I had an epiphany the other day.
Ever since I started eating real food, I’ve stayed far away from where my meal inspiration used to come from (if not picked up straight from the freezer aisle) — recipes from magazines, websites, and TV shows with eye-rollingly-typical “healthy” fare. Ingredients like, “Bouillon cubes,” and “Heart-healthy canola oil,” and “Fat-free sour cream” Barf. Barf. Barf.
So just the other day, when I really needed to figure out what to do with a pack of grass-fed short ribs I had bought, I decided I’d go ahead and check out one of my old standard recipe sites, at least to get some ideas. But what I discovered, was that even though most of the recipes called for some barfy ingredients, I knew just what I needed to replace them with! And the more I thought about it, the more I realized how easy this really is.
So, I’ve figured out a little system. You can make any terrible mainstream recipe, into a healthy “real food” recipe, with just a few easy tweaks. Promise!
Time to Real-Foodify those ingredients!
Do your favorite recipes call for any of the following?
Switch them out, or fix them up, with these ten easy solutions!
1. White Flour: Use Sprouted or Soaked Whole Grain Flours (Or Grain Alternative Flours)
Even if you spring for “whole wheat” flour bought at the store, that stuff really isn’t what it seems. The processing factories are just sprinkling back in wheat germ to white flour to get your basic “whole wheat.” That aside, even “whole grains” aren’t quite what the industry claims them to be. Not to mention, by the time they actually reach your pantry, they’ve usually gone completely rancid.
You see, grains in and of themselves are not the friendliest of foods. You gotta know how to work ’em.
For us traditional cooking folk, that means they need to follow what I call the “3-S Rule: Soaked, Sprouted, or Soured”, in order to be healthy, instead of potentially damaging to the body. If they’re not, the grains’ natural anti-nutrients can take away (rather than provide) minerals from you, and the difficult-to-digest grains can wreak havoc on your gut. The 3-S techniques work to counteract the anti-nutrients found in grains, and aid in digestibility.
So, if you’re baking, sprouted dry flour works marvelously. (Find sprouted flour available here.) Some recipes work okay to soak your flour instead. To do that, take whatever amount of liquid you were going to use, and soak the flour for at least 12 hours. If it’s water, add whey. If it’s milk, use kefir or yogurt instead. See the must-have cookbook, Nourishing Traditions, for plenty of recipes that use this technique, so you can apply it to other recipes.
If the recipe wants you to use already-made buns, rolls, or slices of bread, use sourdough. Try to get quality sourdough that was actually legitimately fermented, though. Another option is already-made sprouted bread products. Those are easier to find than real sourdough, from what I’ve seen.
Coconut flour or almond flour are great alternatives to grain flours. Coconut flour absorbs crazy amounts of moisture though, so you’ll need to adjust. For every cup of flour, replace with about 1/4 to 1/3 cup coconut flour and an extra cup of liquid, such as milk, as well as several extra eggs. You can find coconut flour here.
But, don’t beat yourself up if you decide to use a little white flour here and there. (I often bake with white flour myself—here’s why.) Some things like pastries and sandwich bread just won’t get the right consistency without mixing in at least a little bit of the white stuff. Just make sure your white flour is organic, because conventional flour is highly contaminated with toxic chemical pesticides.
2. “Low-Fat” or “Fat-Free” ___: Use Full Fat Product Instead
Typically dairy products. Never, ever buy low-or-fat-free dairy! Not only are low-fat dairy products totally gross (let’s be honest!) and filled with chemicals and additives to try to make them taste semi-normal, they’re also literally made with industrial waste — no one but the farmers’ pigs used to drink skimmed milk before someone smart in their marketing department decided to start plugging the waste product as “healthy!” And you’re not saving yourself from packing on the pounds either. The pigs were fed appetite-stimulating skim milk to fatten them up!
Instead, buy the full fat version of whatever it is. Try to get real, fresh, raw dairy products whenever possible. Find real milk and dairy products locally here.
