1.1 Cleaning Out Your Kitchen (food)

PREWORK: Getting out all your kitchen supplies and pantry items, being in your kitchen

LIST 1: NO Ingredients on food labels (natural flavors, added sugar, not organic (spices and teas), not pasture raised, fillers/gums, fake sugar, spam spray (spray bottle with oil instead etc.), mention common swaps to add to a grocery list which we’ll get to later in the module. 

1. Sodium nitrate

2. Sulfites

3. Butane

4. Palm Oil

5. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) 
6. Monosodium glutamate (MSG)
7. Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH)
8. Refined vegetable oil (soybean oil, corn oil, safflower oil, canola oil, and peanut oil)
9. Sodium benzoate
10. Propyl gallate
11. Olestra 
12. Paraben
13. Mercury
14. Aluminum
15. Saccharin

EXERCISE 1: Clean out food that contains the above list of no ingredients. One pile for foods where you understand the ingredients, one pile for foods you don’t. 

LIST 2: Swaps for typically processed foods. 

1. Crackers → Celery, cucumber slices
2. Salad dressing → RECIPE
3. Make your own baked chips/fries
4. Rotisserie chicken → RECIPE
5. Candy bars → chocolate squares
6. Any baked goods → RECIPE
7. Sauces (tomato, alfredo, etc) → RECIPE
8. Guacamole/spreads → RECIPE
9. Fruit juice → actual fruit or splash of 100% juice with sparkling water
10. Pop your own popcorn (stovetop) instead of buying it already popped

LIST 3: What all major healthy diets have in common, and what to keep (aka your staple grocery list) https://www.worldhealth.net/news/science-can-help-confusion-over-what-eat/

1. Vegetables
2. Whole Grains
3. Protein
4. Good quality food 
5. To kick out
1. Sugar especially added sugar
2. Refined grains
3. Processed food

EXERCISE 2: Making your new grocery list (based on the healthy swaps + core of all diets). Go to your nearest health food store. Or go online. Examples: Thrive Market, Fresh Direct

1.2 Grocery Shopping - online and in-store - specific diets/elimination diets

EXERCISE 3: Identify your nearest farmers market (website or google search and hours and whether they have organic offerings), identify your nearest health food store or chain (small or whole foods). 

Here are some apps for finding farmers markets: Seasonal Food Guide, the “Farmers Market” app, Harvest, Locavore

LIST 4: Online organic grocery shopping. NOTE: SIGN UP FOR ALL AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

1. Thrive Market

2. FarmBox Direct (produce)

3. DirectEats

4. FreshDirect

5. VitaCost (dry products + household stuff)

6. AmazonFresh

General help with grocery shopping:

1. EWG Food Scores

2. Clean Fifteen, Dirty Dozen (pull that out in list so people can easily print)

3. Non-GMO project

4. Guide to avoiding pesticides

5. Seafood guide (pull out handful of safe fish to eat)

6. Label decoder for meat + dairy

EXERCISE 4: Identify online ordering services if that’s what you need (Freshdirect, Amazon fresh, Thrive Market, Vitacost) that have organic options and do an online order

EXERCISE 5: Identify what is realistic for you: If the goal is making 21 meals a week for yourself next week, what are they going to be and what do you need to do to make that happen.

• Use a notebook to write down your favorite meals 

• Work backwards to determine a grocery list, time, appliances, and utensils needed

LIST 5: Meal Planning/Prepping Strategies:

1. prepping a smoothie before bed, making in the morning

2. do you need non-toxic to go cups? 

3. How can you make sure you have all the ingredients you want on Sunday for the week (smoothie suggestions from partners?)

4. washing all your produce on Sundays

5. if it’s bringing lunch: what do those few lunches look like (batch cooking advice and recipes from partners)

6. Common meal prep needs

7. thermos/heat things

8. Metal bowls with plastic tops

What you’re working on this coming week:

- Keep cleaning out foods and kitchen tools in kitchen if not done

- Buy this week’s groceries with your updated lists/guidelines (schedule a time to go to the store and put the address of the new store you’re trying if you are) or do it online

- Visit farmer’s market / health food store (put time in your calendar now with location/address) 

- Implement some meal planning strategies you’ve identified that might be helpful (schedule time right now to meal prep/plan)