Making any recipe a Whole Food recipe
Recipes from any cookbook can be 'converted' into a whole food recipe: entrees, breads, desserts & treats, salads & dressings, sauces, soups, stews, anything!! The “trick is easy”: read the recipe and think about each ingredient in its whole food version. Just replace everything with whole foods!
Cooking fruits and veggies: most recipe times over cook, cook just until they are softening. You want to keep some snappy crispness and color. Bright colors should still be bright, not look like you cooked them to death.
Replace any refined flour with 100% whole grain flour. 1 cup flour = ¾ cup whole grain flour
Replace refined sugar with Rapadura or Sucanat sugar or maple syrup if you are cooking it. If the recipe calls for 2 cups of sugar immediately decrease it to 1 cup or less of Rapadura / sucanat. Truthfully, I would use maybe 2/3 of a cup for a recipe that calls for 2 cups. This decreases the sweetness of the food, lowers the calories and makes it healthier for your body. If you are going to use Maple Syrup: for a recipe calling for 2 cups of sugar you would only use 1 cup of Maple Syrup to equal the 2 cups. The syrup is much sweeter. I then cut the amount to ½ cup of maple syrup to replace the original 2 cups of sugar the recipe calls for. This makes the recipe less sweet and better for you. You will get used to cakes, cookies, brownies, muffins, pies, etc. that are less sweet. Regularly made desserts will eventually gag you with their over sweetness.
For recipes you are not cooking: raw, local honey is a good sweetener. Again 1 cup of honey is equal to 2 cups of white sugar. I would then cut the amount in half and use only ½ cup honey or less.
Replace fruits and veggies in recipes with fresh, locally, & organically grown fruits and vegetables instead of frozen and canned.
Replace meat, eggs and dairy with fresh, local, pasture raised equivalents. Raw milk from local, pasture raised animals would be ideal.
Replace beans with organically grown beans you soak & cook yourself or canned organic beans in a pinch. We all need easy steps from time to time!
Replace nuts and seeds with organic, raw options. Except peanuts, always use roasted.
Use grass fed, pasture raised plain yogurt instead of sour cream. I have yet to find a good quality, organic & pasture raised sour cream. The plain yogurt from pasture raised animals will have a good fat/protein balance and health fats from being pasture raised. You could make your own sour cream with pasture raised heavy cream and cultures. Yogurt can be used to make all kinds of creamy salad dressings and sauces. My best advice is look at the spice and whole food ingredients on a commercial label and replicate the flavor with yogurt, avoiding the crap chemicals and artificial ingredients in commercial products.
Replace vegetable oils with: Cold pressed extra virgin olive oil for raw use in salad dressings, etc. or low heat cooking, unrefined sesame oil for stove top cooking, pasture raised butter in baking (get rid of Crisco and any hydrogenated vegetable oil products, they will kill you!), oven roast veggies in a 50-50 olive oil and butter blend at 350 degrees or less (high heat burns oils). Get rid of cheap vegetable oils in your cooking and in the packaged whole food products you buy: canola, soy, etc.
Get rid of any recipe ingredient that is fake food. Fake food kills body cells and ultimately will kill you. Need help? Email pyoumell@paulayoumellrn.com.
I want you to succeed & love good food! Paula
Copyright © Paula Youmell, RN, Wise Woman Nurse