This step applies to “lite” versions of meat, too — skip the premium prices on boneless, skinless chicken breasts, or extra-lean beef. Buy as fatty of meats as you can. Whole chickens are awesome because you can use every last bit of them — even the bones and gizzards for making nutritious stock!
3. Canola or Vegetable Oil: Use Coconut Oil, Healthy Animal Fats, or Butter
Just in case you haven’t heard, vegetable oil is absolutely awful for you.
Wanna know what isn’t? Pretty much everything your doctor is telling you to avoid.
Saturated-fat-filled coconut oil (find the highest quality coconut oil here), butter (of course), and yes, even lard, are all actually quite healthy for you. These are heat-stable fats and won’t oxidize the way unsaturated vegetable oils do.
Veggie oils, such as canola or soybean oil, are highly processed and completely rancid before they even leave the factory. They have to add in a chemical deodorizer to the nasty oils just to mask the stench! Vegetable oils are also loaded with Omega-6, or poly-unsaturated fatty acids. We do need some O-6 fatty acids in our diet, but most people consume way, way too much. You definitely don’t want to go out of your way trying to increase your Omega-6 oil intake by choosing vegetable oil to cook with.
Poly-unsaturated fatty acids, or “PUFA” oils, have a devastating effect on the body’s metabolism. They inhibit thyroid function and contribute to weight gain, as well as many other health problems associated with a lowered metabolic rate.
So instead of PUFA oils, always opt for saturated fats, instead. The only plant-based sources of saturated fats you’ll find are coconut oil (find it here) and palm oil — both are healthy, traditional fats. For any animal fats, such as butter, lard, or tallow, you want to try to make sure they come from healthy, grass-fed animals. You don’t want to buy the lard that’s been sitting for Lord-knows-how-long in those ominous buckets on the floor of the bakery aisle — that stuff is hydrogenated, AKA, pure, straight-up trans fat. Real lard (rendered pig fat) or tallow (beef or mutton) are both healthy, traditional fats that have been used for centuries, before we ever started having heart attacks or other diseases of modern civilization.
Oh, and of course — the same thing applies to any recipe calling for margarine, crisco, or other fake versions of real fat. Ick! Don’t go there. Obviously.
4. Olive oil: Don’t cook with it. Replace with healthy fat
The olive is a fragile little guy! Olive oil has a low smoke point, and can turn from a fantastic antioxidant, to an oxidized carcinogen when it’s heated too much. If you really love the taste of olive oil in your cooking, go ahead and use it in low-temp sautes, preferably mixed with a saturated fat like butter. It’s best to avoid cooking with it at all, if for no other reason than quality, real olive oil (that isn’t laced with cheap veggies oils) is hard to find and fairly expensive. No need to waste precious olive oil in the name of “healthy” cooking! But don’t avoid it entirely — use it raw in homemade salad dressings that are delicious and easy to make! That way, you’ll avoid the toxic PUFA oils found in store-bought dressings, and you’ll be getting a dose of healthy fat. Find real, quality olive oil here.
Instead of cooking with olive oil, simple use another healthy fat like we just mentioned — coconut oil, animal fats such as lard or tallow, or butter. Clarified butter, or ghee, is great for frying and easy to make at home. (Or you can find amazing grass-fed ghee here.) Again, these are mostly saturated fats which are very heat-stable, and are just what you need for cooking, especially at higher temperatures.
Same thing applies to other fragile oils, such as sunflower, sesame, or peanut oil. Use a source of healthy saturated fat instead, unless just a little bit of the fragile oil is needed for flavor.
5. Meat or Eggs: Make sure they’re grass-fed or pastured
Let’s please avoid supporting the poop-filled lagoons of the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations world. Animals that are kept in factory farm confinement are diseased and drugged, and just shouldn’t be eaten. (Or treated that way!) But you don’t need to go vegan to eat ethically, either.
