At the beginning of the month we talked about ingredient labels. I told you my goal was not to scare you or make you feel overwhelmed, instead bring awareness to what types of ingredients are unfortunately in our food in the United States. I didn’t want to leave you hanging, so left you with a couple of references.
- Fooducate, which allows you to scan / search products and basically does the ingredient dissection for you, giving each product a letter grade and talking about the good and bad of each product.
- List of ingredients you could print for reference, if you want to start trying to avoid some of the bad ones. The list included ones I spoke about in the post plus many more.
Since I have been talking for the last 7 months about changes you can make in your home, I thought it would only be appropriate to show you what we do at our house, with complete transparency. With that said, I promised you I would share what my fridge, freezer and pantry staples are. Also, each week I will share easy tips of things you can make or do at home to avoid buying products with junk in them.
For us, a well stocked pantry, fridge and freezer helps keep us on track. Also, I plan our meals to help us stay focused at the grocery store and only buy what we need, because buying higher quality food can be more expensive. Check out how we meal plan here.
Homemade Popsicles: I had been wanting to make my own popsicles for a while, so a few months back I purchased these. Having a few popsicles on hand really allows me to get my sweet fix but still do it smart. Right now I have a basil creamsicle variety. My husband didn’t really care for these, but I thought they were refreshing. I will probably try a few more recipes before I start experimenting on my own, but maybe I’ll have a post soon dedicated to them.
Ice cream: The ice cream we buy is not an organic ice cream. In my opinion, sometimes there are better options. I would rather have an ice cream with only 6 ingredients than an organic variety with 15. We buy Whole Foods brand, one pint of strawberry and one pint of coffee. My favorite is just having a few spoonfuls in the evening after dinner, straight from the container!
Chicken: We buy and freeze proteins simply for convenience. A lot of people would probably cringe and I agree fresh is best, but for me to be successful I need a well stocked freezer with proteins. My frozen chicken breasts are actually not organic, but they are antibiotic free - we buy Nature’s Rancher brand. I do however, buy a few whole chickens and these are organic. I still have some room for improvement in this department and hope to start sourcing from a local farm soon. There are times where you can source from a farm that practices organically, but doesn’t go to the effort to get the USDA label - this helps with cost. Remember, it is illegal to use hormones in chickens, pigs, turkeys, so don’t let a hormone free label trick you into buying a more expensive brand.
Beef: We always have ground beef and steaks from a local farm, raising grass fed cows. We are actually about out, so will soon be looking for a new farm to source from soon. My friend told me about one guy that you can buy as much or as little and pick up from the downtown Kansas City Market. I hope to get in contact with him soon.
Pork: We like to have a few chops and tenderloins on hand also. We buy Whole Foods family packs of chops to save money and then use my food saver to vacuum seal in individual packs of 2. Again, remember, it is illegal to use hormones in chickens, pigs, turkeys, so don’t let a hormone free label trick you into buying a more expensive brand. Check out how Whole Foods uses a rating system to help the consumer know about the animals environment that they were raised in.
Seafood: We buy bags of shrimp, tilapia, scallops, but by far go through the shrimp the quickest. Same theory as above on frozen vs. fresh.
Cooked ground beef: We always have cooked taco seasoned ground beef stored in a large pyrex for quick Mexican meals. Also, we do the same with some unseasoned cooked ground beef which is great for pasta, pizza or stews.
Cooked meatballs: Another item keeping us successful when we need a quick meal. Either eaten by themselves, on sandwiches, or pasta. Get the recipe here.
Brown rice: Since brown rice takes so long to cook, we make a huge batch and freeze in individual pyrex containers for easy dinners. Check out my tips here.
Beans: Over the past year, we have started making our own beans. BPA is found in most canned food packaging, plus making your own saves you money, so this was a no brainer for me. See my tips below. All you need is time (although I know that is sometimes easier said than done). I typically have a lot of black beans, and also some kidney and garbanzo beans stocked.
