you can make your own.

If you’re dairy-free, look for plain yogurt with ingredients you could purchase from the store and use in your kitchen. Many of the plant-based yogurts contain an ingredient list that rivals the ultra-processed foods. Just because it’s plant-based or probiotic-rich (all yogurt should be probiotic rich since it’s a fermented/cultured food and contains live bacteria) doesn’t mean it’s made with real ingredients.

Recipes to Make: 

• Make-Ahead Fruit and Yogurt Cups
• Homemade Instant Pot Yogurt (if you want to make your own yogurt)
• Homemade Slow-Cooker Yogurt (if you want to make your own yogurt)

4. Granola

Granola has become very popular in recent years. It’s marketed as a health food because it’s made with oats and nuts or seeds. Most options are loaded with sugar (and not just one sugar, but multiple sugars), vegetable oils (canola, soy, etc.), natural flavors (a mystery ingredient that doesn’t tell you exactly what ingredients are used to make this lab-generated product), and soy (I recommend avoiding on a daily basis particularly in the overly-processed way we consume it). Another issue to consider is that most brands use oats that have been sprayed with glyphosate (an herbicide linked to cancer, read more). Let’s take a look at the ingredients used to make a popular granola…

Whole Grain Oats, Sugar, Soy Protein Isolate, Canola Oil, Honey, Molasses, Rice Starch, Soy Lecithin, Baking Soda, Salt, Natural Flavor. Vitamin E (Mixed Tocopherols) Added To Preserve Freshness

Instead…

Make your own granola. It’s incredibly easy to do and you can make a big batch and store it in the fridge or freezer for months. Trust me, making a batch of granola only takes about 10 minutes of hands-on time. It’s 100% worth 10 minutes of your time every month or two. I like One Degree Organics for oats because they’re sprouted (easier to digest) and have been tested to be free of glyphosate.

Recipes to Make: 

• Master Granola Recipe: with this one recipe you can make different flavor combos and options.
• Sweet and Salty Granola
• Peanut Butter Granola
• Grain-Free Granola: a nut and seed based granola if you can’t consume oats.

5. Salad Dressing

I mentioned this one in the healthy food swaps post, but it’s worth repeating because salad dressing is one food that most folks associate with being “healthy.” What do people order when they go on a diet? A big salad that’s instantly sabotaged by vegetable oils and all the processed ingredients found in salad dressing. Let’s take a look at the ingredients on a vinaigrette salad dressing:

canola oil, water, balsamic vinegar, vinegar, salt, sugar, contains less than 2% of: xanthan gum, garlic, onion, potassium sorbet and calcium disodium EDTA as preservatives, caramel color, natural flavor, maltodextrin, cornstarch, paprika (color)

Instead…

Salad dressing is a beautiful food when it’s made with REAL ingredients that nourish the body. Salad dressing also helps your body digest the raw veggies found in salad thanks to the REAL fat found in the dressing. Instead of buying the bottle from the store, make your own. It only takes a few minutes to make your favorite dressing and that dressing will keep for at least a week (depending on the variety).

Recipes to Make: 

• Master Vinaigrette Dressing Recipe: Make your own custom vinaigrette with this master recipe.
• Ranch Dressing
• Blue Cheese Dressing
• Caesar Dressing
• Olive Garden Dressing
• French Dressing
• Thousand Island Dressing

6. Mac and Cheese

I’m including mac and cheese on this list because if you have kids, mac and cheese is probably a regular or popular food in your home. Mac and cheese gets a “bad food” reputation. The truth is, the ultra-processed food companies have taken a simple food and cheapened it by turning it into a chemical sh*t storm filled with nutrient-less ingredients and chemicals. Let’s take a look at a popular mac and cheese ingredient list:

Enriched Macaroni Product (Wheat Flour, Glyceryl Monostearate, Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate [Iron], Thiamin Mononitrate [Vitamin B1], Riboflavin [Vitamin B2], Folic Acid); Cheese Sauce Mix (Whey, Milk, Corn Syrup Solids, Milkfat, Palm Oil, Modified Food Starch, Milk Protein Concentrate, Salt, Maltodextrin, Contains Less Than 2% Of Calcium Carbonate, Sodium Triphosphate, Medium Chain Triglycerides, Dried Buttermilk, Sodium Phosphate, Citric Acid, Cream, Lactic Acid, Calcium Phosphate, Cheese Culture, Nonfat Dry Milk, Guar Gum, With Paprika, Turmeric, And Annatto Added For Color, Enzymes, Natural Flavor, Xanthan Gum)

Instead…

Make your own homemade mac and cheese using REAL ingredients: real cheese (a beautiful, traditional food made by fermenting milk), pasta (flour and water and maybe an egg), milk, and some salt. That’s it! Trust me, your kids will love homemade mac and cheese and you will, too. If you want the convenience of pre-made mac and cheese, freeze some in small bags, then defrost under warm water and heat with a bit of milk in a saucepan.

Recipes to Make: 

• Stove-Top Mac and Cheese
• Instant Pot Mac and Cheese
• Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese: not your traditional mac and cheese but a fun seasonal variation to try.

7. Dips Like Ranch and Hummus

Finally, let’s talk about another popular “health” food that is a staple in many homes (including mine): dips. Dips are a fun way to enjoy veggies or pack in the kids lunchbox, but most store-bought dips are once again cheap knock-offs from the homemade version. Let’s take a look at a popular store-bought ranch:

Soybean Oil, Water, Vinegar, Sugar, Egg Yolks, Salt, Buttermilk, Contains Less Than 2% Of Modified Food Starch, Garlic*, Monosodium Glutamate, Xanthan Gum, Whey, Onions*, Phosphoric Acid, Spice, Parsley*, Disodium Guanylate, Disodium Inosinate, Yeast Extract, Potassium Sorbate And Calcium Disodium Edta (To Protect Freshness)

And let’s talk about hummus. Most hummus dips are made with canola or soybean oil, both of which are heavily processed and not “healthy.” You can read more about the issue with soybean oil here.

Instead…

Make your own dips. I get it, sometimes you may be stretched for time and just need something quick from the store. If you can find a hummus that’s made with avocado oil or extra virgin olive oil, choose a store-bought option if you want to save some time. Always check out the ingredient list and don’t be fooled by marketing like plant-based, vegan, heart healthy, or gluten-free. Remember, these words don’t tell you anything about what’s actually used to make that food. The only ranch option I know of that’s real and store-bought is Primal Kitchen. Once you make your own dips, I think you’ll be amazed by the incredible flavor difference.

