Nutrition: Fridge vs Cupboards

It's easy to list what's in your fridge. If you have the basics of a healthy diet then your fridge probably has a variety of plant based products, multiple lean protein sources and a few natural/organic condiments.

These could include, but not limited to:

Pickles (I prefer clausen's)

Sauerkraut (same)

Greek Yogurt (Fage, Chiobani, Oikos are good. I wouldn't eat the Greek Gods brand)

Kale

Spinach

Asparagus

Brocoli

Tomatoes

Cucumber

Strawberries

Grass fed Beef

Free Range Poultry

Free Range Eggs

Almond Milk (unsweetened)

Coconut Milk (unsweetened)

Pomegranate Juice

Horseradish

(for me this comes from a patch at my parents house, and I'm a very lucky guy for this)

Minced Garlic

(You're supposed to cut it as you use it, but if you're like me then you prefer doing it all at once)

Tobasco/Cholula

For me cholula almost always wins.

Natural organic ketchup

Personally I really like Annie's but making your own can be interesting on occasion as well.

Stone Ground Mustard

I prefer Boetje's Mustard. Theirs is simply the best.

This is actually what happens to be in my fridge right now but I also just went to the store yesterday. There's also some beer, different cheeses and I'm sure rotting food that I don't yet know about.....

The freezer is pretty boring, there's some random frozen meats and vegetables, but I usually keep some Ezekiel bread around too. Oh, and I'm a sucker for corn bread and ice cream (not at the same time). Everyone has their vice, and that's mine, so I have a couple mixes and a half gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream, that I try to make last a very long time.

Where I feel people really go wrong is the crap in their cupboards.

Cupboards are usually where you stack the junk that wont ever go bad which usually means candies, pastries, chips, pastas, etc. These are things that wont help our waistlines, our performance goals, or quality of life.

I'd rather have this....

Than this....

You don't think it would've been cool to have a miniature little native american friend when you were that age? I do

The following is a short list of some of the foods that'd be good to keep in your cupboards.

It's actually what I keep stocked in my cupboards on a regular basis.

-Steel Cut Oats (always buy in bulk)

-Quinoa (same)

-Brown rice

I use brown rice sparingly. Mainly just pre/post workout on occasion but that's about it, should probably throw it away, it's getting old

-Almonds
-Walnuts

-Chia Seed(that I grind w/ a coffee grinder)

-Flax Seed (grind those too)

-Protein Powder (whey+casein)

-Barlean's Greens
-Vitamin D

I really prefer Carlson's they make a great product for an overly reasonable price.

-Fish Oil
-Magnesium

-Zinc (used as necessary)

-CoQ10
-Multivitamin

-Melatonin (rare and random usage for whenever I want to go comatose for about 12 hours)

My spice rack gets used a ton but I run out of Turmeric and Watkin's Cinnamon all the time.

-Garlic

-Onion (yep, they're not even supposed to be refrigerated until you cut them)

-Sweet potato (same)

-Real Butter from grass feed cows (no need to refrigerate it either, in fact it'd get so hard you could barely use it)

-Extra Virgin Olive Oil

-Tarragon Vinegar

-Balsamic Vinegar

Interestingly, this is one item where paying more does make a difference, up to you.

-Dark chocolate

For my taste the darker the better but less than 70% cocoa and you're just eating candy.

-Peanut or almond butter:

I've tried alot of these and tend to enjoy Full Circle's the most, and it just so happens to be on the lesser expensive side.

Then I usually keep an assortment of tea's around. Right now it's

-Ginger Peach

-Honey Ginseng

-Earl Greyer

There's no rhyme of reason to this, I just think they taste good, except the Earl Greyer, Idk where it came from.

This usually surprises people but I do keep a good stock of canned goods in my cupboards. My mom has been canning food from her garden for longer than I've been around, and you don't go to her house w/o taking something home. It's usually tomatoes, green beans and applesauce. All of which are from soil that hasn't been depleted and the food was harvest when it was ripe, unlike the food you'd get in the store, so it's very good for you and comes in handy during the winter.

On my counter and dinning room table there are bowls of fruit that always have apples and w/e else I feel like having around at the time.

There are also things I don't keep in my kitchen on purpose.

A) I'll be more likely to eat them if they're around

B) They are so rarely used in my cooking that there's no point

C) Nutritionally they aren't the greatest choices in the world, so why give support by purchasing the stuff.

These would include:

-Wheat flour

-Sucralose (or any type of artificial sweetner for that matter)

If I want some sugar I'll have real sugar, we've been doing it for thousands of years. I think once in awhile is okay if you're living an active lifestyle and consuming 95% of your carbohydrates from better, plant based sources.

-Candy:

chocolate bars, twix, snickers, jolley ranchers (of which I don't even like hard candy), m&m's, chex mix. etc.

-Falsely marketed "healthy", "high in protein/fiber" stuff either.

You wont find a Fiber One Bar, Cliff Bar, Zone Bar, or anything else like that in my house. They're just candy too.

-Cold cereal's:

Cheerios, frosted flakes, Lucky Charms, Kix, sorry to burst your bubble these suck too. They're simply candy, and hold little to no nutritional value.

-This goes for the ones marketed to be "heatlhy" as well.

There's absolutely not one Kashi product in my house, nor Total, or anything else like that. They all suck, eat some real food.

And that's that. Really, in the end the basics get you by, most everyone just tries to make it complicated. Eat 5 big cups of vegetables every day and that'll go along way by itself.

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