When working with clients who are trying to eat healthier, one of the biggest challenges they face is food prep. Yet, unless you have a private chef (which most of us don't), you have no other choice. 

Unfortunately, without sufficient food prep, you are likely to make less than ideal choices. In a moment of ravenous hunger, we've all eaten something that isn't particularly nourishing mostly because it was convenient or cheap, or maybe both. Yet sadly, for many, convenience comes at a price: poor nutritional quality. Lucky for those of us who want to make healthier choices, a little organization and planning goes a long way. And with a little practice, it can also save us time and money. 

Shopping

The fact that many grocery stores currently deliver combined with the existence of a whole slew of companies that  ship meal ingredients right to the front door says a lot about how busy we've become as a society. Still, despite these resources, most of us will have to shop for some if not all of our food needs. Thus our food prep often starts with our grocery list, and like many things in life, a little planning goes a long way.

1. Decide on a menu for the week and strive for overlap. For example, if you plan to serve chicken breasts for dinner Tuesday night, make enough for two nights or use left overs for an easy lunch the next day. You can also cook extra breasts and use to make something completely different, like chicken salad.
 
2. When planning your list don't forget snacks. Fresh fruit, veggies, hummus, nuts, nut butters, plain yogurt, and cheese all make quick and easy snacks. Choose produce with different shelf lives and then use those with a shorter shelf life first. That said, be wary of prepackaged snacks like granola bars or trail mix. Most are marketed as healthy snacks. Some might be, at least pseudo healthy, but many are not.

3. Also make sure to have a few healthy but quick back-up options for those days when time is tight. For example, a rotisserie chicken, some parboiled long grain rice with quinoa, a can of black beans, and some fast cooking veggies like broccoli and/or frozen veggies can be a life saver when life gets in the way. You can literally have dinner ready and on the table in about 15 minutes. 

4. Finally, don't forget to keep your spice cabinets stocked. Basal, oregano, rosemary, thyme, cayenne pepper, chili pepper, turmeric, curry powder, coriander, sage, cumin, paprika, dill, chives, onion and garlic powder, and many others. Dried herbs and spices not only pack a huge nutritional punch, but they also make food taste so much better.

Ideally, you should be shopping the perimeter of the grocery store. This is where most of your fresh/whole ingredients are kept. Frozen fruits and veggies are also a good purchase.

Cooking

Because food isn't going to cook itself, setting aside a few hours every week for food prep is a must. It just is. No if, and, or buts about it. No use complaining. No room for excuses. If you want to eat healthy, it's something you need to do. End of story. Fortunately, like most skills we possess, the more practice you get, the better you get. I've decided that food prep is no different. And remember, you don't have to be Julia Child, Martha Stewart, or Paula Dean to get something going on in the kitchen. Not every meal has to be a culinary masterpiece, so don't sweat it.

1. Dedicate a few hours on the weekend or a weeknight to making the bulk of your food for the week. I do a lot of my prep on Sunday afternoon, but with four kids, I've got to be flexible so I am.

2. Think big. People tend to underestimate how much food to prepare. Just remember, the oven is on, the cutting board is out, and you are all geared up in food prep mode. Make the most of this time. For example, I tend to season 2 lbs of chicken thighs, 2 lbs of chicken breasts, and 1 lb of salmon and then cook in the oven at the same time. While the meat is cooking, I slice up zucchini, summer squash, eggplant, mushrooms and onion and sauté in prep for my veggie lasagna. Once my veggies are cooking, I get busy preparing some lean steak strips in another pan. Just about the time the meat in the oven is finishing, the lasagna made with the above veggies, tomato sauce and some fresh parmesan is ready to be baked. Depending on what I have planned for the week, I might also slice an acorn squash by scooping out seeds, coating with melted coconut butter, sprinkling with cinnamon and then throwing in the oven. By this point, the steak I've been cooking on the stove top is also done.

I like to precook most of my meat (which may seem like a lot as I am cooking for the family) because it is then ready to go during the week when I don't have a lot of time. I can add meat to a rice and bean dish, serve with veggies, use to top a green mixed salad, and/or use to make a chicken salad. The main point is that whenever I cook my oven is filled. This saves time and money. 

3. Have a generous assortment of glass dishes with tops which can be used for cooking and then for storage. Mason jars are also nice. Fill with individual servings and keep in the fridge or maybe even in the freezer depending on the dish and when you plan to eat it. 

4. Make sure to use foods with a shorter shelf life first. Obviously, some foods, even after cooked don't last as long as others. For example, I sometimes make a veggie based soup. Because I don't add my meat directly to the soup, it can be kept for a week or even longer in the fridge without going bad. Some other foods might not last as long. And remember, for those foods likely not to keep, you can try freezing as an option.

5. Using pre-cut veggies is also a time saver. However, the very act of cutting up vegetables results in a loss of nutrients. The longer cut veggies sit, the more nutrients that are lost. In addition, pre-cut produce has a relatively short shelf life, so while they can save you time if you use them in a timely manner, they can also end up costing you money, especially if they go bad and need to be thrown away.  Another solution would be to buy produce that is pre-cut but frozen. The thawing process is a relatively quick one. Furthermore, frozen produce generally retains its nutrient value and has a long shelf life.

Putting together a healthy meal in a pinch

If you've heeded the above advice, you already have some quick, healthy meal options in mind. If not, I've provided some examples to get the wheels spinning.

