The Capsule Kitchen
by Drew Price on June 4, 2008
in Uncategorized
First published March ‘08
If you only have tasty ‘good’ foods in your kitchen then you are going to eat well at least some of the time, right? So stop messing around, save time effort and money and but what you need to to get you to your goals of a strong healthy body.
The Capsule Kitchen is an idea I use often in clinic and something that I will expand on in an up-coming book but below is a condensed version of the food choices component. The full version of the Capsule Kitchen also encompasses food bought less often, cookware and utensils as tricks you can use to make buying your food simple, easy and quick and also save money at the same time. However, for not we’ll stick to the shopping list
What is on the shopping list
On top of just listing foods that you should get regularly I find helpful to put in the context of your kitchen at home. As I can’t tailor this plan to each of you just make sure that yo have a good amount of the following always on hand.
What is in the kitchen
The cupboards
Nuts
Dried Fruit
Legumes: either tinned or dried including lentils, chickpeas, beans etc
Oils and fats
Virgin or extra virgin olive oil is great for salads and low temperature cooking (roasting vegetables etc). Coconut oil is great for frying (it is a more healthy type of saturated fat) as is butter. NB other healthy fats like flax and fish oils should be kept in the fridge
Green and other similar teas
Spices
Vinegar
Tinned fish: mackerel, salmon, tuna, pilchards etc
The fridge
Poultry
Lean cuts of meat
Fish: Oily and non oily
Eggs
Cheese: Both high quality low fat and also strong cheeses
Fruits and berries (some of course can be kept out of the fridge)
Fibrous vegetables
Sauces: try to find the low fat and low sugar options, they are out there it us takes a little looking.
In the freezer
Your freezer is your safety net for when you fridge stocks run low.
Frozen berries
Meat, poultry an fish
Vegetables:
pre chopped by you and in bag bought from the freezer section; it doesn;t matter, just keep a selection.
Pre-cooked foods:
Every time you cook up stews, chicken breasts, stir-frys, chilli’s etc then cook 2 or 3 times as much as you need and divide into single servings.
What is NOT in the kitchen
There are very few ‘bad foods’ but only ‘bad diets’ but the more of the flowing foods you can leave out of your diet the closer you will reach your goals. ‘If it’s in the house then in the end you are probably going to end up eating it’, if this is a given then you would be well advised to consider binning the following:
The fridge
Soft drinks and most juices
Mayonnaise
Fatty dairy products
Processed and/or high fat meat products
Most foods in colourful boxes
The freezer
Ice cream
Frozen deserts
Frozen ready meals and similar products
Cheap meat products (grill steaks etc)
The cupboards
Crisps chips and other snack foods
ANY products containing hydrogenated oils
Biscuits
Highly processed baking and baked products
Tinned fruit in syrup
I’ve been getting in quite a bit of low fat cottage cheese lately, surprisingly high in protein and low in fat.
Does anyone know if there are any negative implications of eating loads of dairy based produce even if it is low fat? – like cottage cheese, whey protein, skimmed milk, low fat yoghurt etc?
Why do you recommend strong cheeses too?
Fabian,
eating too much of any one food group is an issue, you should not come to rely on one type of food too greatly.
Good diet is about good food choices AND variety so you may want to look at other sources of lean protein.
All the best,
Drew
Jan,
strong cheese is recommend simply because you then don;t need to use as much on salads and the like. I’ll credit John Berardi for switching me onto that tip.
Cheers,
Drew