Animals kept in their natural environment, eating things like, oh I dunno — grass — instead of genetically-engineered soy and industrial waste, make for very healthy food that has nourished mankind for millenia. Always buy grass-fed or pastured meats and eggs, preferably local, when you can. Your next-best bet would be certified organic animal products, so you aren’t eating the GMO’s the animals themselves ate.
Oh and by the way? Definitely no need to throw away perfectly good yolks ever again in the name of uselessly avoiding dietary cholesterol. No more egg-white omelettes. Or egg-white anything. Or fake liquid “eggs” from a carton. Gross!
6. Fresh produce: Buy organic for any on the ‘Dirty Dozen’ list
Organic produce can be pricey. If you can’t afford to fully support pesticide-free, sustainable agriculture with your produce budget, at least stick with the O for the most-contaminated of fruits and veggies.
The Environmental Working Group comes out with a list every year of the best — and worst — of the produce section. The “Dirty Dozen” is the top twelve most pesticide and herbicide-contaminated produce items of the year. Splurge for the good stuff — organic, and ideally local — for apples, potatoes, and all the others on the list when you can.
7. Nuts or seeds: Soak and dry them!
Raw nuts and seeds in their fully-natural state actually aren’t best for your health. Nuts and seeds, just like with grains, contain anti-nutrients such as phytic acid, which bind to mineral stores in the body, depleting you of nutrition in your food.
Thankfully, these anti-nutrients are easy to neutralize through the simple practice of soaking nuts in a salt water solution. Then, you can dry out the nuts to restore their crunchiness, in a dehydrator (find those here) or oven at a low temperature overnight. If that sounds like too much work for you, you can find raw, already-soaked nuts, seeds, and nut butters here.
8. Beans or rice: Soak ’em first!
Ditch the cans. (And the Bean-o!)
Soaking beans is easy, and a great way to de-gas the magical fruit. It also makes the nutrients in the beans much more available to your body and prevents other digestive problems like heartburn or reflux.
Just like with grains and nuts, beans have antinutrients that make them more difficult to digest, but a simple soak will fix them right up. Take 2 cups of beans, cover with filtered water, and add 2 tablespoons of an acid such as apple cider vinegar or lemon juice, and let it sit overnight.
And did you know you can reduce mineral-blocking, antinutrient phytic acid in your brown rice just by soaking it for several hours before cooking? (Update: I’m not so sure about this one now. Soaking most likely makes it more digestible, and Sally Fallon says it reduces phytic acid, but Ramiel Nagel, author of Cure Tooth Decay, seems to disagree. But it won’t hurt to soak your rice, anyway, of course! Or you could just eat white rice instead, which is free of the bran, where the phytic acid lives.) Just add one tablespoon of lemon juice, vinegar, or whey to every cup of water used to cook your rice, and let it soak for about 7 hours before cooking.
9. Pasta: Make it yourself, replace with alternatives, or switch to einkorn.
Sadly, one of my old favorites is on the naughty list of processed foods. Most pasta made from processed white flour doesn’t provide much nutrition.
A better option is pasta made from whole, sprouted grains, which you can find online (available here) or in health food stores. But my absolute FAVORITE pasta is made from nutritious einkorn flour—available HERE. Both the whole wheat and white varieties are delicious, and the heirloom variety einkorn wheat offers many more vitamins, minerals, and other key nutrients than conventional wheat. I love einkorn pasta!
Rice pasta is another option for those avoiding gluten.
If you want to get even more adventurous, you can learn how to make your own sprouted pasta in CHEESESLAVE’s Healthy Whole Grains Cooking Class. Click here to sign up for individual classes (Lesson 3 is the one to learn how to make sprouted flour pasta.)
And if you’re avoiding grains, you can try experimenting with veggie pasta! Spaghetti squash can be scooped into noodles for — you guessed it — spaghetti! You can also get one of these gadgets to make pasta out of zucchini.