Recipes to Make: 

• Homemade Ranch Dip
• Homemade Hummus

The post 7 Processed Foods to Stop Buying and Start Making appeared first on Live Simply.

• how to make the switch to real food (spoiler: there are two key things)
• what is processed food?
• what is healthy food?
• what does real food look like?
• how to find real food and avoid processed food

Back in 2008…

my family (myself and Dustin, my husband) watched the documentary Food Inc. That documentary opened our eyes to the idea that what were eating might not be what we were intended to eat. That documentary forever changed our lives.

Side note: I don’t recommend basing your dietary decisions or views solely on a documentary, particularly today when everyone has an agenda and will leave out the full story on a topic to prove their point. That documentary was just one little step along our journey; it was the starting point.)

At the time, I felt overwhelmed….

I had just learned about processed food and real food.

• I wanted to ditch the “foods” that weren’t nourishing and supporting our bodies, but I didn’t know how.
• I wanted to make healthy choices, but I didn’t know what was healthy and what wasn’t.
• I needed help!

Over the past 12 years, I’ve navigated these very topics. I’ve read, researched, grocery shopped, read ingredient lists, learned how to cook, and learned how to source real food. Today, it’s my mission to help families navigate how to ditch the processed food and find the simplicity and joy in getting back to the way our great-great-great grandmother’s once lived: sourcing, cooking, and eating real food.

Making the Switch to Real Food is About Two Things

• small, intentional swaps: making your own salad dressing, using real butter instead of margarine, and using real cream instead of fake coffee creamer product, using real maple syrup instead of pancake syrup
• learning to cook using real ingredients

That’s the very heart of eating healthy, nutrient-rich, real food. If you learn those two things (how to make small intentional swaps and cook using real ingredients) you’ll have a solid foundation. From there, you can learn and grow and try your hand at fermentation or shopping a farmers’ market.

What is Processed Food?

In the past 80 years, our food system has gone through a change like never before. Granted, many changes are amazing. I love my electric oven and fridge. As Michael Pollan says in his book Cooked, “Industrialization isn’t bad. But when we cut corners and forget why we did something for so long, we end up hurting ourselves.”

For thousands of years, (healthy) people have prepared foods in certain ways and for certain reasons. Over the past 80 years, we’ve cut big corners and listened to advertisers and lobbyists (versus tradition) tell us what to eat and how to eat. As a result, we’re now confused about food and incredibly sick. This is what real food is all about. It’s about returning to a traditional way of eating, a way of eating (the only way of eating) that nourished healthy families for thousands of years.

Processing food isn’t bad. When you cook or freeze food you’re processing it. When the word “processed food” is thrown around these days, I cringe.

Corn is a good example….

Corn can be cooked (sautéed, grilled, steamed), ground into flour (to make crackers, tortillas, cornbread), etc. This is normal “processing” that a home cook would do at home by taking a natural ingredient that’s been consumed for generations and preparing a nourishing meal. Even after cooking, grinding, etc. the corn is still corn–it may look different but it’s still the same food you started with. This food eventually rots, because that’s what food does.

On the other hand, corn may be manipulated to such a high degree in a lab, by food scientists, to make MSG, maltodextrin, hydrolyzed vegetable protein (hvp), flavorings (one part of this mystery ingredient), maltose, high fructose corn syrup, modified food starch, and many more ingredients that a home cook could never make with an ear of corn and kitchen materials. In order to make these foods, you have to process that corn to such a high degree that it no longer is corn. It’s now a substance used to make a product that will be shelf stable for years.

Why Give up Processed Food?

In his book, Food Rules, Michael Pollan (a journalist focused on food) offers us a few facts to consider when thinking about the food we put in our bodies. The first fact concerns the Western diet. The Western diet, also referred to as a Standard American Diet (SAD), usually consists of a lot of processed food, processed meat, lots of added sugars (and many times artificial sugars) and added fats (which are far from their natural state), along with refined grains (white flour, etc).

He writes that societies that have adopted such a way of eating“invariably suffer from high rates of the so-called Western diseases: obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Virtually all of the obesity and type 2 diabetes, 80 percent of the cardiovascular disease, and more than a third of all cancers can be linked to this diet. Four of the top ten killers in America are chronic diseases linked to this diet.”

Pollan also writes “Populations eating a remarkably wide range of traditional diets generally don’t suffer from these chronic diseases. Traditional diets run the gamut from ones very high in fat (the Inuit in Greenland are an example which subsists largely on seal blubber) to ones high in carbohydrate (example: Central Indians have a diet largely made up of maize and beans) to the ones high in protein (the Masai tribe in Africa live off cattle blood, meat, and milk.)”.

Pollan points out that these are extreme examples. But these serve a point. The new western diet, a diet that’s made up mostly of highly processed food, is making us sick. I know that some folks argue that we live longer today than traditional cultures, but I would point out, as Pollan does in his book, that this is due to improved infant mortality rates as well as improved modern hygiene advancements (<–which I love and appreciate).

What is Healthy Real Food?

I hate the word “healthy” because it’s so subjective. Everyone has an opinion about what’s “healthy.” This is why I believe so strongly in getting back to real, traditional food.

Knowing what’s healthy is very easy when we look at how healthy people for generations (before the age of ultra-processed food) prepared and consumed foods. Let’s take a look at what real, traditional food is…

1. Real food supports the body; it nourishes the body.

Real food contains vital nutrients, like vitamins and minerals and naturally-occurring fats, that our bodies need for support and to function in a healthy way. Processed food doesn’t offer this. Processed food leaves the body undernourished and lacking the basic nutrients needed to thrive. One of the dangers of ultra-processed food is the lack of variety in the ingredients consumed. Flip over most packaged foods and you’ll find the same “ingredients” repeated: soybean oil, enriched flour, vegetable oil, sugar of some sort, etc. Where are the nutrients? How can the body thrive? When we enjoy real food, we are getting all the nourishment we need from a wide variety of foods that are constantly changing throughout the year.

2. Real food is ingredients.

Real food is about ingredients that are as close to their natural state as possible. Jamie Oliver says, “Real food doesn’t have ingredients; real food is ingredients.” Oats, almonds (almond flour), grains, yogurt, cheese, and meat are all ingredients, used to create meals or, at times, enjoyed on their own.

