How to Eat Real Good This Week
& not throw out any produce
Greetings, Substackians!
Another apocalyptic news cycle, terrifying grocery prices, and not enough GLP-1 to save us from the end times. Welcome to what I’m hoping will become a weekly newsletter to rant about pseudo nutrition and teach you how to feed yourself very well for very little.
A few months ago, I moved from Spring Green, Wisconsin, to Boulder, Colorado, to head up an on campus nutrition program for a prominent technology company. The goal: do more with less, make people healthier, and empower folks to view things which grow from the earth as elixirs to eternal life - turning the dial down on pre-made and processed and up on handmade and simple. I’d like to start sharing my weekly menus onsite with you all - and assure you that if I can produce this for sixty people, with just my two hands and no super special equipment - you can, too. The best part of my job is the consistent validation from folks who tell me that since they started eating my food, they have felt better - this is why I do what I do and why I believe that knowledge is power.
I remember a time when the argument for processed foods was skewed to price point - it’s cheaper to buy x, y, z, processed than to buy organic produce. Slowly, I’m noticing prices on processed foods creep upward, as the necessary inputs for these products - milk, wheat, potatoes and eggs - climb too. At the same time, wellness culture continues to spiral way the fuck out of control, tossing around “superfoods” which all just so happen to come from different countries and cost 4x produce available here - and having the audacity to tell people the next hot supplement is saffron. Meanwhile, colorectal cancer is climbing due to a horrific lack of natural fiber, gut microbiomes are dying off from a lack of variety, and $50 tubs of lead ridden seaweed powder are being sold to us as replacements for the vegetables in any grocery store. I feel the antidote here is a vantage point switch - nutrient density per pound, per meal, or per week, rather than trendy and tiny items you’ve been convinced are better. Let’s dive into that.
Fuck “superfoods.”
Superfoods, antioxidants, and hormone-balancing - these are utterly arbitrary, overused, meaningless, cleverly thrown around marketing tools to make you feel like you need to spend more to live longer, “glow brighter”, and feel better. Let me break this down for you. Unless your ancestral lineage is somewhere in a dense, tropical jungle, a $6 dragonfruit is very likely not a superfood for you. You know what is? Fucking cabbage. Sweet potatoes. Leafy greens. Believe this, hear it, and don’t dare question it: the cheapest items in the produce section - that is, root vegetables, leafy greens, and herbs - are the best things you can put in your body.
I am big on algorithmic menus, especially knowing that I’m cooking for 40-60 on a regular basis. With warmer temps, I’m forecasting my weekly meal prep like this:
1 salad focused on hydration, herbs, and fruit
1 salad focused on greens, fiber, and high density vegetables
1 grain-based dish focused on fiber, herbs, and root vegetables
1 legume based dish focused on fiber, plant protein, and digestion
1 protein based dish focused on lean proteins to add to the above dishes
1 protein dish focused on healthy fats
Six dishes across five days at home can provide a ton of overlap to keep you from getting tired of what you’re eating, cover all of your nutritional bases, and totally limit your kitchen time to one big push without any fancy ingredients, equipment, or technical skills. Believe me. You can do this. In fact, I challenge you to follow this meal plan for a week - I know for a fact that you will feel better than you did at the start, save a fuck ton of money you’d normally spend going or ordering out, and have a use for every item that you buy in the grocery store without a dreaded soggy bin of spinach rotting in the back of your fridge. Here’s this week’s menu, scaled down for one person to eat twice per day, two people to share, or simply multipliable for twelve or four or sixty. These quantities are intended to replace any lunch or dinner eaten away from the home. Recipes first, shopping list at the bottom.
I will be sharing my menus in the coming weeks, hoping to help all of you make informed choices which will quickly turn into skills. Thank you, as always, for being here.
In Health,
A
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Weekly Menu
Watermelon Salad - cubed watermelon, papaya, cucumber, fresh basil, fresh mint, lime-scallion vinaigrette, feta (optional)
Beet Salad - snap pea, roast beets, arugula, fennel, lemon-mustard vinaigrette
Quinoa Tabbouleh - parsley, sweet potato, shallot, mint, tomato
Garam Masala Chickpeas - red lentils, cilantro - lime vinaigrette
Herby Chicken - parsley, orange, garlic and onion marinade
Coconut Poached Salmon - charred ginger, lemongrass, aromatics
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Below you’ll find recipes and a grocery list - and before you freak out about a paywall - the new stent in my father’s heart and no safety net for any of us has me feeling like article which took a few hours to write is pretty fair.
Watermelon Salad (hydration, digestive enzymes)
This is a salad I believe could and should be eaten almost every day, so I’d go with a full sized watermelon. See ingredient notes for options and best choosing.
1 large watermelon - there are two ways to know your watermelon is good. One, it must have a yellow spot - this is an indication that it’s ripe! A watermelon rests on the ground as it ripens, and a yellow spot means it was allowed to ripen before being picked. The next is a hollow sound when you pat the side - this means it’s full of water, and not that horrible mid winter pale pink shitbag we have all eaten at least once.
1 ripe papaya - papaya is the most slept on fruit in the fruit department and it’s because nobody knows how to pick one. A ripe papaya will look rotten and feel soft to a press of the finger, be a nice mix of yellow and green on the skin, and have a slightly sweet smell. An underripe papaya is green and firm.
1/4 cup of mint leaves, torn
1/4 cup basil leaves, torn (get crazy if you want and use shiso or Thai basil - delicious)
Zest and juice of 3 limes
1 cup feta, crumbled, if you like
1/2 cup olive oil
1 fresh jalapeño, if you like
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The day you bring the melon home is the day you process it. This will save space, get rid of a very heavy garbage or compost bag of rinds, and allow your watermelon to absorb all of the delicious things you put on it. I like to cube my watermelon for this salad - the easiest way for me to is to cut off the top and bottom, run my knife along the outside to cleanly remove the whole rind, then cube from there. Freak what you feel. It’s your melon.
A similar processing for the papaya. Chop the top and bottom off so you have a flat surface, then with a Y peeler or a skilled hand with a knife, peel just the skin away. Slice in half longways, scoop the seeds, and cut into cubes or strips. Up to you.
Zest and juice two limes into a bowl, thinly slice jalapeño if using. Crumble in your feta, add olive oil and mint/basil leaves, torn into small pieces. Gently combine with a spoon. In a large bowl or in the final storage vessel, spoon the herb-feta mixture all over the watermelon and papaya, giving it a nice toss or shake. This salad tastes best straight out of the fridge - if you’re new to eating fresh papaya, I encourage you to go easy as the papain enzyme within will kickstart your bowels in a big way.
Watermelon is a killer source of lycopene - all around good but particularly well studied in mitigating metabolic dysfunctions. In the summer, I eat watermelon every day - I really feel a boost in real hydration and I think you will, too.
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Beet Salad
Listen - beet slander will not be tolerated here. They are pennies on the dollar, they are beautiful, they are so goddamned good for you, and they will absorb a lot of flavor from whatever you mix them with - beets need to become a mainstay.