10. White Sugar: Use Organic, or Wholesome Sweetener Alternatives
White sugar isn’t the most nutritious thing in the world, but a moderate amount won’t hurt you. If you’re going to use it, get organic cane sugar. That way you know it’s not made from GM sugar beets, and it wasn’t grown with chemical pesticides.
Here’s some more wholesome alternatives to sugar:
- Sucanat (Dehydrated whole cane sugar juice)
- Real, raw honey (Hint: raw honey isn’t clear or pourable. It’s more like a thick, opaque paste.) Update: that might not always be true! Read the comments to learn more.
- Real maple syrup (Grade “B” is “Best!”)
- Coconut sugar (low glycemic and contains minerals, vitamins, and amino acids, available here)
- Molasses (Packed with B vitamins and minerals! Available here)
- Date sugar (learn how to make your own here!)
- Real stevia extract (Hint: stark white and resembling processed table sugar isn’t what we’re after. A liquid extract is a safer bet.)
But, don’t be fooled by “healthy” sweeteners out there that really aren’t. Avoid agave nectar, fake stevia powder, so-called “raw” sugar, and definitely artificial sweeteners like aspartame and even Splenda (which are potent neurotoxins).
Other Tips to Real-Foodify Your Meals
- Make sure your recipe isn’t fat-free! If it calls for a “drizzle” of oil, or a mere “tablespoon” of butter, you better start compensating for that craziness! Add in all the healthy fat you can to a meal, and if you’re left with a pan full of drippings that didn’t get soaked up, just pour it into a jar and re-use next time.
- Especially be sure to load up on saturated fats whenever you’re eating fruits or veggies — their nutrients are absorbed up to 50% more when consumed with healthy fats. That’s because many of the important vitamins in the food we eat are fat-soluble. Your body just can’t process and assimilate them without adequate fat intake.
- Make sure you’re using real sea salt if a recipe calls for salt. Learn more about sea salt here.
- Avoid any fake food colorings in baking recipes. Those are made with nasty petrochemicals. You can find natural food coloring in health food stores or online.
- If a recipe calls for pre-made condiments, try to use homemade. You might be surprised at how easy it is to make basics like mayonnaise or ketchup! Google is your friend for these, or you can consult Nourishing Traditions.
- Find ways to include fermented foods like cultured veggies or homemade yogurt or sour cream into recipes. And, kombucha and kefir are great for beverages. You can find recipes for all these things too in the cookbook, Nourishing Traditions.
- Add homemade bone broth or meat stock in whenever possible. You can commonly substitute water for nutrient-dense broth in recipes for sauces and soups, and you can even use it for cooking rice.
[UPDATE] Tips from our readers:
- Cream of mushroom canned soup? Dianella says, “In place of cream of mushroom we add: several mushrooms chopped, a half cup of cream, and a half cup of bone broth. Works great!”
Do you have any good tips for cooking real food recipes?
Share in the comments below!
This is great! I definitely use these tips when I’m trying to come up with recipe ideas from “standard” recipes. When all you have are good, real ingredients on-hand, it makes it easy to sub out the junky stuff 🙂
True, for those that are brand new at all this, it might require a bit of a pantry makeover beforehand! Thanks, Tiffany!
What a great idea! I shared it with my Facebook readers, since it goes along perfectly with my new Baby Steps series.
Thank for writing it!!
Thanks so much, Jennifer!! 🙂
I love this. Shared it with my facebook readers because for so many real food seems so “out there.” Sometimes I think it says a lot about our society when real food seems complicated. Really, it’s quite simple (not always easy in our overly processed world, but simple nonetheless).
GREAT tips, Emily! So good to see you back bloggin’ away on real food! I was hoping to see some pictures of your wedding too 🙂 Sounds like you are doing great! Lots of blessings to you, Kelly
This is such a great post, I’m glad it reaffirms my own kitchen habits. You just can’t beat nice saturated fats for cooking with. Also, every time I come to your blog I get so hungry because you have me thinking about what delicious real food I will whip up when I get home from work 🙂
I’ve never tried making my own ghee, I usually just buy it from the organic shop in my town, it costs quite a bit for what it is (nearly €11), but it can last a while. I’m sure it would be cheaper just to make my own, escpecially seeing as Kerrygold is plentiful around here.