3. Real food is full of variety and tastes amazing and different.

Ultra-processed food is engineered to always taste the same. For example, a Big Mac is specifically formulated in a lab to always taste the exact same with no variation. Real food, on the other hand, tastes different depending on the variety, the season, and how or where it’s grown. All beef doesn’t taste the same; neither does milk (it actually changes with the seasons as the diet of a grazing cow changes). Cheese changes based on how it’s cultured (a beautiful fermentation process that transforms milk into a beneficial, bacteria-rich food), and tomatoes and lettuce vary in flavor.

4. Real food is seasonal.

Broccoli and peaches aren’t grown year-round. Instead, there’s a specific season in which broccoli and peaches are grown. This is true for all real food. And this is a beautiful thing because it means we are intended to eat variety. Our body needs a variety of nutrients, and the seasonal shift in food provides us with this variety in a very natural way. Processed food doesn’t have any variety (it’s all made with the same nutrient-less ingredients), it just appears to be different from the packaging.

5. Real food has a face and name.

Real food is grown by someone, raised by someone, cared for by someone. Food is not just a substance. Real food has a story. Ultra-processed keeps us at a distance from how our food is grown and raised. Real food, on the other hand, puts us back in touch with where our food comes from and puts us in charge of how to use this food to nourish the body.

What Does Healthy Real Food Look Like?

Here’s the foundation of what real food looks like.

• Grass Fed, Pastured Meats: Animals that have been raised and fed as they were intended when created, with grass underneath and the sun overhead. We use all parts of the animal, including the bones for nourishing broth. Chicken, beef, lamb, pork, and wild game.
• Eggs: From chickens that have been raised on pasture, roaming free with lots of sunlight.
• Fats: Naturally-occurring fats that have nourished healthy families for thousands of years, such as: butter from grass-fed cows, coconut oil, ghee, extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, tallow, and lard. Learn more about fats and oils 101.
• Grains, Nuts, and Seeds: Whole grains and minimally-processed with an emphasis on ancient grains and variety: spelt, kamut, einkorn, even whole wheat. Also, ancient practices, such as sourdough bread, if possible. Also: beans, nuts, and seeds.
• Fruits and Veggies: Preferably in season and grown as local as possible, using organic practices. Including lots of fresh herbs. Cooked, raw, and fermented. While organic produce is encouraged, I don’t always buy organic produce. I use the EWG list when shopping at the store. And if purchasing from a local farm or market, many farms aren’t “certified organic” but use organic practices.
• Dairy: Raw or pasteurized and full fat from grass-fed cows, or goats or sheep. I only recommend purchasing raw milk if you know the source and have checked out the farm for cleanliness and safety. Pasteurized milk can be found in the store. I recommend avoiding ultra-pasteurized milk, since this milk has been heated to such a high degree that it kills everything. Anytime you see the words low-fat or fat-free you know a lot of junk has been added to compensate for the loss of nourishing fat. Dairy includes: milk, cheese, cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, kefir (a fermented yogurt drink), cottage cheese.
• Salt: Real, unrefined salt that hasn’t been stripped of its nourishing minerals. I use Real Salt.
• Seafood: Raised in the wild versus a fish farm.
• Sweeteners: As close to the natural state as possible, such as: raw honey, pure maple syrup, and minimally-processed sugars. Learn more about Sweeteners 101.
• Beverages: Water and beverages made with real ingredients: tea, coffee, kombucha (a fermented tea), milk (from nuts, seeds, or dairy). Even wine and beer, and cocktails–just watch the ingredients and stick with crafting your own cocktails using simple liquors and fresh ingredients.

How to Eat Real Food and Avoid Processed Food

Companies spend billions of dollars every year on marketing food products. Companies certainly don’t make it easy to navigate through all the food choices in the grocery store. In fact, they make it harder than ever to tell what’s made with nourishing ingredients and what’s full of rancid and hydrogenated oils and fats, loads of sugar, flavor enhancers, artificial and “natural” flavorings, synthetic preservatives, and artificial dyes.

So, how can we eat real food and avoid ultra-processed food? I have three rules to simplify this…

1. Prepare your own food.

It’s that simple. If you buy ingredients and prepare your food at home, you’re naturally going to avoid a ton of ultra-processed food. Sharing real food recipes is something near and dear to my heart because you can’t eat real food without learning how to cook. That’s why you’ll find a ton of real food recipes here on the blog.

That said, eating real doesn’t mean you have to make everything from scratch. You can certainly buy food in a package. You just have to be smart about doing so.

2. When buying food in a package (box, jar, can, bag, etc.), read the ingredient list. 

The key to avoid processed food is to ignore the marketing labels on the front of the package (i.e. natural, vegan, heart healthy, made with fiber, made with ancient grains, gluten-free, made with real fruit, etc.) and find the ingredient list, then read it. That’s the only way to find out what’s actually inside that food package (whether it’s actually food or a nutrient-less substance).

3. Ask yourself 4 questions before buying any food that comes in a package. 

• Are the ingredients real foods? Get to know what real food looks like. We talked about what real food looks like earlier.
• Could I purchase the ingredients from the store and make this food at home? The answer will help you determine if the food in question is made with real ingredients. Have you ever been able to purchase “natural flavor” from the store?
• Are the ingredients necessary? This is one reason why learning to cook is important. When you know how to make salad dressing, you know that many of the extra fillers (like natural flavor or maltodextrin) are not necessary. The same goes for yogurt, bread, granola bars, mayo, etc.
• Are the ingredients as nutrient-dense as possible (for a packaged food option)?

With these rules, it’s easy to find and eat real food.

9 Healthy Food Swaps to Help You Ditch Processed Food

Now, let’s take a look at some easy swaps you can make right now that will help you ditch the processed food and eat real food. Making these swaps will instantly make what and how you eat healthier.

Swap 1: Table Salt < Unrefined Salt

Salt is not the enemy. We need salt. Salt flavors food, it preserves food (this is why salt has been used traditionally to ferment and cure foods before the age of refrigeration). Table salt is stripped of minerals (creating an imbalance between sodium and naturally-occurring minerals) and anti-caking agents are added.

