7. Lunch and Dinner
Your meals should nourish you. Make sure what you eat is good quality and made with ingredients you recognize. Prepare food that promotes healing and helps you perform better in all aspects of your life. Prepare meals that are colorful and have variety in them. The closer food is to its original form, the more likely it is to be nourishing. Your diet is the real powerhouse. Supplements are just that. They supplement a healthy diet but cannot and do not replace a healthy diet, which is why it’s important to master the skill of feeding yourself delicious and nutritious food.
A general guideline is that meals should consist of protein, good-quality fats, fruits and vegetables, and good-quality grains. Protein is so important and the best source of it is meat. Meats offer loads of micronutrients as well as highly bioavailable protein. Fats are important. Eat olives, avocados, cheese, and other quality fats. For cooking and baking fats use tallow, lard, butter, ghee, olive oil—with the COOC seal, and avocado oil. Avoid canola oil, vegetable oil, and other highly refined seed oils. Eat brightly colored vegetables and fruits. Grains are very nourishing but are often culprits in causing inflammation. If you eat properly (the four steps to eating) and choose whole, non-GMO grains that aren’t sprayed with pesticides then determining which grains work for you and how much of them to eat becomes clear over time.
The internet is a wealth of recipes. You can type in any dietary guidelines you have and search for recipes that match your criteria. It is free and the resources are abundant. You can also find excellent recipes and cooking tutorials online. The more recipes you try, the better you will identify which ones will turn out the way you like, and which won’t.
Be open-minded. Just because something tastes different than you’re used to doesn’t mean it isn’t good. Allow space for your beliefs and your tastes to develop and grow.
Through this process, you will discover many chefs who create recipes you love that align with your food goals. The process gets easier and easier as you stick with it.
Nourishedkitchen.com is great for free recipes and offers education on how to achieve the most nourishing dishes and what makes them that way. If you’ve ever wondered what whole food is or how to create amazing dishes from the raw ingredients you’d like to use, this is the site for you. Use this incredible resource like a university for nutritional education. Danielle Walker is another great resource. She creates recipes that suit a wide variety of dietary sensitivities. She has great cookbooks but also shares many free recipes on her site daniellewalker.com.