This was very helpful to share with my mom who is new to real foods and easily overwhelmed and intimidated by all of the “changing up” that has to be done. Thank you!
This is awesome, thanks!
This is very interesting, but I have one problem with it- ‘raw’ honey is indeed pourable and amber clear. I grew up with bee hives. When we opened the hives, the stuff that dripped from the comb is shiny amber colored. We put that directly into jars, sometimes with the comb attached. You can’t any more ‘raw’ than that. If it’s creamy white, they have done something to it.
Thank you, Linda! I didn’t know that raw honey can be translucent and pourable. That’s great to know. I was taught from a WAPF leader about the opaque and pasty thing. Maybe she experienced only raw honey from a colder climate? The kind I usually buy fits that description. I’m gonna check out the honey sold at my new farmer’s market and ask them if it’s raw — I had passed by it before because it didn’t look like it to me! Thanks again.
I bought honey directly from a friend who has her beehives in her backyard. If it sits around for a while it will crystallize, but just warming it a tiny bit will liquify it again. I actually like it pasty because it’s easier to spread on toast and measure out for recipes! 🙂
A local bee keeper I spoke to blends her crystalized honey into a creamy looking spread. It is still raw and this way no heat is used and the result is a nice honey spread like the “spun honey”, etc …
And we are on the deep south Gulf Coast. It was just 2 weeks ago I saw and tasted it. Our honey crystalizes here too and I was happy to find a good way to make nice and usable again without the heat. I think she uses a food processor
Hi – I keep bees, and natural, raw honey can be sold in several ways – it can be comb honey – this is easy to tell… it is VERY expensive and is primarily a chunk of wax comb with honey in it – or “extracted” honey, which is the clear, amber honey that we are used to seeing. Comb honey is simply cut out of the comb (or sometimes a pre-formed box is used and the bees are encouraged to build their comb in this box). “Chunk honey” is a small piece of comb with mostly extracted honey in the jar – cheaper than true comb. “Extracted” honey is where the frames of comb are put into a centrifuge and the honey is spun out and then gravity-filtered – still raw and natural. “Whipped” honey – this is the extracted honey whipped into a creamy texture with a lot of air, so you get less honey for the money. I think your earlier comment was the best: buy local, and ask the producer if the product was heat treated. Most local honey is simply extracted, filtered and then bottled. It will be all different colors and flavors, depending on what was blooming and what nectar was flowing. Bees actually are fairly picky about staying with one type of flower that is in bloom at a time, so a beekeeper can move their hives into a field of blooming clover for a few weeks, collect the honey produced during that period, and know that it came from almost 100% clover plants! At our local farmers market, you can buy dark avocado honey, purple elderberry honey, almost clear yellow lemon honey – they all taste VERY different. A true purveyor of natural honey should let you taste it all. My faves are the citrus honeys, mint honey and logenberry honey. I live right near citrus and avocado fields, so I collect and extract those types when they are in bloom, and then a general “wildflower” or “fruit blossom” honey the rest of the nectar-flow season.
Very helpful and so interesting! Thank you, Sarah!
Let me clarify (and correct) my last comment- IF it’s creamy white, that does not necessarily mean that something was done to it. It could be from a colder climate. That said, what I meant to make clear in the first comment is that just because it’s amber/clear and pourable does not mean it’s not raw. If the honey was gathered in a warmer climate (ie TX) then it will still be pourable and clearer. The flowers will also make a difference.
If you are fortunate to get honey from a farmer’s market or a friend, just ask if it was heated or filtered. The look of the honey- in and of itself- will not tell you.