The Swap:

Instead of table salt, use unrefined salt. Salt that hasn’t been stripped of its naturally-occurring minerals. Look for sea salt or Himalayan salt (ranging from white to gray to pink in color). I love Real Salt, a brand that harvests right here in the States. I purchase a 10lb tub since it’s the best deal. You’ll find unrefined salt in most stores.

Swap 2: Margarine < Real Butter 

Margarine Ingredients: Vegetable Oil Blend (Canola, Palm, and Olive Oils), Water, contains less than 2% of Salt, Pea Protein, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Sunflower Lecithin, Vitamin A Palmitate, Beta-Carotene (Color), Vitamin D, Monoglycerides of Vegetable Fatty Acids (Emulsifier); and Potassium Sorbate, Lactic Acid, Calcium Disodium EDTA (To Preserve Freshness)

Can you source calcium disodium EDTA from your local grocery store or a farmers’ market? Nope, because you need to make most of these ingredients in a lab!

The Swap:

Go with real butter, not a butter product like margarine. The ingredient list on butter should look like this: cream and maybe salt. If you can find grass-fed butter (Kerrygold butter is an easy find in most stores), go with that option.

For now, stick to making the switch to real butter versus grabbing the margarine tub, even if it tries to entice you with trendy “health” words like plant-based, vegan, or heart healthy. Remember, those words are just marketing terms used to sell you a product. If you can’t consume dairy right now, stick with coconut oil, olive oil, or ghee (yes, dairy but many people can tolerate ghee since the milk proteins are removed). The only butter alternative I recommend, based on ingredients, is Mykonos brand.

Swap 3: Ultra-Processed Mayonnaise < Real Mayonnaise 

Miracle Whip Ingredients: Water, Soybean Oil, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Vinegar, Modified Cornstarch, Eggs, Salt, Natural Flavor, Mustard Flour, Potassium Sorbate As A Preservative, Paprika, Spice, Dried Garlic

Swap out the mayo made with vegetable oils and soybean oils for one made with nourishing fats (olive oil or avocado oil). Say no to a list of ultra-processed ingredients, such as: natural flavor (this doesn’t tell you the actual chemicals used to make this ingredient) and modified food starch.

The Swap:

The only ingredients needed to make mayo are oil, lemon or another acid like vinegar, egg yolks, and salt. A real food preservative, like rosemary extract, will be used in store-bought options since the product needs to be shelf-stable. Make your own mayo or go with one of these brands (available in health food stores and main grocery stores): Chosen Foods, Primal Kitchen, Sir Kensington.

Swap 4: Bottled Salad Dressing < Homemade Salad Dressing

Store-Bought Vinaigrette Dressing Ingredients: canola oil, water, balsamic vinegar, vinegar, salt, sugar, contains less than 2% of: xanthan gum, garlic, onion, potassium sorbet and calcium disodium EDTA as preservatives, caramel color, natural flavor, maltodextrin, cornstarch, paprika (color)

Most store-bought dressings contain vegetable oils or canola oil as well as natural flavorings (a mystery ingredient), colorings, and preservatives.

The Swap:

Make your own salad dressing. This is one of the easiest foods you can make as the only ingredients needed are oil, an acid, and salt. I recommend this vinaigrette dressing, homemade ranch, blue cheese, or Caesar. If you need to buy dressing, look for a dressing that contains ingredients you could buy from the store. Primal Kitchen is a great brand for store-bought dressing.

Swap 5: Coffee Creamer < Cream and Milk

Coffee Creamer Ingredients: Water, Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and/or Cottonseed Oil, and Less than 2% of Dipotassium Phosphate, Disodium Phosphate, Mono and Diglycerides, Color Added, Cellulose Gel, Cellulose Gum, Carrageenan, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Sodium Caseinate (a Milk Derivative)

That ingredient list is shocking. That’s not creamer, that’s a chemical sh*t storm. I don’t even need to explain why you should ditch the fake coffee creamer after looking at the ingredients.

The Swap:

Use whole milk, a plant-based milk (almond milk, cashew milk, canned coconut milk or cream), or use heavy cream (just cream on the ingredient list), or half-n-half. If you want an actual “coffee creamer,” make this recipe or go with half-n-half (such as Organic Valley brand).

Swap 6: Flavored Yogurt < Plain Yogurt Flavored Your Way

Flavored Yogurt Ingredients: cultured pasteurized grade A nonfat milk and milk, sugar, strawberries, blueberries, water, red raspberries, blackberry puree, modified food starch, pectin, carrageenan, natural flavors, elderberry juice concentrate (color), citric acid, vitamin A palmitate and vitamin D3

Flavored yogurts might sound healthy (I mean, who doesn’t want berry flavored probiotics in a cup?), but they’re usually loaded with sugars, natural flavors (that mystery ingredient), and sometimes even artificial colorings, preservatives, and synthetic vitamins (difficult for the body to use). The one above contains fruit, but many don’t even contain fruit despite being labeled as a “strawberry” yogurt.

The Swap:

Purchase plain yogurt and flavor it yourself with honey, maple syrup, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and/or fruits (frozen fruit will melt and create a fruit-on-the-bottom consistency). Want to prep flavored yogurt in advance? You can do that! Follow this tutorial. I recommend whole milk yogurt or you can make your own.

If you’re dairy-free, look for plain yogurt with ingredients you could purchase from the store and use in your kitchen. Many of the plant-based yogurts contain an ingredient list that rivals the ultra-processed foods. Just because it’s plant-based or probiotic-rich (all yogurt should be probiotic rich since it’s a fermented/cultured food and contains live bacteria) doesn’t mean it’s made with real ingredients.

Swap 7: Cheese Product < Real Cheese 

Cheese Product Ingredients: Milk, Whey, Skim Milk, Milk Protein Concentrate, Water, Milkfat, Whey Protein Concentrate, Sodium Phosphate, Modified Food Starch, Contains Less Than 2% Of Salt, Calcium Phosphate, Dried Corn Syrup, Canola Oil, Maltodextrin, Lactic Acid, Sorbic Acid As A Preservative, Sodium Alginate, Sodium Citrate, Cheese Culture, Enzymes, Apocarotenal And Annatto (Color)

What a list! Maltodextrin, Sodium Alginate, Dried Corn Syrup, Canola Oil? Just say no. This cheese generally has the word “product” on the packaging since it’s not a food (it’s not even cheese in the true essence of how cheese is made, which is a natural act of fermenting/culturing milk), it’s a product created in a lab by scientists. 

