I’ve put together a new cheat sheet for Thrive Primal Club members that I think you’re going to find super helpful. Become a member for free below – it only takes a sec.
If you’re stuck in the pattern of buying unhealthy over-priced junk for breakfast and lunch during the work week, this cheat sheet will help you jump that ship for good! Spend just one hour on Sunday whipping up easy fast paleo meals to pack along – you’ll never have an excuse again. Get ready for more variety, flavour & energy throughout your week!
I’ve put a lot of work into this cheat sheet! It includes:
a menu for nourishing paleo breakfasts lunches and snacks
a kitchen gear list
a shopping & pantry-stock list
a “run of show” instruction list for maximum efficiency in the kitchen
a custom recipe for delicious banana chocolate protein muffins
It also includes links to awesome high quality products for your primal lifestyle, including non-toxic food storage and cooking gear, plus tasty ingredients for your recipes.
Everything is listed per-person, so it’s easy to simply multiply for the number of people in your household. It provides a nutrient-dense and varied menu for the week, which you can easily adjust according to your taste.
Eating fermented foods is a must if you want to optimally digest and absorb everything you eat. Our ancestors ate cultured and fermented foods constantly, so we would have a steady stream of friendly bacteria coming into our system. Nowadays these traditional foods have mostly fallen by the wayside, along with their plentiful benefits.
Everyone should eat fermented and cultured foods, but particularly if you suffer from any sort of chronic health issues. I find it really helps my digestion!
Why it’s worth it to DIY instead of buy
Store-bought probiotic foods or capsules will never be as fresh or contain as many friendly bacteria as what you make at home. Plus they are super expensive.
They are also frequently pre-pasteurized, and then the culture is added back in. This is a crappy unnatural way of doing things according to the requirements of the food industry. Making things yourself gets you the biggest health benefit and saves you the most cash.
FACT: The fermentation process of sauerkraut causes the vitamin C content to multiply by 10 x! Sailors historically ate sauerkraut to avoid scurvy because it was so nutritious and didn’t spoil easily.
How to make sauerkraut in 3 steps
First collect your stuff.
Cabbage (any size and type will do, organic is best)
Knife and chopping board
Large mixing bowl
Large glass jar (bigger than your cabbage. I normally use a medium-size cabbage and a 2L jar)
Another smaller jar that fits inside the mouth of your large jar. I normally use something like a tall skinny olive jar or sauce jar.
Salt (Pink Himalayan Salt is best, but sea salt is still better than table salt)
If you use whey, your sauerkraut will be ready in 3-4 days. If you don’t, it will take 1-2 weeks.
Step 1: Chop
Take off the outer 2 leaves of your cabbage and set them aside – you’ll need them later. Then go nuts and chop your cabbage as small as you can be bothered chopping it. The pieces definitely shouldn’t be any bigger than 1cm x 1cm, but they can be as small as you want (but not puree!). If you have a good food processor you can use that too.
Step 2: Salt and Sit
Get your bowl and plunk in about 1/3 of your cabbage, then sprinkle a big tablespoon of salt over it. Put in another 1/3, then another tablespoon of salt. Last 1/3, then 2 tbsp of salt. The rough guideline here is 4 tbsp salt per 1 kg of cabbage. Generally this would mean 3 tbsp salt for a small cabbage, 4 tbsp for a medium cabbage, 5-6 tbsp for a large cabbage.
Then let your salted cabbage sit for about 20 minutes. The salt draws the moisture out of the cabbage.
Step 3: Knead and Pack
Spend about 5 minutes or so kneading, squeezing and punching your cabbage to get as much juice out of it as possible. The goal is to get enough juice out to cover the cabbage once it goes in the jar.
Pack it into the jar as tightly as you can, pushing it down to get any air out. Add a few tbsp of whey if you’re using it.
At this point see how much liquid you have – you might need to top up with a little more whey or water (filtered/purified if possible). The liquid should be 1-2 cm above the top of the packed cabbage surface.
It’s imperative that the liquid covers the cabbage bits since we are going for anaerobic fermentation (no air contact allowed!).
Grab the cabbage leaves you saved earlier, fold them and place them on top to make as good of a ‘lid’ as you can. This is to keep the cabbage below the liquid. Weigh down this lid with your smaller jar. Put some water in the smaller jar to keep it weighed. Check that all of the chopped/packed cabbage is below the liquid. This is important to avoid mold. It’s ok if the cabbage leaf ‘lid’ pokes above the liquid, because you won’t be eating it.