Raw honey actually is clear and pourable. The reason it is always solid at the market is because the stuff grocery stores carry is old. All honey crystallizes with age. If you purchase raw honey fresh from a local beekeeper, it will look just like the over-processed, heat-treated market brands.
I love this article 🙂 I already use a few of these substitutions to make my food healthier, vegetarian and tasty, but I will have to try the rest.
I especially hate low-fat products. Unfortunately my Mum uses everything low-fat and believes it is healthy for her. When we visit she wonders why I don’t like the no-fat greek-style yogurt she buys which tastes “just like the real thing”. I think it’s been such a long time since she’s tasted the real thing, she’s forgotten how good it is…
Haha! Ain’t that the truth. I think most people have forgotten how good real food is since they try so hard to stay away from it!
It’s a generational thing. When your mum and I were your age, we were inundated with all kinds of “new thinking” and all the “authorities” who said saturated fats were deadly and low-fat would save us (along with a lot of other foolish ideas, like counting calories and grams of this and milligrams of that). Then the advertising and production industries grabbed onto it and saturated us instead with “studies” that they said provided the proof. It will probably take some time to un-do what has been done.
What are your thoughts on avocado oil as a cooking/baking oil?
Avocado oil has a similar content of omega-6 PUFA content as olive oil, and it’s also expensive. I think it’s a waste to use it when there are other options that are not only cheaper, but more heat-stable (higher saturated fat content) and healthier. Good question!
I use bouillon cubes :-(. Apart from that, I follow almost everything else already.
Alfalfa honey is pasty looking- almost like “creamed” or whipped honey, at least the stuff that I get in my town in TN. Super delicious too.
Thanks for this. So much learning to undo the years of “diet” baloney and pre-processed life. Great resource for beginners.
CASSEROLE FIX!!
I don’t know why so many casserole recipes call for yucky cream-of-whatever canned soup. I just start the recipe by sauteing some onions/garlic/etc. in butter, then stirring in a little flour or arrowroot powder or something to thicken it and whisking in milk, making a quick home-made creamy base.
Ooh… great tip!! Thanks!
I do have a question about baking… I have several cake recipes I adore even though they call for vegetable oil. I haven’t made them in a really long time because
1) I have been lazy and
2) I haven’t been sure if coconut oil or butter would be a good substitute because they are solid at room temperature, and won’t that mess with the texture of the cake? I should probably just shut up and try it out, but I’m wondering what other people do. (Besides finding a whole new recipe.)
I’ve found that if it calls for liquid veggie oil, subbing coconut oil or butter works perfectly fine. But, if it wants vegetable shortening, then sometimes it can change things a bit. The ideal substitute for that would be a high-quality leaf lard, which is tough to find, but you can make it yourself if you get the right kind of pastured pig fat. You’d have to ask the butcher specifically for the “leaf.” I will post this question on Facebook to see what all our expert real food bakers think. 🙂
Fatworks sells leaf lard from pastured pigs, as well as duck fat from pastured ducks and tallow from grass-fed cows. It’s a great option if you don’t have a good local butcher to buy fat from. Our local co-cop buys from Fatworks and I’ve been happy with everything we’ve purchased.
http://fatworksfoods.com/
My daughters and I do A LOT of baking for our family and the volunteer organizations that we work with, and following are the general rules we have found work best after years of playing around with recipes.
For cookies: if you want them soft/chewy use coconut oil or half coconut oil/half butter (for flavor)OR half coconut oil or butter and half fruit puree (like applesauce, mashed banana, or pumpkin puree), if you want them crisp/crunchy use all butter.
For brownies, blondies, and bar cookies: melted coconut oil or melted coconut oil/fruit puree or sour cream/fruit puree.
For cakes: melted coconut oil for white cakes and sponge type cakes, coconut oil/fruit puree works for most others.
For quickbreads (muffins, zucchini bread, banana bread, etc.) melted coconut oil or melted coconut oil/fruit puree.
For pastries and biscuits (anything where the traditional method would have had you cutting the shortening into flour before adding the liquids) cut lard into the flour.
notes: The reason you melt the coconut oil for brownies and cakes is to make it incorporate into the batter better.
Most cookies, with their heavier doughs, work better if the coconut oil is firmer. In the winter, I can use it from room temperature, but in the summer I keep it chilled and let it sit out just a little while before making the cookies (like you would butter). Using melted coconut oil in some cookies causes them to spread out on the pan too much before they firm up in the oven. Refrigerator, or ice box cookies (think “slice and bake”) can use melted coconut oil since you chill the dough before baking.
If you’re making a “butter” recipe, like butter cookies or pound cake, you will find that the moistness and texture can be improved by using coconut oil as part of the fat with butter for its flavor.
Using buttermilk as the milk in almost any baked good that uses milk improves the texture and flavor.
Himalayan or Celtic sea salt?
Just a pet peeve I’ve been seeing in all these articles… I’m all for real food etc. I am a professional in the food industry and everyone seems to say “bone broth” and “meat stock.” Stock is made from bones, extracting the gelatin and other nutrients from bones. It gelatinizes when cold (think Jell-o). Broth is made from meat and does not gelatinize.
I’ve made meat stock that gelled. Well, it was made with meat on the bones (where the collagen lives). Is that not meat stock? Is the real definition of meat stock, stock made with just meat and no bones?
what do you use to fry french frys or fried chicken?
Beef tallow or refined (neutral flavor) coconut oil. Either are very tasty!
Thanks for the great tips Emily. I think most of these changes are quite easy to achieve except the flour one. I bake a lot and baking involves lots of white flour. Also being in Australia I have never seen sprouted flour sold anywhere. So i guess I should just stick with the white flour and stop stressing about it!
hi, i’m not sure if it’s my browser or what, but your links to villagegreennetwork.com/marketplace don’t have any milk or cream listed on the site. they aren’t under ‘dairy’ or ‘beverages’ from what i see.
what do you use in place of cream of chicken soup?
Great list! I wish everyone in north America would digest this info and start demanding safe / real / honest foods in their lives, from grocery store to restaurants, and everywhere in between!
I have been eating this way for nearly a decade, along with growing my own food, raising my own animals, and fermenting lots of my own food too. One comment on your oil message; While I agree whole heartily folks ought not eat canola oil or corn oil, becel or any weird highly processed oils from GMO monoculture crops I think there are some other wonderful healthy and beneficial oils out there not only coconut oil (which I adore entirely…) but I also lean on walnut & flax oil for dressings, pure virgin organic olive oil and grape seed oils for frying or baking sometimes, and my favorite of all time hemp oil for everything, with balanced essential fatty acids this is not only a great cooking and baking oil, it’s a super food, not to be overlooked!
🙂 great blog post!
I have a question. I want to use a better sugar in my tea and baking. what, other than honey is good to use? anytime I have too much of the white processed sugar, like adding it to tea, I have a reaction where i cannot breathe and get all congested and sneeze for about an hour. then it goes away. I love my sweet tea and have been using either stevia or spenda.
Great post! The biggest thing for me is substituting the oil (canola or olive) with lard or butter, or coconut oil. Normally when cooking I use lard, or I dry sautee the veggies first and then add the olive oil or whatever later, so no chance of oxidation.
We’ve been Paleo since Christmas but I was vegan for many years before that, so I, too, have been slowly looking to classic recipes (Julia Child!) for cooking inspiration sometimes.
Awesome tips! I need to print this one!
What do you suggest for bouillon substitutions? I have been buying the organic “better than bullion” jars. Probably not the best thing but I didn’t know what else to substitute in my moms recipes that called for bouillon.
I tried to ask this before and not sure if it went through or not so please delete if a duplicate. I am interested in substitutes for bouillon. My mom has a lot of recipes that call for it that I like to make. I have been using the “better than bouillon” organic version in a jar. I wouldn’t know what to use otherwise. Thanks!