The Swap:

Go with real cheese that’s made from milk (cow, sheep, or goat) and is cultured (a fermentation process) to create an easy-to-digest, nourishing food that people have enjoyed for generations. Cheese (real cheese) should not be feared. Cheese is a beautiful food that was originally created to preserve milk before the age of refrigeration. Ultra-processed food companies have taken something that’s an old tradition, cut corners, and turned it into a cheap product made with unnecessary ingredients.

Check out the ingredient list on cheese before purchasing. The list should be simple, such as: Pasteurized Milk, Salt, Cheese Cultures and Enzymes. Also, stick with block cheese (or cheese in whole form) versus pre-shredded cheese. Shredded cheese usually contains anti-caking agents. My favorite cheese selections include: mozzarella (in fresh ball form), parmesan, and cheddar. Kerrygold is a brand you can find in most stores. 

Swap 8: Conventional Meat or Fake Meat Products < Pastured Meat

Meat is getting a lot of evil press lately. It’s too bad, because the full story isn’t being painted and people are forsaking meat without understanding that not all meat is equal. The issue isn’t meat, the issue is sourcing.

Today, meat is produced on giant CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) lots. These lots don’t allow the animal to naturally roam on pasture, enjoying a diet of grass or bugs (depending on the animal), and don’t give back to the earth (poop is the best fertilizer for pasture and plants). The CAFO lots lead to more health issues for the animal (which lead to a greater need for antibiotics, etc.). If you’ve ever had the privilege of driving through the Midwest and have come upon a CAFO lot, you know just how overwhelming the smell can be. Not exactly the rolling pastures we picture when buying meat. This kind of farming allows producers to create a fast, cheap meat. That’s the kind of meat that keeps grocery store shelves stocked, the drive-thru flipping burgers for $1, and the American consumer oblivious to how their food is actually being raised and delivered to their plates.

Fake meat products, like the Impossible Burger or Beyond Burger, are incredibly unhealthy and a huge marketing gimmick. Companies are taking advantage of people’s desire to eat healthy and live in a more sustainable way and have created what seems like a great product. When you look at the ingredients, it’s easy to see that fake meat products are lacking nutrients and are highly processed (which isn’t sustainable at all). Just take a look at the Impossible Burger’s ingredient list: Water, Textured Wheat Protein, Coconut Oil, Potato Protein, Natural Flavors, 2% or less of: Leghemoglobin (soy), Yeast Extract, Salt, Soy Protein Isolate, Konjac Gum, Xanthan Gum, Thiamin (Vitamin B1), Zinc, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12.

The Swap:

Go with grass-fed beef and pasture-raised chicken and pork. Meat raised in this way is rich in important nutrients and sustainable (the animals regenerate the soil and land–they actually make the soil and land better so you can grow more nutrient-rich food). Organic isn’t as big of a deal, as organic doesn’t tell you how the animal was actually raised (the living conditions). Many stores now carry grass-fed beef options and pastured chicken and pork. A couple of my favorite brands are: White Oaks (beef) and Niman Ranch (pork and beef.). Also consider finding local farms in your area (check out eatwild.com for farms in your area).

I recommend checking out these resources:

• Sustainable Dish Podcast: Beyond Burgers vs. Real Burgers
• Dr. Mark Hyman’s Podcast: Why Eating Fake Meat Won’t Solve
• Live Simply Podcast: The Environmentally-Beneficial Way to Eat Meat 
• Live Simply Podcast: What to Look for When Purchasing Meat
• Is the Beyond Meat Burger Healthy?
• eatwild.com (to find local meat in your area)

Swap 9: Conventional Eggs < Pastured Eggs

Just like with meat, not all eggs are equal. The problem isn’t meat or eggs or even dairy, the issue is the sourcing. Most eggs are produced in giant hen houses by mass retailers where the chickens are given very little room to roam (their natural behavior) and peck and scratch at the ground (chickens are not vegetarians, they peck at the ground and consume bugs). Living in this environment not only leads to more disease (which leads to a greater need for antibiotics) and a less nutrient-dense food (hence the need to add to the chickens’ diet and entice the consumer with marketing: omega 3 eggs, vegetarian fed, etc.)

The Swap:

Go with eggs from pasture-raised chickens. Just like with meat, don’t focus on organic as much since this doesn’t tell you how the chickens are raised. Vital Farms is one of my favorite brands that you can easily find in stores, even Target. Also, look in your local area so you can talk directly with the source (farm). Check out a farmers’ market or eatwild.com for options. As Michael Pollan says, “Shake the hand that feeds you.”

The post 9 Healthy Food Swaps to Help You Ditch Processed Food appeared first on Live Simply.

In the past 80 years, our food system has gone through a change like never before. Granted, many changes are amazing. I love my electric oven and fridge. As Michael Pollan says in Cooked, “Industrialization isn’t bad. But when we cut corners and forget why we did something for so long, we end up hurting ourselves.”

For thousands of years, healthy people have prepared foods in certain ways and for certain reasons. Over the past 80 years, we’ve cut big corners and listened to advertisers and lobbyists (versus tradition) tell us what to eat and how to eat. As a result, we’re now confused about food and incredibly sick. Real food ends all the confusion over what we should eat.

Finding real food is easy to do when it comes to picking out produce and even buying meat and eggs (grass-fed and pastured meat, eggs, and dairy are the best option, and if you can find a local source, even better), but what about packaged food?

Maybe you’ve heard the saying, “shop the outer aisles of the grocery store, avoid the inner aisles.” While I certainly agree that the bulk of our food should be centered around this idea, it’s important for us to recognize that the “inner aisles” aren’t evil.

Real food may be found in the inner aisles: grains, pasta, oils, vinegars, tuna, canned tomatoes and olives, salt, beans, dried herbs. All of these foods are real ingredients that may be used to make healthy, nourishing meals.

Then there are those foods that feel more questionable and confusing to navigate: crackers, tortillas, bread, condiments, etc.

Learning how to use ingredients to cook nourishing meals is the very heart of getting back to real food, but this doesn’t mean that you have to do it all or make it all!

For most of us, spending the majority of our time in the kitchen just isn’t possible. For our ancestors, this was more doable, as agriculture was the way people lived, it was life. Today, we have to balance eating real food (which involves sourcing and cooking) and living in the modern world. Purchasing some pre-made foods, like tortillas or mayonnaise, is convenient and makes real food more approachable.

