Healthy buget food?

[Joshua Naterman]

Josh, first off, I don't know if I should say "credits given for honesty" or "... TMI, dude"

 

Second, I actually thought peas had quite a high amount of fructose, no?

Third, and last (for now, at least) is broccoli considered a leafy veggie? Some say it is...

That was the goal

 

As for the fructose, it's about 1.5g per half cup., or 3g per cup, and it is not free fructose, but in the form of sucrose. In short, this is TOTALLY not an issue Eat peas. They are one of the great friends of plant-based diets. 

 

Please notice I did not say vegetarian. I said plant-based, which is a fancy way of stating that if you look at your plate when you eat, you should see at least twice as much vegetable mass as meat mass. 

[Joshua Naterman]

Broccoli is certainly a green vegetable, and is one of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet, but I think it depends on what kind, and whether or not you are eating the leaves.

 

For example, Chinese broccoli is extremely leafy, so I would say that is a leafy veggie. On the other hand, what we see in America is more of just the flowering part, and not the leafy part.

 

One thing you need to know is that Broccoli has about 1/4th the of vitamin K as the same volume of spinach, so if you are on Vitamin K restriction you would be better off eating Broccoli than dark greens like spinach, because you'll get ~4x of all the other stuff for the same amount of Vitamin K.

 

The more you know... G.I. Joe!!!

[Rikke Olsen]

Brilliant. I should eat more peas, then

 

I get the usual, flowery broccoli. It's one of the cheapest veggies I can find. When I go back home, spinach will be a lot cheaper, though, so I'll be eating more of it, then.

 

I don't know if I should be on a vit-K restricted diet... I eat quite bit of spinach already, but also quite a bit of natto(u), which is one of the biggest sources of vit-K you can find.

However, I used to get long, violent nose bleeds, especially as a child and teen. I don't know if it's related, but maybe the vit-K I get now as helped reducing it.

 

Anyways, thanks!

[Karl Kallio]

A lot of good advice...I'll add my 2 cents to compliment:

 

Don't let the best be the enemy of better. As in sure, it would be best to learn how to cook, go get economical meat, staples and vegetables and put together varied delicious meals for next to nothing.  But that's a long term goal for most people - you have to get the skills and set up the logistics.  Short term you might want to start off with baby steps and advance with time:  Here are some baby steps I have used

 

Get a few food containers - empty yogurt tubs or what ever can work like fancy tupperware to take food around with you.

Get a carton of eggs, hard boil them and put them back in the carton in the fridge - protien to go for a few days

Get a kilo or two of the cheapest fruit, wash and put in the fridge - fruit to go for a couple days

Get carrots, peel and slice - cheap baby carrots

 

You can get the idea - at the start don't try to make whole perfect meals, focus on easy to do parts.

 

Then once you get used to processing food start cooking.  One way is to try a new recipe on the weekend and freeze the leftovers for use during the week. 

[Vincent Stoyas]

Indeed, focus on on the easy things. Lately one of my biggest staples is stir fry. Little bit of olive oil, and 1lb of frozen veggies and 1lb of beef. I eat a breakfast, then eat my story fry every few hours and then finish up with dinner. Stir fry only takes like 15 minutes with little attention.

[Connor Davies]

Guys I have to say so far you're being incredibly helpful.  You've given me loads of ideas I never would have though of otherwise.

 

I just wanted to say thanks for all the support.

[Karl Kallio]

 

Guys I have to say so far you're being incredibly helpful.  You've given me loads of ideas I never would have though of otherwise.

 

I just wanted to say thanks for all the support.

Whether we admit it or not, you're in the same position as most of us have been at some time in the past.  Being able to do pantry planning and food preparation is so important, but somehow it's easy to miss the learning process. Perhaps since food is such a big business there's a lot of messages out there to buy pre-packaged, or buy 1001 things just to cook a basic meal. 

 

Personally I suffered BIG time when I moved to a third world country until hunger and unavailability inspired me to learn how to cook.  Since then I have figured out a few things

 

1) Try to get ahead of your hunger. If you're tired and hungry you won't have the energy to cook

 

2) Temperature, the humidity of the cooking environment, and duration have a lot more to do with flavour than sprinkle-on spices.  Pay attention to the heat application process.

 

3) The most expensive food is spoiled food.  If you buy it, make sure to use it

 

4) Most recipes can be simplified.

 

5)  Once you are proficient, cooking for friends is cheap entertainment... and with luck they will reciprocate

[Cody Hahn]

I buy frozen veggies, especially frozen spinach, peas, colored bell pepper mixes, and the Key largo blend from Kroger. I also buy the Normandy blend from costco or wal-mart.

