Day 1: Shrimp curry with broccoli, carrots and chickpeas, Oranges
Day 2: Turkey pesto sandwiches, Carrot & celery sticks
Day 3: Ribollita
Day 4: Homemade pizza, Tossed salad
Day 5: Sloppy joes, Mashed butternut squash, Leftover salad
Day 6: Broccoli soup with cheddar toasts
Day 7: Lemon butter cod, Sauteed Kale, Berry smoothie
Notes: You may have previously learned that fat is bad and loading up on pasta and brown rice is healthy. Well, the times are a changing. We now know that avoiding trans fats is very important (these show up as partially hydrogenated oils on food labels) , but there is a lot more evidence that fat, even moderate amounts of non-processed, saturated fat is part of a healthy diet. There is also more evidence that cutting back on carbohydrates like breads, pasta, potatoes, rice, sugar, and starches is healthy and can help with weight loss and prevent diabetes and other illnesses. Sugars and starches cause insulin spikes, which signals your body to go into storage mode and overtime leads to weight gain, especially when the insulin spikes are happening frequently. Fruit, except for berries, contains a lot of sugar/fructose and can raise your insulin levels too. Vegetables are also carbohydrates, but the non-starchy varieties like greens and broccoli do not effect your insulin levels in the same way. My meal plan this week has potential to be very carb heavy, but I tweak the recipes to make sure we aren’t eating so many. I do not add any sugar to my meals even if the recipe calls for it and I don’t put flour in my soups. Dishes, like curry, are served alone as opposed to over rice or pasta. We do have flour-based pizza dough every week (although my husband now makes his own with eggs and cheese), but I try to limit other breads we eat throughout the week. For example, we eat our sloppy joes without buns and if I serve sandwiches, I eat mine open-faced (one slice of bread only) and my husband eats the filling only (this week deli turkey with pesto). We will not have bread with the Ribollita this week either, it is filling enough on its own. However, I will make cheddar toasts for the broccoli soup as they add so much to the meal and I can use excess baguette to make “crackers” (more on that another time). Following along with my Green Life Philosophy, eating low carb is not an all or nothing prospect. Unless you are on a strict diet for health reasons, there are going to be days when you eat carbs and in fact we all need some carbs – vegetables are also carbs and this is where you get a lot of your essential vitamins and minerals. And some my favorite comfort and holiday foods are chock full of carbs (can I get a whoot whoot for lasagna and enchiladas!) So, after all of my rambling, I really just want to encourage you to tweak your recipes too. And don’t worry so much about the fat.
Green tips: Did you ever notice how the majority of packaged and processed foods are made up of flour, sugar, rice, and other starch? So by limiting your carbs, cooking at home, and shopping the perimeter of the store (produce, bulk items, eggs, dairy, meat, and deli) with your own bags and containers you will avoid a lot of single use plastic that ultimately is thrown away. Healthy environment = healthy you.
