The pantry is bare, what do I eat now?

eat

My pantry is bare, now what do I eat?

Since I frequently receive this question, I decided to put together a blog post to help you, after all, one has to eat.

If you still have not cleared out ALL the inflammatory foods in your house, stop reading this post. This is not for you yet. Go clean out your pantry, fridge, freezer, car, drawers: anywhere you have food hiding. From personal experience, I know this is the only way you are going to succeed which is why I am giving you tough love.

Now that you have cleaned out your cabinets and fridge of any inflammatory foods that might tempt you to cheat, it’s time to start replenishing with non-inflammatory foods. While they may not look as exciting as the processed foods that used to live in your kitchen, they will nourish your body and mind in ways inflammatory food never could.

The key to success with eating anti-inflammatory foods is having a good base of food options. This is a great place to stock up of frozen foods. While I try to always cook with fresh foods from the farmer’s market, foods are seasonal and during the winter many fresh veggies are harder to come by. For that reason, I keep the following in my freezer:

-Organic Frozen Spinach

-Organic Frozen Swiss Chard

-Organic Frozen cauliflower

-Organic Frozen Carrots

-Organic bell pepper medley

-Organic Frozen Broccoli

-Grass fed beef

-Pastured chicken or chicken pieces

-Frozen fish

-Organic Frozen berries

Notice, there aren’t any packaged or pre-made foods in this list. Part of the key of an anti-inflammatory food is eating real food. That means foods with 1 to 3-4 ingredients

Having these available makes dinner planning in a pinch very easy. While I highly recommend meal planning, there are many times I forget or try to wing it for the week. These veggies and meat options along with a slow cooker or pressure cooker ensure I can feed myself and my family nourishing foods without a headache.

I knew this week was going to be stressful as both of my children were in camp and making meals was going to be a struggle with my shift finishing at 1130pm. Unfortunately, the week got away from me and I did not meal plan.

Mid week, I thawed a bag of chicken pieces that was ~ 3 pounds. I mixed olive oil, smoked paprika, turmeric, granulated garlic and sea salt together (actual recipe to follow) and marinated it for 30 minutes. My husband grilled the pieces on low heat for ~15-20 minutes to make sure the chicken stayed nice and tender but the chicken was not charred.

The grilled chicken was then used on salads, in a carrot-fennel soup, sauteed with potatoes and frozen spinach. 3 distinct meals on 3 different days all from frozen chicken, frozen spinach and some fresh veggies.

During the week, for our breakfast, I sauteed swiss chard from our garden with leeks and frozen spinach with coconut oil and topped the veggies with pastured poached eggs.

While these meals may not sound as exciting as some of the packaged or boxed foods that used to reside in your cupboards or fridge, these are nutrient dense meals, full of antioxidants, a great balance of fat, protein and carbs and best of all they are anti-inflammatory meals. Each bite is going to sooth and nourish your body and help you end your endometriosis once and for all. Food is the most powerful medicine out there. Make good food choices!

What are your favorite anti-inflammatory meals? How do you balance life with cooking?

Here’s is a whole food, very healthy snack option: