Several people have asked me what cook with? What type of ingredients do I use? What brands do I like?
- Whenever possible, I buy organic - now a days, it's not as hard to find organic fruits and veggies. I can typically find organic garlic, onions, lettuce, carrots, cucumber, etc... Yes, buying organic can be expensive, but I'd rather spend the money on organic, high quality foods now than on health care bills and weight loss pills in the future.
fat - I use : olive oil, coconut oil, coconut butter, real butter (grass fed), bacon fat - it sounds weird, but I have it from all the bacon I cook and I might as well use it and not let it go to waste, right?
dairy - I try to avoid dairy as much as possible. When I do use dairy, I try to go for raw milk cheese (you can find it at whole foods and at some gourmet shops). I also use heavy cream from time to time. I do use butter, but it's organic and grass fed.
meat - I order my meat from Holy Cow Delivery. They offer grass fed beef and they deliver it to your door! how great is that? It's cheaper than Whole Foods, but you have to decide a week in advance what you want to order so that it's ready for the week. Everything is dropped off at your front door and it's pretty convenient. So far, I've been impressed! For poultry and seafood, I go to Whole Foods. I want to get meat that has been raised humanely and not stuffed in some overcrowded pen. Meats that aren't pumped full of steroids and chemicals... Honestly, how do people think that we are not affected when our food is saturated with chemicals and antibiotics? Really? You have a brain... use it!
Seafood - I only buy wild caught fish - this narrows down your selection, but there are a lot of fish out there that are not sustainably caught or raised, so I want to avoid those anyway. Typically, I use wild caught shrimp, Alaskan King Salmon, Alaskan Sockeye Salmon, and Tuna. I've been able to find wild caught mahi mahi before too... it's just not as common.
Sugar - I just try to avoid it as much as I can. This can be hard because there is sugar in EVERYTHING. It's ridiculous how much sugar is involved in the average person's diet. I love fruit and would rather get my natural sugars from fruit than add it to my diet. I won't lie, though, I do put in those flavor syrups from Starbucks... those things are delicious and I don't have them often, so that's my big cheat. :)
