Fuel Your Journey With These 7 Easy Ideas
image/canva @pouncetothrive
It’s hard to know what to eat, isn’t it? What to eat. What not to eat. When to eat. What order to eat. I mean, gimme a break.
I’ve gathered a few hints and suggestions from recent research to try to help pull it all together for myself this week. Let’s explore these 7 fun tips together:
Is Butter Bad News (again?)
Well, it’s been on again, off again, on again with butter. And now, according to Harvard, it looks like it’s off again. Learn more ➪
Looking for a butter substitute? Try these suggestions ➪
Whether you’re a big fan of butter or not, it was back in the news recently for a seven-state recall for fecal contamination (ick!) Makes it a little easier to skip those croissants now…except for my son’s home-baked croissants. I would make an exception for those any day.
I don’t know about you, all I can think about now is warm, buttery croissants topped with melted butter.
I never said this was going to be easy. Perhaps we can begin by reducing our butter intake.
Less butter, more olive oil seems to be the current guideline. According to research in this article, swapping out butter for olive oil even just half the time is super beneficial. I’m happy to swap it out every time as long as it’s contaminated!
As with everything, moderation is key.
2. Bread for that Butter
White bread gets a lot of negative press, and rightfully so. We’ll keep digging into that topic.
Until then, this article from the UK about sourdough breaks the problem down into simple terms, and offers up reasons why sourdough would be a beneficial replacement this week for your standard white loaf. Explore more here ➜
3. Budget-Friendly, Healthy Foods
Do you know why bananas seem to stay the same unreasonably low price year after year? (scroll down for the answer) Along with bananas, this helpful article lists 27 more foods that are both inexpensive and good for you.
Maybe not quite as budget-friendly as bananas, but still worth investigating.
Answer: It’s a combination of numerous economic and supply chain factors,
but basically bananas remain so inexpensive
because of their extremely short shelf life. Learn more ➜
4. Foods with ONE Ingredient
I’m a big fan of Michael Pollan’s books. They’re packed with clear, well-researched advice written with a friendly, conversational voice that feels like he’s just chatting with you over a cup of coffee. I’ve written more about him in an introductory article about Fueling Your Journey.
If you struggle deciding exactly what to eat, why not take a moment this week to focus on foods that you enjoy that have only one ingredient? Just one.
Replace an item that you often eat that has a complex ingredient list with something that has NO ingredient list. Perhaps swap out chips with snap peas. Something like that.
Small changes can really add up! We’ll chat more about habits in the Pounce Pot Post.
Find Food Rules at your public library or here. ➜
5. What do Swiss Cheese and Greek Yogurt Have in Common?! (Besides milk…)
Let’s compare the foods suggested for more B-vitamin intake with the suggested list of foods that are optimal for harnessing the hidden powers of our microscopic gut biome.
A quick mental Venn diagram of the two lists suggests that we can enjoy the benefits of both lists by adding…drumroll, please … swiss cheese and natural Greek yogurt to our diets.
Don’t be tricked into thinking that most yogurt in the U.S. is healthy; isn’t not.
Most are over-filled with sugar, like these 17 brands with more sugar each than a jelly donut. Ick.
I like the Chobani 20g Protein Sugar-Free and the Oikos Pro with 25g of protein. I’m sure there are cleaner brands out there, but these are the two that I can find easily in my town.
Do what you can with what you’ve got, y’all.
unsplash @kekse_und_ich
6. 51 Easy Picnic Food Ideas
This plant-forward food blog lists 51 Easy Picnic Food Ideas. It’s a nice list filled with quick, healthy recipes.
(My picnics never look like this, by the way. I’m more of a shove everything into a Food Lion bag with some baggies filled with ice!)
Could you find an hour or two (or three) this weekend to enjoy a picnic with a group of neighbors? Perhaps just take a small picnic outside on your deck with one or two buddies to enjoy some fresh air and green space together. If it’s cold, sit around a campfire or firepit. Bring some blankets.
You might be surprised how beneficial being in nature (and with friends) is for your wellbeing.
7. Enjoy Traditional Japanese Washoku
The culture around enjoying traditional food in Japan is called Washoku. In 2013, Washoku was named in the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. (Learn more)
Try preparing a Japanese-style meal this week:
Serve very small portions
Use only fresh, in-season produce
Eat mainly vegetables and fish
Add a fermented side dish like tofu or miso soup
Create a beautiful presentation on lovely dishes
Eat to only 80 percent full with the hara hachi bu mindset
Thank the animals and plants—and the farmers who raised them
Hara hachi bu deserves a deeper dive. Read more here for now, and I’ll write in-depth about hara hachi bu and other Japanese philosophy in the Pounce Pot Post.
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