How to check that your sauerkraut is ready
That’s it! Now place it in a cupboard or a cool dark place out of the way somewhere. Wait for 3-4 days if you used whey, or 1-2 weeks if you didn’t.
It’s always safe to taste, as long as there is no mold. You’ll know it’s ready when it starts to taste kind of sour, fizzy, and a lot less salty. When it’s lost enough saltiness for you, take out the weight and the leaf lid, put the lid on the big jar and keep the sauerkraut in the fridge.
A few tips:
If your big jar ends up being pretty full, I recommend putting it in a big bowl while it’s fermenting. There will be gases produced and the liquid level might rise. The big bowl is in case of overflow.
Keep checking it to make sure everything is below the liquid. Add a little water if it’s looking a bit dry.
If you see mold, most articles I’ve read recommend throwing out the whole batch. If you’re not sure whether it’s mold (ie a small white floating patch) you could scoop out a significant area surrounding it, and then continue fermenting. If the white stuff / mold doesn’t come back after a few days, it should be safe.
As a general rule, if there’s no mold it’s safe to eat. Mold is a risky area and if in doubt, just get rid of it and start again. Next time make sure you pack the cabbage down really well, put enough liquid in, and keep everything consistenly below the liquid level.
How did it go?
Share your tips, questions, comments, experiences below. Is your digestion better? Skin clearing up? Immunity boosted? Sauerkraut rocks :)
Have you ever seen those oversized weird-looking bananas at the supermarket? They’re plantains!
A staple in traditional island diets, they’re a bit of a wildcard here in North America. They’re worth learning how to cook, because they have some great nutritional benefits. One of my favourite Paleo/Ancestral practitioners, Chris Kresser, talks about plantains a lot on his podcast. It sounds like has them for breakfast almost every day with his 1-year-old daughter.
Plantains are high in resistant starch, which produces a fatty acid called butyrate in the lower digestive tract. This provides food for beneficial bacteria, improves insulin sensitivity, and may also have anti-cancer properties!
And man are they DELICIOUS. This has become one of our favourite veggie sides that we look forward to.
Easy Healthy Plantains in a Pan
This recipe has lots of good traditional fats as well as anti-inflammatory properties from the spices. Make sure you grab the plantains from the supermarket when they’re still green or just barely yellow, since they start to get more sugary as they ripen and won’t be as beneficial for resistant starch.
Heat your pan on medium heat with the 2 tbsp coconut oil and 2 tbsp grass fed butter. Ensure it never gets so hot that the oil starts to brown or smoke.
Cut the ends off the plantain, and make a shallow cut along the length just through the skin. Then you'll be able to peel it.
Slice the plantain into rounds about 1/4" thick, and place them in a single layer in the pan.
Sprinkle all the spices and salt evenly over the plantain slices.
Let them cook on one side for a few minutes, checking them until you see they're getting just slightly browned.
Flip them one by one onto their other sides, then mush them gently with a fork, just to break the surface. THIS IS THE MAGIC. Now they will soak up all the delicious butter and coconut oil.
Let them sit until they have soaked up most or all of the oil. You can leave them on low heat until you are ready to eat them.
Have them right away (tastiest!) or they are also good as leftovers. Serving with some good quality sour cream is DIVINE.
Ok people, this recipe is seriously delicious. Will and I whipped it up basically by accident last night to use up some leftover pork, and then re-heated it for dinner this evening. As it was warming up on the stove, I was seriously drooling even though I wasn’t even that hungry. It smells DIVINE. Like a platter of fried chicken and BBQ pork all smothered in tastiness.
And it is —SO—EASY—. 5 ingredients, that’s it! Heaps of veggies hidden in there, plus the super healing and immune-boosting nutritional punch of chicken broth. The one catch is you want to try and make your own good organic chicken broth if you can.
The easy way to have homemade bone broth in the fridge at all times…
We are in the routine of collecting all the bones from any good organic meat and fish that we buy. We put them in the freezer in containers sorted by type, and as they fill up, once or twice a week we just chuck one type in the slow cooker. Top it up with water and a splash of apple cider vinegar, and leave it on until the next evening.
We usually start it on High overnight, and the next morning turn it down to Low for the day. When we get home later, we scoop out the bones with a ladle or slotted spoon, and pour the broth into jars or containers. So easy, and you end up with lots of broth to keep in the fridge or freezer.
If you’re not up to making your own broth, just snag some good clean organic chicken broth from the store. “Clean” meaning no additives!
Real Food Recipe: Delicious 5-Ingredient Wintry Pea Soup
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
A quick real-food dinner to whip up on wintry evenings. It stores or freezes really well so make lots and store in containers for easy future meals.
