NUTRIENT-DENSE KITCHEN 101 – ON A BUDGET!

Before you jump right in, be ready to take small steps, and let them add up to big leaps in change. Take comfort in every choice you make, but don’t get bogged down about the pieces you aren’t ready to adjust just yet. Every step in the right direction is also a step away from the wrong one.

Being a healthy person in our unhealthy culture is ridiculously challenging — at first, anyway.

Pilar Gerasimo, “Healthy Deviant”

Food, cookware, and food preparation are the 3 cogs that work together to build a nutrient-dense kitchen.

1. Food

Most affordable, easily accessible food is pumped with preservatives, not-so-natural flavorings, dyes, and other chemicals we can’t pronounce. These pre-packaged, chemical-ridden foods interrupt digestions, spike insulin, and just plain make us sick. On the other side of the spectrum, fresh, local, organic, seasonal foods support all 6 structures of your body (from whole organism to tissues all the way down to chemicals). Happy, healthy cells fight infection, regulate digestion, balance hormones, and support healthy organs and tissues. What you eat is certainly about more than the action of chewing and swallowing.

Here in Midland, TX, your best chance at finding these foods will be at the Midland Downtown Farmer’s Market every Saturday from 8am – 12pm. I can grab everything from bones for my broth, to grass-fed beef, fresh kale, carrots, cabbage, and maybe a salsa for Travis!

Most budget friendly veggies & fruits:

• any in season fruits / veggies

• cabbage

• onions

• carrots

• apples

• summer squash

• winter squash

Evridge farms is located right out in Midkiff, and just thinking about their steaks has me salivating, & Flying Y Farms is family-owned farm located in Tarzan, TX which sells a variety of veggies & leafy greens.

2. Cookware

First, your best choices for pots/pans are hardy cast-iron, or enamel-coated cast iron. Cast iron is a great budget choice! A popular concern with cast iron is how difficult the clean-up is. However, if you’re coating the bottom of the pan with animal fat or olive oil, you shouldn’t have a lot of food sticking to your pan. What makes cast-iron the best option is the fact that if anything leeches out out the material, it is only iron; for most people this is a good effect. With Teflon coated pots and pans, dangerous chemicals make their way from the pan into your food and your body. Stainless steel pots and pans are a good choice, but good quality stainless steal is very pricey. Because it can leak chromium and nickel, you should not cook acidic foods on stainless steel.

Next, move away from plastic. Try replacing a few plastic items with glass items each week when you grab groceries. IKEA and Amazon are both good places to start looking. Again, glass, like cast iron, will not release chemicals into your food, so you are able to keep your foods (and water) as nutritious as possible. We should also move away from plastic cutting boards, and try wood instead. Any easy way to cure your wooden board is with a little lemon juice!

Additionally, you should reach for unbleached parchment paper, instead of foil. If you don’t mind washing it, buy a reusable beeswax wrap instead, and save some money in the long run!

Finally, the knives. You only need a few knives; Maybe a large, smooth chef’s knife, a large, serrated chef’s knife, and a small pairing knife. Make sure all of them are made with a blade that extends the full length of the knife, through the handle, and that your knives are sharp every time you use them; a sharp knife, is a safer knife! Finally, you should hand wash knives, as the dishwasher can damage them.

3. Food Preparation & Cooking Techniques

We’ve arrived at the fun part! Today, I just want to provide you with a few, basic tips to get the most nutrients out of your foods as you prepare them.

First, legumes. You want to begin playing around with soaking and sprouting your legumes. I love the “why” here. Legumes have a defense that helps them survive, these defenses are simply termed “anti-nutrients;” They include lectins and phytic acid. Fortunately, our ancestors have found that you can encourage the release of these anti-nutrients by soaking your legumes before cooking them. I was happy to discover, dry beans are cheap and soaking is as simple as it sounds! Check out this guide for soaking/sprouting.

Next, fat + salt + acid. When you cook, try to bring in a fat (ghee, duck fat, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil), a salt (sea salt), and an acid (apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, wine) into each meal.

Temperatures. Be aware of what heat you should be cooking your foods on. This will depend on the individual food, as well as the cooking method (roasting, grilling, sautéing). Roasting vegetable at 400 degrees with avocado oil is an excellent choice. Sautéing those same veggies at a higher heat with ghee could mean you are overheating your fat, which will damage the fatty-acids & release free-radicals into your foods. As you may, know free-radicals are common in infertility.

Now that you understand the basics of a nutrient-dense kitchen, why not try a few of these out this week? Maybe purchase a cast-iron to get started? Or swap a few plastic containers out for glass. And take note of how you feel this week after making these changes!

Is digestion more regular? How about sleep? Less cravings for sugar? Symptoms of some other diagnosis improving?

Let me know!

Emily

CITATIONS

Gerasimo, P. (2020). The healthy deviant: A rule breaker’s guide to being healthy in an unhealthy world. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

Nutritional Therapy Association. (2021). Culinary Wellness Student Guide [PDF document]. Retrieved from: https://nutritionaltherapy.instructure.com/courses/144/pages/5-dot-2-%7C-core-reading-cw1?module_item_id=2586

Soaking and Sprouting Guide. (n.d.). Retrieved March 27, 2021, from https://nutritionaltherapy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Soaking__Sprouting_Guide.pdf