Today, more companies are stepping up to meet the demand for real-food convenience. It’s important to know how to weed through the ultra-processed “food” and find these real-food options.

So, how can we see through all the marketing and know what’s actually healthy and real? 

The key is to ignore the marketing labels on the front of the package (i.e. natural, vegan, heart healthy, made with fiber, made with ancient grains, gluten-free, made with real fruit, etc.) and find the ingredient list, then read it. That’s the only way to find out what’s actually inside that food (whether it’s actually food or a nutrient-less substance).

Within a few minutes of shopping, you get to the baking aisle where the syrup options are stocked. As you look through the selections, you notice a few options: pancake syrup, table syrup, and maple syrup. Each one features marketing messages and various labels on the front of the bottle.

• The pancake syrup (original syrup) proclaims: 210 calories per serving, no high fructose corn syrup.
• The table syrup attracts your eye with the message: all natural, delicious authentic taste, and a NON-GMO VERIFIED label.
• The maple syrup bottle seems like a good option since the package reads: 100% maple syrup, organic, and has the USDA ORGANIC label.

Which one should you choose? 

Remember the key is to ignore all the marketing and labels (organic and non-GMO can be helpful, but they aren’t nearly as important as what’s actually in that food) and find the ingredient list, then read it! Let’s do that…

• The pancake syrup (original syrup) ingredient list: corn syrup, water, sugar. Contains 2% or less of: salt, natural and artificial flavors, sodium hexametaphosphate, preservatives (sodium benzoate, sorbic acid), caramel color, phosphoric acid
• The table syrup ingredient list: brown rice syrup, water, cane sugar, brown sugar, natural flavors, citric acid
• The maple syrup ingredient list: maple syrup

As you look at the ingredient list, ask yourself four questions. These questions will help you determine which option is made with real ingredients.

Question 1: Are the ingredients real foods? Get to know what real food looks like. This post is a great place to start.

Question 2: Could I purchase the ingredients from the store and make this food at home? The answer will help you determine if the food in question is made with real ingredients. Have you ever been able to purchase “natural flavor” from the store?

Question 3: Are the ingredients necessary? This is one reason why learning to cook is important. When you know how to make salad dressing, you know that many of the extra fillers (like natural flavor or maltodextrin) are not necessary. The same goes for yogurt, bread, granola bars, mayo, etc.

Question 4: Are the ingredients as nutrient-dense as possible (for a packaged food option)? If you’re looking for something that you’ll be enjoying for lunch (or maybe something you’ll add to your child’s lunchbox, like crackers or fruit leather) or serve with breakfast (granola or yogurt) or dinner (tortillas), finding a nourishing option is important.

Reading the ingredient list and asking yourself the four questions is the easiest and best way to find real food in a sea of ultra-processed food options. This is the best way to make informed choices as a consumer and to avoid being tricked by marketing terms that appeal to your desire to eat healthy, real food.

1. Vegetable oil, soybean oil, canola oil, and safflower or sunflower oil.  Sunflower oil is hard to avoid in some more real-food based products, so I do the best to minimize this. This article from Dr. Mark Hyman is a good one about why we should avoid (or minimize) consuming vegetable oils. 

2. Artificial food dyes. This podcast episode is a good one about artificial food dyes and their effect on mood and behavior, particularly in children. 

3. Sugar as the first or second ingredient in a food that’s being served regularly (not a treat). Ingredients are listed in predominant order. This means a food with sugar as the first or second ingredient is super HIGH is sugar. This is not a nourishing option for daily enjoyment. 

4. Ingredients only available to food scientists. Examples include maltol or “natural flavor.” Have you ever found maltol (a flavor enhancer added to some foods like pickles) or the elusive and very broad “natural flavor” in the grocery store, nature, or a farmer’s market? Yea, me either. 

5. Natural flavors. There’s no way to know what a natural flavor is made from or what it is unless the company discloses. 

6. Artificial flavors. Artificial flavors also aren’t disclosed and come from non-food sources. There’s no way of knowing what those non-food sources are unless the company discloses. 

7. Added vitamins (fortified). Synthetic vitamins are added to “food” because that food has been stripped of its natural vitamins (due to the overly-processed state of the ingredients). Synthetic vitamins, which must be added back to the food to make it sellable, are hard to digest and not the kind of vitamin a food that isn’t ultra-processed would naturally contain (i.e. a pear versus a pear-flavored granola bar). 

While consuming these ingredients every so often may not be harmful, the majority of Americans aren’t “occasionally” consuming these ingredients and foods. The majority of Americans are consuming these ingredients in excess: for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks 7 days a week.

The additives used to make many ultra-processed “foods” may currently be deemed as safe, but is a diet compromised almost entirely of these “foods” (and the ingredients used to make these foods), healthy or safe? I personally don’t think so. Just how much sodium hexametaphosphate and other additives and preservatives (like sodium benozate) are people consuming on a daily basis and what’s the effect on the body?

Most of these ultra-processed “foods” are void of nutrients the body needs. Is it any wonder that we’re seeing the health issues of today?

I believe our bodies are literally crying out for nutrients and the very energy needed to perform basic, healthy functions. This is why it’s so important for us to be informed consumers, research companies and the packaged food products we choose to buy, learn how to cook at home using real ingredients, and serve this food at home.

The post How to Read Ingredient Lists (and Find Real Food) appeared first on Live Simply.

To start, Rachel shares how her daughter’s reaction to artificial dyes changed everything for her family–we also dive into the topic of artificial dyes. Rachel then shares what real food shopping looks like for her, the lesser of two evils approach she uses when purchasing food, how to shop for real food in a conventional store (meaning, a store that’s not dedicated to stocking real food options, like a Whole Foods or health food store), and where to start when making the switch from processed food to real food.

Before we get into today’s interview, I want to say thank you to everyone who left a review last week on Apple Podcast. You guys are doers–when I explained the importance of reviews for a podcast–you guys acted!

Listen On iTunesListen On Stitcher Listen On Spotify

• Feast and Farm (website)
• Feast and Farm YouTube
• Follow Rachel on Instagram
• Follow Rachel on Facebook
• Five Dinners, One Hour
• Natural Food Dye Options: India Tree Food Dyes and McCormick now makes a dye set without artificial colors

Q1: Tell us about yourself. 