 

Some veggies are cheaper fresh. Carrots and onions are two great examples. Most of the important veggies are cheaper frozen, even when comparing to farmer market prices.

 

I love peas, because they are cheap, have lots of carbs, have a good amount of fairly high quality protein, and mix extremely well with other foods.

 

About half of my veggies are greens each day.

 

For all of my veggies, I steam them. It is very fast, preserves a whole lot of nutrient value, and is easy to clean up.

 

For taste, I either mix them with my chicken juice (left over from baking) or I put butter and spices on them. You always want to have some fat directly with your veggies, because there are fat soluble vitamins that cannot be absorbed if there isn't enough fat in the same meal. 10-ish grams of fat is plenty for this purpose, per serving of veggies.

 

As for portions per meal, I do 1-2 cooked cups per meal. I try to eat quite often (though this doesn't work well at my internship), so this leads to 12-16 cooked cups of veggies each day.

 

Yes, I poop green. I also basically never have to wipe, which I know because I am smart enough to always wipe once, just to be sure.

Hey Joshua,

What kind and how much salt do you have with your vegetables and your meals, if any?

[Joshua Naterman]

I try to get around 3000 milligrams, or 3 grams, of sodium a day,but I usually fall short of that. The salt tends to be in the rice, not the veggies, because I like it that way.

 

My preference is to measure out the salt ahead of time, so that you have the RIGHT amount for you when you start preparing food. For me, that's about 1.25 teaspoons of table salt, or sea salt. it's not much, but you don't need much to taste salt after you get away from processed foods for a few weeks.

 

Please note that I did NOT say tablespoons For you metric ppl, out there, that's about 6.25 mL of table salt to get 3000 mg. ALWAYS check your labels.

 

Many foods have small amounts of sodium naturally in them, so it is good to account for that as well.

 

I can't make any recommendations for anyone else. It is up to you to regulate your own sodium. Some people need much tighter boundaries than others.

[Piotr Ochocki]

Indeed, focus on on the easy things. Lately one of my biggest staples is stir fry. Little bit of olive oil, and 1lb of frozen veggies and 1lb of beef.

Vincearoo, be careful with frying on olive oil, depending on type and quality it may be pretty unstable in moderate temp and have low smoking point and oils heated past their smoking point produce nasty stuff.

I prefer to use some good oil for frying and leave olive oil for cold dishes (salads, etc).

[Joshua Naterman]

If you steam-fry the temperature will never exceed ~100 C as long as there is liquid water covering the bottom of the pan.

 

Steamfrying is just a term I made up years ago, and means having water in with the foods being stir-fried. I typically use just enough water to leave a small layer on the bottom, which means I periodically add water once or twice while cooking.

 

This cooks everything much faster, controls the temperature, and makes it easy to get things exactly how you want them.

[Connor Davies]

Vincearoo, be careful with frying on olive oil, depending on type and quality it may be pretty unstable in moderate temp and have low smoking point and oils heated past their smoking point produce nasty stuff.

I prefer to use some good oil for frying and leave olive oil for cold dishes (salads, etc).

At work I have to clean behind the vats filled with 180 degree celsius vegetable oil, and there's quite a bit of smoke from those.  When I clean behind them they come free of the extractor fans and I end up breathing quite a bit of the smoke in.  Seeing what it's done to the vents, I'm hesitant to get much of it in my lungs (especially since I'm an ex smoker.)

 

Anyone know about the dangers of breathing in the smoke from vegetable oil?  To my knowledge the stuff has never been tested for pm2.5 or anything like that.

 

As an aside, it's been one week so far mcdonalds free.  Just wanted to celebrate.

[Jon Douglas]

As an aside, it's been one week so far mcdonalds free.  Just wanted to celebrate.

That's huge. Just imagine what your body is thinking right now. Good stuff.

[Connor Davies]

That's huge. Just imagine what your body is thinking right now. Good stuff.

Well, I lost 3 kilos.... Not even focusing on cutting right now, just eating real food.  Still need some more lunch options other than boiled eggs and tuna sandwiches tho.

[Vincent Stoyas]

If you steam-fry the temperature will never exceed ~100 C as long as there is liquid water covering the bottom of the pan.

 

Steamfrying is just a term I made up years ago, and means having water in with the foods being stir-fried. I typically use just enough water to leave a small layer on the bottom, which means I periodically add water once or twice while cooking.

 

This cooks everything much faster, controls the temperature, and makes it easy to get things exactly how you want them.

Sounds like what I do with my stir fry, except I just throw in a pack of frozen veggies which probably equates to a layer of water anyways.