What healthy food staples do you use?

John cycling

John cycling

Healthy Person
Location
Central Coast California
What healthy food staples do you keep extra supplies of for your meals?
The main ones for me are 25 pound bags of pinto beans, rice, and organic oats.

Also I stock up on 40 oz cans of sweet potatoes that I eat once or twice a week for my eyes.

I use some organic sugar with the oats, and Himalayan salt when cooking the pinto beans.
Besides that are 1# cans of salmon and sardines, that I eat from once a week to once every few months.

How about you?
 

About the same although not in 25 lb bags. One and 5 lb bags. Different beans and rice, three kinds of lentils. Bulgur, freekeh, quinoa.
I keep organic cane sugar, sucanat, raw honey, homemade Stevia tincture, and other sweeteners. Various salts.
Various baking staples. Various pastas and noodles.
Ground and instant coffees and teas. Herbs and spices. Various oils, fats, and vinegars.
Many whole grain hot and cold cereals. Homemade granola.
Canned veg, fruit, fish, chicken, beans, all types of tomatoes, olives, pickled things, condiments. Canned broths, soups, chili.
My cupboards are full. I wish I had more room but I do use what I have wisely.
 
John cycling said:
What healthy food staples do you keep extra supplies of for your meals?
The main ones for me are 25 pound bags of pinto beans, rice, and organic oats.

Also I stock up on 40 oz cans of sweet potatoes that I eat once or twice a week for my eyes.

I use some organic sugar with the oats, and Himalayan salt when cooking the pinto beans.
Besides that are 1# cans of salmon and sardines, that I eat from once a week to once every few months.

How about you?
Click to expand...
I like oats and get organic but not that much. I don't cook rice and beans are from cans.

I got some bulk organic sugar at WINCO today.

Are you able to find sweet potatoes in cans that aren't in heavy syrup?
 
All of them are pretty healthy.

Well, except for the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups...maybe.

A few things I never run out of are chicken thighs, rice, and pasta.

I've read that the rice and pasta are not healthy. Pure carbs, they say. I don't care, and I don't even believe it; we're way outnumbered by Chinese people, some who live into their hundreds, and there are a lot of very healthy looking Italians around. So, I call BS.
 
Various kinds of organic canned beans. Whole wheat flour, rye flour, quinoa flour, bread flour, oat flour. Olive oil. Dehydrated beet root. Ground hempseed. Oat bran. Powdered whole milk. Tomato paste (comes in a tube like toothpaste). Fresh veggies: broccoli, celery, carrots, red cabbage, kale, red onions, garlic, mushrooms, sweet red peppers. Fresh fruits: Apples, avocados, triple berry blend (frozen), blueberries (frozen). Nuts: walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts, pistachios. Organic, pasture raised eggs. Organic skinless, boneless chicken breasts. Sardines in olive oil. Wild caught Alaska red salmon (canned)......tinned to our cousins from the UK.
 
I'm getting my protein from power crunch high protein bars. I keep frozen kale, spinach, and mixed vegetables in the freezer ... I really need to force myself to eat a couple bags everyday.

While I am grateful to have a rather safe job, I have to work 7 days a week to meet these deadlines ... so no gym for months.

I have plain Greek yogurt and crushed black walnuts from Hammons pantry.

Sunflower kernels, raw honey.

Garlic.
 
I'm doing a Trader Joe's run after a bank appointment this afternoon. I'll get their organic oatmeal and California raisins there. I'm trying to not use the stove top but I'm not giving up cooked oatmeal so I use it on occasion. I don't like microwave oatmeal, too chewy.

TJ's is also holding on best prices for all canned beans. I'll get several today including garbanzo for mock tuna salad.
 
Lawrence00 said:
I'm getting my protein from power crunch high protein bars. I keep frozen kale, spinach, and mixed vegetables in the freezer ... I really need to force myself to eat a couple bags everyday.

While I am grateful to have a rather safe job, I have to work 7 days a week to meet these deadlines ... so no gym for months.

I have plain Greek yogurt and crushed black walnuts from Hammons pantry.

Sunflower kernels, raw honey.

Garlic.
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The walnuts is a good choice because they're loaded with omega 3's for the brain. And don't we all need to work at protecting our brains these days eh? Gotta be alert to recognize the scams that show up on our phones and laptops every day!
 
Murrmurr said:
I've read that the rice and pasta are not healthy. Pure carbs, they say. I don't care, and I don't even believe it; we're way outnumbered by Chinese people, some who live into their hundreds, and there are a lot of very healthy looking Italians around. So, I call BS.
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There's a way to make pasta, rice and white potatoes better for you. Apparently cooking them and then chilling them for about 12 hours, changes them from a sugar that causes your blood sugar to spike, to a resistant starch that your stomach can't break them down molecularly, as easily. So those foods basically become a fibre, thereby allowing even diabetics to indulge in those foods.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cooling-resistant-starch
 
Debrah N. said:
There's a way to make pasta, rice and white potatoes better for you. Apparently cooking them and then chilling them for about 12 hours, changes them from a sugar that causes your blood sugar to spike, to a resistant starch that your stomach can't break them down molecularly, as easily. So those foods basically become a fibre, thereby allowing even diabetics to indulge in those foods.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cooling-resistant-starch
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But if you eat pasta, rice, or potatoes with certain vegetables, you don't have to do that.

There are people in other countries who's daily diet consists mainly of white rice all their lives. Generally, they live long and are resistant to diabetes. How do you explain that?
 
We have two food gardens: homegrown potatoes, carrots, peas, onions, tomatoes, winter squash, sweet corn, pears, apples. We eat our own blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries, and freeze what we can't eat fresh.

We buy dried beans & lentils, rice, quinoa. We purchase olive oil & parmesan cheese, which DW mixes with homegrown basil for pesto. We get worms in our homegrown cherries, so we buy some from an orchardist and can them. Salmon from the coast is brought into the nearby micro-city, and we get fillets & freeze them. We usually have a pretty good stock of cheese on hand. We do a work trade with a friend living close by for organic garlic. We get some fresh culinary herbs from our garden patch reserved for those.
 
JBR said:
We have two food gardens: homegrown potatoes, carrots, peas, onions, tomatoes, winter squash, sweet corn, pears, apples. We eat our own blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries, and freeze what we can't eat fresh.

We buy dried beans & lentils, rice, quinoa. We purchase olive oil & parmesan cheese, which DW mixes with homegrown basil for pesto. We get worms in our homegrown cherries, so we buy some from an orchardist and can them. Salmon from the coast is brought into the nearby micro-city, and we get fillets & freeze them. We usually have a pretty good stock of cheese on hand. We do a work trade with a friend living close by for organic garlic. We get some fresh culinary herbs from our garden patch reserved for those.
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There’s nothing quite like homegrown basil for pesto sauce. I’m drooling already.
 
Murrmurr said:
But if you eat pasta, rice, or potatoes with certain vegetables, you don't have to do that.

There are people in other countries who's daily diet consists mainly of white rice all their lives. Generally, they live long and are resistant to diabetes. How do you explain that?
Click to expand...
I wouldn't say that at all. Especially if you're a diabetic because it eliminates the blood sugar spike that comes after eating those things. I have a friend who's a diabetic and he avoids 'the white foods' as much as possible. But for the rest of us, avoiding blood sugar spikes is a good idea too. Which is why doing something to those 'white foods' that turns them into a resistant starch, would be a good idea.

In the Stanford Medical website, it said, '....The covert spikes are a problem because high blood sugar levels, especially when prolonged, can contribute to cardiovascular disease risk and a person’s tendencies to develop insulin resistance, which is a common precursor to diabetes...' Diabetic-level glucose spikes seen in healthy people

I also found this other page.... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK581940/....which shows diabetes rates for example, and China and India, which both are high rice using countries, according to the page, have high diabetes rates. Could it be that we've just built up an idea that those cultures are 'healthy'? Just like people think that cultures that eat a lot of meat like the Inuit, are all healthy. Except they aren't and tend to die ten to thirteen years younger than those of us in the south. One thing that I did find out too in my reading was that the Chinese who have the highest number of diabetics in the world, is that it's becoming more of a problem as a result of urbanization and lack of exercise.

A Canadian/Greenland study that looked at mortality rates of their respective Inuit population, found that they died younger (in their old age) and I believe it mentioned that those who died younger from accidents, mostly showed signs of developing heart disease and osteoporosis.

While the study didn't mention their whole diet specifically, they've historically been heavy meat eaters as a result of where they live and how they've lived for generations. And recent studies have shown repeatedly that the more meat you eat, the greater your risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. So I think it doesn't hurt to do what you can to reduce the amount of sugar that you eat, even when it comes in the form of our potatoes, rice and pasta.
 
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Following a WFPB diet, DH & my back-up (garage) pantry usually has:

10 lbs rolled oats
15 lbs dried garbanzos
15 lbs other dried beans, peas and lentils
25-65 lbs assorted flours (depending on time of year - more over holidays, less over summer)
10 lbs brown rice (fridge)
5 lbs quinoa (fridge)
15 lbs assorted pastas
25 lbs various sugars
4 large (3 lb) jars of asst (plain & crunchy) peanut butter
2 gallons various cooking oils (I use very little oil in cooking, mostly this is for baking)
Some salt, though like the oils, I rarely use salt outside of baking

At least 30 cans assorted beans
At least 15 cans of soup
4 industrial sized cans diced tomatoes
Many cans assorted fruits (in water or unsweetened juice), and various vegetables
Roughly 200 tea bags
About 15 pounds coffee
And plenty more on those shelves.