Ingredients
3 big organic pork servings, or 3 big slices of ham (we used leftover pork shoulder from a Christmas dinner; you can use any type but just make sure you can chop it up into small-ish cubes)
2 cups homemade organic chicken stock
2 cups organic celery
2 cups organic carrots
1.5 cups dried split peas
2-3 cups water
pink himalayan salt to taste
Instructions
If your pork is not already cooked, cut into cubes and cook it a bit in the bottom of your pot with some butter.
Measure the peas into the pot and add 2 cups water, 2 cups chicken stock. You may need to add more water if it begins to look dry as it cooks.
Finely chop or food-process the carrots and celery and add to the pot.
Bring the whole thing to a boil, then down to a simmer and leave it for 30 minutes or so, until you can sample a pea and it's cooked soft.
Add salt to taste, and serve. Yum!
Notes
RECIPE TIP:
Add some chopped garlic, a bay leaf or some herbs such as marjoram, thyme or sage for even more savoury flavour.
KITCHEN TIP:
Prep this recipe really quick and then get other stuff done while it simmers! Pack breakfasts, lunches and snacks for work, get the dishes done, do some squats, clean the litterbox, etc! So it really only takes 15 minutes of "active" cooking time!
This recipe was created by Liivi Hess, ThrivePrimal.com
I do realize the picture doesn’t look that appetizing…but what picture of soup ever looks that good? It always just sort of looks like mystery mush. You’ll just have to trust me on this one!
A note on split peas and carbs
I’m not sure about the paleo or primal-ness of split peas; I’m guessing they fall fairly low on the list, or in a gray area. They’re sort of a vegetable, sort of a legume. But based on stuff I’ve heard from Daniel Vitalis and Arthur Haines, I feel that primal hunter-gatherer types at least in the Americas seemed to gather a lot of wild grain and legume type foods. And lately I’m making a point of not being afraid of carbs. Not going overboard either, but having a healthy serving of lower-GI carbs in the evening is just fine.
After fully enjoying all the tastiness of multiple holiday parties over Christmas and New Years (no guilt or deprivation here!), needless to say my digestion has been a little off. More sugar than usual, and less fresh, whole and fermented foods have led to a bit of trouble with gas and constipation. I also started to feel a little bit of Candida symptoms today.
My clean eating dip recipe
I decided to whip up a tasty nutritious dip that would shut that right down, plus help boost my immune system and heal any inflammation that sugary holiday treats have left behind.
Real Food Recipe: Super Tasty Anti-inflammatory Anti-Candida Immune-boosting Dip
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Yield: Enough for 2 people for a snack. Multiply the amounts if you're making for a party.
A tasty snack or party dip that is just as healthy as the veggies you'll be eating it with. Treat this dip like a prescription to give your immune system a boost, bring down inflammation and stop Candida symptoms.
Also delicious as a burger patty topping, sauce for baked chicken, or as a dip with sweet potato fries.
Smush, peel and chop the garlic cloves as finely as you can. Leave them to sit for a few minutes while you prepare the other ingredients.
Pile everything else into a medium sized bowl.
Add the garlic, and mix well. Scoop it all into a clean bowl to serve. That's it!
Notes
Kitchen tip:
Chopping the garlic and then leaving it to sit for a few minutes allows the active ingredient, allicin, to increase by 8-10 times. This helps the garlic give you an even stronger immune and anti-Candida boost.
Nutrition tip:
Use this anti-inflammatory dip to alleviate symptoms of headaches, hangover, joint and muscle pain, indigestion, cold and flu, or Candida.
Recipe tips:
If you're not into spice, exclude the Frank's Red Hot. However, you should try to include the cayenne pepper as its medicinal ingredient (capsaicin) activates the medicinal ingredient in turmeric (curcumin) for stronger anti-inflammatory effectiveness.
Try adding in other tasty whole-food ingredients such as fresh herbs, lemon juice or hemp seeds for a different flavour.
This recipe contains lots of awesome active real food ingredients which should help with symptoms like headaches, joint pain, acne, digestion problems, tooth decay, and cold/flu viruses. It does this by providing natural anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting compounds as well as probiotics, good fats and minerals. Oregano oil itself has over 32 anti-inflammatory compounds in it! ** Make sure you only buy therapeutic-grade essential oils, as the ones you buy at the health food store are only for smell are not safe to consume. However therapeutic-grade ones are potent medicines for the body.
Treat it like a prescription and eat every last tasty drop! You’ll be scraping out the bowl with your fingers, trust me!