Organic frozen fruits and veggies: We have tons of organic frozen fruits and veggies on hand. Literally, six types of fruit (usually a combination of peaches, bananas, mangos, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and cherries) and probably give or take six types of veggies (corn, baby peas, snap peas, artichokes, okra, edamame, squash) . We buy Whole Foods 365 brand. The fruit is primary for my morning smoothies, although is great in fun summer drinks. The veggies are great for dinners. Frozen is always better than canned because the produce is frozen at its peak freshness and is not mixed with other liquids (juice, salty water, etc). I don’t use pyrex for these because I found I was getting into these containers frequently and the lids weren’t working as well. Instead I use these glass containers.
Nuts and seeds: Tons of variety here that we buy from Whole Foods bulk bins. We store them in mason jars and put them in the freezer to increase shelf life. My husband loves to just snack on these, but they are also great for salads, granola, energy bites, homemade peanut butter, chocolate nut clusters.
Chocolate cacao chips: We buy these in the Whole Foods bulk bins and they are stored in a mason jar. Again, great for a snack by the handful or in my energy bites or chocolate nut clusters. Read more about cacao here.
Wheatgrass: We buy the Amazing Grass Green SuperFood Original blend. When we need more, we search health websites or amazon for the best deal. While I don’t think this is the only reason, consuming this I do believe has contributed to me not being sick in many years! I use one scoop in my smoothie each morning.
Ground flaxseed: Purchased from the Whole Foods bulk bins. Make sure it is ground or you will not get the benefits. Great to add into baked goods!
Organic whole wheat flour: We buy from Whole Foods bulk bins and store a large mason jar in the fridge. The remaining is stored in the freezer in a larger container. Whole wheat flours will not last as long on a pantry shelf.
Organic butter: We buy Kalona Super Natural unsalted butter which is hormone and antibiotic free and from grass fed cows. We usually only keep one stick in the fridge and the rest in the freezer.
Breadcrumbs: We use almost old bread to make bread crumbs and store them in a mason jar in the freezer. Check out how here.
Breads: We freeze our bread products to increase shelf life. Some people hate this, but it works for us. We have Ezekial sprouted grain hot dog buns, bagels and english muffins. We then use Whole Foods 100% whole wheat sandwich bread. Check out more about sprouted and whole grains here.
Trends you probably noticed this week are use of bulk bins for saving money and using glass containers / jars for storage. Also, we freeze a lot! Yes, you are probably wondering, we do have a deep freeze and this is a must to fit all we need!
Areas for us to continue to improve are our proteins. These can get very pricey if choosing high quality, so sourcing from local farms as often as possible is what has helped us so far. I hope to do this with most all of our meat in the near future.
Today’s tip is how to cook your own fresh beans, instead of buying canned.
The cheapest can of organic beans at my store is $1.25. I can buy dried organic beans for $1.99 per pound. This particular time I bought 2.25 pounds for $4.50 (that ended up allowing me 4 cups to cook with and still some left overs I stored in a mason jar in the pantry - I get carried away sometimes at the bulk bins with the dispensers). Once I cooked the beans, I ended up about 14 cups cooked beans. So basically if I bought 7 cans from grocery store (2 cups of beans in each can) I would have spent $8.75. Instead I got double the beans and spent basically half of that. So......
How to cook dried beans
Do a quick pre-soak by adding dried beans and water to a large pan. Bring to a boil and remove from heat. Let sit for 1 hour. After the pre-soak they will have plumed a little.
Now to start cooking, drain the water and add fresh water to cover the beans by 1 inch. Bring to a boil, remove scum that forms on the top (white foamy stuff) and then cook until the beans are tender (can be mashed with a fork or spoon) at a reduce simmer. For me it takes about 1 hour. Make sure to continue to watch the beans and add more water if needed to keep the beans covered the entire time. If you add more than 3-4 cups beans it might take you longer, so just keep that in mind.
Once done cooking, drain the beans and let cool. Add to whatever storage containers you want. I store beans in two sizes of pyrex - some 2 cups (equivalent of 1 can of store bought) and some in 1 cup containers for when I need a little less.
General rule is 1 cup dried equals approximately 3 cups cooked.
Better Bonus Tip: Now that you have cooked your own beans, give my beer bean tostada or hummus a try.
See you next week, where we will finish the tour in the pantry.
~Ashley
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