Freezers are well stocked with veggies, berries, other fruits, homemade soups, chocolate (a necessity), about 25 lbs of nuts and seeds (purchased as they go on sale to make my own mixed nuts assortment plus baking), and many random foods.

It would take a very long time to starve in my house!
 
JBR said:
Your whole post was interesting, Debrah. But basically I wanted more of the practical side from you. By that I mean, what (eating-wise) works for you? And what do you consider a good diet?
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Well, all I can go by is what's worked for us. I've eaten only plants for about 25 years and while I'm not a purist (never a processed food shall cross my lips😉) I try for mostly (about 85%) fresh fruits, veggies, nuts & legumes and a little bit of grains like my oatmeal every morning. I don't eat very much sugar at all, don't drink fruit juices or pop and recently cut coffee out because I think I'm discovering that it has been wreaking havoc on my gut for the past 5 years or so.

I do think that feeding my husband like this, helped keep him alive as his liver was tanking (unbeknownst to us😟) from his Hep C. He felt fine the whole time and it came as a shock to find out in a routine blood workup that a new doctor decided to do. I like to think it was eating well that did that. It's also helped us maintain a healthy weight even though we're now both in our 70's.
 
StarSong said:
Following a WFPB diet, DH & my back-up (garage) pantry usually has:

10 lbs rolled oats
15 lbs dried garbanzos
15 lbs other dried beans, peas and lentils
25-65 lbs assorted flours (depending on time of year - more over holidays, less over summer)
10 lbs brown rice (fridge)
5 lbs quinoa (fridge)
15 lbs assorted pastas
25 lbs various sugars
4 large (3 lb) jars of asst (plain & crunchy) peanut butter
2 gallons various cooking oils (I use very little oil in cooking, mostly this is for baking)
Some salt, though like the oils, I rarely use salt outside of baking

At least 30 cans assorted beans
At least 15 cans of soup
4 industrial sized cans diced tomatoes
Many cans assorted fruits (in water or unsweetened juice), and various vegetables
Roughly 200 tea bags
About 15 pounds coffee
And plenty more on those shelves.

Freezers are well stocked with veggies, berries, other fruits, homemade soups, chocolate (a necessity), about 25 lbs of nuts and seeds (purchased as they go on sale to make my own mixed nuts assortment plus baking), and many random foods.

It would take a very long time to starve in my house!
Click to expand...
Good thinking on stocking up like that. I like to do that too. I hate running out of something and in winter I like to cut down on how often I have to go to the market just so I don't have to go out in the cold as often.
 
Remy said:
Are you able to find sweet potatoes in cans that aren't in heavy syrup?
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@Remy
According to the label the added sugar is about 15 calories per serving, thus about 12% of the calories.
These 40 ounce cans of Princella sweet potatoes from Walmart contain sweet potatoes, water, and sugar.
The liquid is rather light, not heavy, so I'm fine with this compared to the benefits it provides for my eyes.
They aren't as good as fresh sweet potatoes but can be stored a long time, which is why I started getting them.

After not joining for a year, I rejoined Costco on the 1st to get some bags of organic cane sugar plus, in addition
to my usual staples, organic sweet potatoes, 20# of russet potatoes, 2 bags of broccoli, a plentiful supply of bananas,
(13 bunches in two trips) 24 oranges, peaches (which I don't usually get but they were tasty), onions, and Marathon t.p.

StarSong said:
Wow - how many people are you feeding with these groceries, John?
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@StarSong - Just me. :unsure: The fruit tends to vanish quite quickly. :giggle:
 
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John cycling said:
@Remy
According to the label the added sugar is about 15 calories per serving, thus about 12% of the calories.
These 40 ounce cans of Princella sweet potatoes from Walmart contain sweet potatoes, water, and sugar.
The liquid is rather light, not heavy, so I'm fine with this compared to the benefits it provides for my eyes.
They aren't as good as fresh sweet potatoes but can be stored a long time, which is why I started getting them.

After not joining for a year, I rejoined Costco on the 1st to get some bags of organic cane sugar plus, in addition
to my usual staples, organic sweet potatoes, 20# of russet potatoes, 2 bags of broccoli, a plentiful supply of bananas,
(13 bunches in two trips) 24 oranges, peaches (which I don't usually get but they were tasty), onions, and Marathon t.p.
Click to expand...
Wow - how many people are you feeding with these groceries, John? I rarely buy Costco's fresh produce because I don't use it up before it spoils.

I've always got some of their frozen berries, mango chunks, and various veggies in the freezer though.
 
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