Q2: What does a real food lifestyle look like for your family? 

Q3:  You’re passionate about the topic of artificial food dye. What is artificial food dye?

Q4: Why should we consider eliminating food dye from our diets, and our children’s diets?

Q5: When it comes to artificial food dyes, I think many of us immediately think of the bottles of dye we can buy to decorate cookies or maybe colorful sprinkles. But food dyes can pop up in our food in other ways, too. Can you share other foods where we may find food dyes–foods that commonly have food dyes added.

Q6: I’m going to play devil’s advocate for a minute. If artificial dyes can pose such an issue, why aren’t artificial dyes banned by the FDA? And why do companies continue to use them in their food products?

Q7: I truly believe knowledge is power when it comes to navigating food in today’s society. Because knowledge allows us to be informed consumers. Now that we know about food dyes, what can we do to eliminate and avoid dyes?

Q8: Have you found alternatives to using artificial dyes for cookies and cakes and sprinkles? All the stuff we find at parties and holiday celebrations. Also, how do you handle these celebrations when artificial food dyes abound.  

Q9: What exactly is a food desert? 

Q10: How do you eat real food when you don’t have health food stores and other speciality stores, along with a huge range of products available to you?

Q11: Can you share more about what food shopping looks like for you?

Q12: For someone who wants to get started with real food, but lives in a food desert and just feels like it’s not possible to eat well, what would you tell them?  

Q13: Can you share more about the lesser of two evils approach to shopping? 

Q14: Even if people don’t live in a food desert, I think it’s really helpful to know you can shop almost anywhere and find real food options. What tips do you have for people when it comes to finding real food in conventional stores?

Q15: What practical steps can we take to bring whole/real food to a food desert?

Q16: Your biggest message is that homemade is always better, which I love because when we get back into our kitchen and start preparing our own meals, we have more control over what we’re actually eating. Where do you recommend people starting when learning how to prepare homemade meals, particularly if they don’t have a ton of real food resources in their area?

The post Podcast 038: Why You Should Avoid Artificial Food Dye & Eating Real In a Food Desert with Rachel from Feast and Farm appeared first on Live Simply.

This is something that many of us struggle with currently, or have struggled with in the past.

There are some practical things we can do as parents (and grandparents or aunts and uncles) to encourage exploration and open-mindedness with our children and their relationship with food.

Food should be something that brings our family together, not something that tears our family apart. Food is meant to be celebrated and enjoyed; not a struggle. It should be something that our children associate with good memories. It’s important that we encourage a healthy food culture within our home.

Power struggles, fights over food, and other tactics aren’t going to create that culture. But let’s be real, kids many times don’t just happily grab a serving of kale salad. How can we practically foster a love for real food in our kids and avoid the power struggle?

2. Let them use their voice. Give kids money to pick out something from the market, ask them to choose something to make from a cookbook. Ask your kids what they would like for dinner this week or in their lunchbox (the lunch cards in the School Lunch Kit are a great visual for kids). Make them feel part of the food culture in your home.

3. Shop a market or farm. A market or farmers’ market will provide your children with hands-on food experiences.

4. Encourage participation. Ask your kids to help in the kitchen. This guest podcast episode with Katie from Kitchen Stewardship is all about teaching kids to cook and prepare real food.

5. Eat as a family. Model, model, model. And don’t serve separate meals.

6. Remember, kids are intuitive eaters. There are going to be times when kids gravitate more towards certain foods (like butter and fats) than other foods. Just keep serving real food.

7. Limit the overly-processed food options in the pantry.

8. Be prepared with real and ready-to-go options in the fridge. Cut carrots, apples, bananas, eggs, a dip for veggies, muffins. You don’t need to go overboard. Just a couple of options for the week to encourage making nourishing choices.

9. Encourage the one-bite rule. And model this. This encourages exploration with food without any pressure or power struggle. We always encourage, “Just try a bite. If it’s not for you right now, you don’t have to eat it today.” Sometimes our kids try something and realize it’s delicious and decide they want more. Other times, they take a bite and decide it’s not for them (and will have to choose something else at the table). That’s where the next tip (#10) comes in handy. I talk about this “rule” in the How to Avoid a Power Struggle podcast episode.

10. Learn to say no in a way that encourages future exploration and doesn’t insult the maker. Instead of encouraging the “I don’t like this! Yuck” dialogue that’s common with children, teach your children a different dialogue that encourages future exploration and doesn’t insult the person that labored to make the food. In our home, we reply, “Okay, this isn’t for you right now?” I talk in detail about this tip in the How to Avoid a Power Struggle podcast episode.

Podcast Episode: How to Avoid a Power Struggle with Your Kids Over Real Food

10 ways to encourage a healthy food culture in your home and, ultimately, how to avoid a power struggle with your kids over food. I share in detail about the ten tips shared above.

Podcast Episode: Getting Kids Excited About Trying New Foods 

In this guest podcast episode, Jennifer, from 52 New Foods shares a fresh, practical, and fun approach to getting kids involved in the kitchen and excited about trying new foods.

Podcast Episode: How to Teach Kids to Prepare and Cook Real Food 

In this guest podcast episode, Katie, from Kitchen Stewardship, shares about raising children who have a healthy relationship with food and what this looks like in real life (you know, birthday parties and treats and all the overly-processed food). Katie also shares how to teach kids to prepare and cook real food and why this is so important for our children’s health and future.

Fruit and Veggie Bingo Game

A fun game for our family and now we’re sharing it with you! It’s free to download and print. Add a delicious twist when playing: Offer samples of the fruits and veggies. When the item is called, the players sample the fruit or veggie. Or, take a card to the market or grocery store and a dry erase pen. Have your kiddo circle every fruit and veggie they find, and then ask them to choose a couple of foods to bring home and sample.

Let’s talk about some recipes you can make with your kids. Recipes that are easy, family favorites, and made with a variety of ingredients to encourage exploration and being exposed to different foods.

If your child isn’t ready to spend 30 minutes in the kitchen preparing a full meal or dish, encourage what they can do: chop the zucchini for the spaghetti sauce (we love the Curious Chef Knives for safe chopping), wash and scrub the veggies, measure the flour and oats for the pancakes, or press the button to turn on blender. These small steps encourage participation and exposure to food and ingredients, and that, ultimately, encourages exploration and discourages an overall picky attitude towards food. Kids are naturally curious people. The kitchen is a wonderful place to encourage and grow this curiosity, which in the long-term encourages healthy eating and a healthy relationship with food and life skills that will prove valuable as they grow.

Homemade Pancakes

Teach your kids that food doesn’t come from a box on a store-shelf; rather, we use simple ingredients to create the most-delicious meals. Making homemade pancakes is a great place to start.

Make einkorn pancakes with a bowl and whisk, or use a blender to make almond-oat pancakes. We circulate the pancakes on our menu every other Saturday and the kids love to help whisk, crack the eggs (use a separate bowl to avoid broken egg shells going directly in the mix–it’s easier to fish out the shells when using a separate bowl) and turn on the blender.

Homemade Ranch

Kids love to dip food. In fact, it just may be the magical answer to getting kids to try new veggies. This homemade ranch dip is super easy to make (just 5 minutes and one bowl) and it encourages exploration with spice combos (garlic powder, onion powder, and parsley).

Hulk Buster Green Smoothie

Piper (my son) was reluctant as a preschooler when it came to trying anything green, but he loved smoothies. He also loved Marvel characters (thanks to his comic-loving father), so I decided to take advantage of his comic love and name this smoothie after a super strong, hulk-busting character. He was a bit apprehensive at first, but once he took a “just try a sip” start, he loved the taste. And the rest is history. It’s taken years for Piper to come around to other green things, but his love for this smoothie started early–all thanks to a fun name.

Veggie Spaghetti

If your kids are apprehensive towards certain veggies (or all veggies), give this veggie spaghetti a try. The base is made with roasted veggies and then blended up to make a delicious homemade spaghetti sauce.

Homemade Pizza

I love that my kids ask for homemade pizza. Don’t get me wrong, they definitely know about carry-out pizza as well. But they also love making their own pizza at home. Kids love to roll out the homemade dough, spoon on the sauce, top the sauce with cheese, and then add any toppings desired.

Homemade Mac and Cheese

What kid doesn’t love mac and cheese? Making mac and cheese at home is a great way to show your kids that food doesn’t have to come from a box. We can make delicious food with simple ingredients. Use the stove-top or an Instant Pot.

The post Picky Eaters: How to Encourage Healthy Eating and a Healthy Relationship with Food appeared first on Live Simply.

Katie is graciously offering Live Simply, The Podcast listeners a free 10-minute knife skills class. This class will show you how to teach knife skills and safety and begin getting your kids involved with preparing and cooking real food. Click here to begin the 10-minute knife skills class. 

Listen On iTunesListen On Stitcher Listen On Spotify

• Free 10-Minute Knife Skills Class
• Kitchen Stewardship (website)
• Follow Katie on Instagram
• Follow Katie on Facebook 
• Kids Cook Real Food Course

Q1: Tell us about yourself.

Q2: What does a real food lifestyle look like for your family in real life?

Q3: Raising “real food children” in an overly-processed food world can feel daunting. What are your tips raising kids who enjoy a variety of real food and also have a healthy relationship with food?

Q4: On your blog, you share that as parents we should never use two phrases: “My kids are picky eaters” and “They won’t try this”. Can you tell us more.

Q5: It can be discouraging when a child continually refuses to try new foods. This oftentimes leads to the child being labeled as the “picky eater”. What’s your best advice for parents who are struggling with this?

Q6: You’re a big advocate for getting kids involved in the kitchen. What are the benefits of getting kids involved in the kitchen?

Q7: Why did you decide to get your kids involved in the kitchen?

Q8: How do we begin getting our kids involved in the kitchen? How do we, as parents, get our kids excited about this, particularly with children who haven’t helped out in the past?

Q9: How can we, as parents, create a kid-friendly kitchen that encourages participation? 

Q10: Can you share more about the basic skills children should learn in the kitchen, and at what ages is it appropriate to begin teaching these skills?

Q11: How can we practically teach our children these skills? 

Q12: How can we get kids involved when time in crunched? Like in the morning? What does this look like in the busyness of life?

The post Podcast 035: How to Teach Kids to Prepare and Cook Real Food with Katie From Kitchen Stewardship appeared first on Live Simply.

Today, Carla shares about gluten sensitivity and how she came to learn about and use einkorn in her own home, which eventually led to her starting Jovial. Carla also shares all about einkorn–what is this ancient grain, what makes it so special, why einkorn is so unique compared to other wheats, and how to use einkorn. Think of today’s episode as a class in einkorn 101.

Listen On iTunesListen On Stitcher Listen On Spotify

• Jovial Foods (website)
• Follow Jovial on Instagram 
• Follow Jovial on Facebook 
• Einkorn: Recipes for Nature’s Original Wheat (Carla’s Einkorn Cookbook) 
• Gluten-Free Flour Mixes

Q1: Tell us about yourself and your story.

Q2: Tell us about Jovial Foods. Why does Jovial exist? What’s your mission as a company? What makes Jovial unique?

Einkorn 101

Q3: I first discovered Jovial after learning about einkorn. Einkorn is considered an ancient grain. Can you tell us more about ancient grains?

Q4: For people who haven’t tried einkorn before, how would you describe the taste and texture?

Q5: What are the benefits of using this ancient grain? 

Q6: When it comes to baking, working with einkorn is different than working with modern-day wheat. What are the essential things we should consider? 

Q7: Einkorn does contain gluten, but I know for myself and friends who have a sensitivity to gluten, it doesn’t seem to have the same negative effect on us as modern wheat does. This grain is referred to as a “good gluten.” Can you share more about what exactly gluten is, and what makes einkorn so unique in terms of gluten?

Q8: You produce berries and also milled flour, both all-purpose and whole wheat. Can you explain the difference between the two different flour options?

Q9: You can use the wheat berries for more than just baking. Can you share more about how to use the berries, beyond milling it into flour.  

Q10: What’s your favorite thing to make with einkorn? Your favorite dishes/baked goods.

Q12: For those with celiac disease, Jovial has a gluten-free line of flour mixes and pastas. When it comes to gluten-free baking, what are your favorite flours?

Q13: Before we go, tell us more about the other products Jovial produces? What makes these products so unique–the beans, olive oil, and tomatoes? And where can people find your products?

The post Podcast 034: Gluten Sensitivity and Einkorn 101 with Carla from Jovial Foods appeared first on Live Simply.