1. Rotisserie chicken, parboiled long grain brown rice with added quinoa, a easily cooked veggie like broccoli or a frozen veggie medley.
2. A prewashed mixed green salad with the Rotisserie or some of the meat you cooked earlier in week.
3. A microwaved baked potato with skin, topped with dried chives, garlic and onion powder, paprika, and a dollop of plain Greek yogurt, sour cream, or fresh parmesan cheese, served alongside a hard boiled egg (one of six you prepared during your weekly food prep) and a vegetable.
4. A piece of whole grain bread toasted and topped with sliced avocado, mozzarella cheese, and sliced tomato or fresh salsa if you have it and oregano.
5. Plain Greek yogurt with pecans, raspberries, and vanilla. 
6. Seasoned, deveined, and steamed shrimp that you purchased on shopping day can be added to a salad, served with veggies, or added to a stir fry with whole grain brown rice or other quality grain. 

I also have some decent frozen foods that I keep on hand. For example, I have a frozen veggie burger that is made from kale, quinoa and a few other healthy ingredients. I can cook these in the microwave in under 2 minutes, eat on whole grain bread with spinach, sliced cucumber, and avocado, or I sometimes will serve on a plate, topped with spinach, avocado and my mother's homemade salsa. The key is to read the label when purchasing any food you don't make. Even if the food isn't as healthy as one you'd make yourself, you can improve its overall nutrient density by adding your own fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, beans, whole grain rice, or protein source to it. Case in point. I buy a frozen chicken, rice and vegetable medley that simply needs to be warmed up. On a scale from 1-10, 10 being the healthiest, it's a 5 at best. However, in a pinch, I will cook it but add my own frozen veggies (broccoli and string beans), essentially doubling the veggie content and bringing the overall meal quality up to a 6 or 7. It's not ideal, but certainly infinitely better than a Big Mac from McDonalds. 

​Practice makes perfect, but more importantly it helps to form good habits

A habit is something that doesn't require a ton of executive function. It's more automatic and thus takes less energy and thought.  Food prep can feel overwhelming to the average busy individual in part because it is new and/or different. It requires a lot of energy and effort in the beginning. But it does get easier. In fact, the more you do it, the easier it gets, until food prep is the equivalent of any other habit you've ever developed in your life. The key is to stick with it. Don't strive for perfection. Strive for improvement. Bad habits don't go away overnight, and good habits take time to take hold. In the short-term, concentrate on making small changes. Seek help and guidance. Then stick with it. You won't regret it. 

Almost every day it seems as if there is some new miracle weight loss product on the market promising to give us a body we'd be proud to flaunt at the beach. Many claim to be based on superior technology or cutting edge science and promise quick if not overnight results. Some are relatively safe even if their results are overstated, and some are downright dangerous, more likely to cause harm rather than long-term good. A few will even allude to being "the secret." A select program that promotes  exclusive results that can only be achieved with their patented product, powder, pill, or special diet plan.

But the real secret, the one they don't want you to hear, is that there is no secret. Sure,  there will likely always be some disagreement among different camps on the specifics, but there is also a lot of agreement. The 5 steps below represent several areas of relative consensus amongst experts in all the various camps from paleo to keto to vegan to the Mediterranean diet. 

1. The bulk of your diet (70%) should come from colorful fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices. These plant-based products are nutrient dense, which means they are low in calories but high in nutrition. The provide a boat load of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, a group of nutrients believed to promote health and maybe even fight disease. These include greens like spinach dandelion greens, chard, parsley, oregano, and purslane and, cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli, root vegetables like carrots, beets, and turnips, and edible fungi which include mushrooms, in addition to fruits such as apples, oranges, grapefruit, berries, cherries, plums, peaches, watermelon, avocados, cantaloupe, mangoes, and pomegranates.  Of course the list goes on.

2. Restrict or avoid processed foods including processed/refined grains like white flour, white pasta, and white rice, processed meats like bacon, scrapple, and lunchmeat, processed and mass produced oils including peanut, soybean, and cotton seed, added sugars, added salt, or anything with a list of ingredients you can't pronounce or don't recognize. Instead eat beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, healthier oils like olive oil, and animal protein in smaller amounts (think side dish) preferably if available from grass-fed, free-range, or wild animals.

It's important to remember that high protein doesn't necessarily mean high in animal products as plants, especially beans, nuts, and legumes contain a significant amount of protein, and while not complete protein, when a variety of different sources are eaten, they are more than capable of providing all the essential amino acids we need to thrive.

3. Restrict or avoid liquid calories including sweetened fruit juice, sweetened tea/coffee, soda, and sports' drinks. While more controversial, many experts agree that 100% fruit can be consumed in small amounts as part of a healthy diet, as can milk as long as it is well-tolerated (though for the record calorie per calorie, dark leafy greens are arguably a better source of calcium.) Stick to water or unsweetened tea and coffee. Almond milk, soy milk, coconut milk, and flax seed milk can all be used as a milk alternative. Just make sure they don't have sugar added to them, as many do. Also, if possible avoid artificial sweeteners. Though there isn't 100% consensus, there is more and more evidence that these sugar alternatives may not benign as we once thought, though the jury is still out. 

4. Eat when you are hungry and stop when you are 80% full. This Japanese practice referred to as hara hachi bu is one behavior believed to help explain the longevity observed in the Okinawan population, a Japanese community with an unusual high number of centenarians. The practice emphasizes mindful eating and the idea is to eat until you just begin to feel full. In essence, you depend on internal rather than external factors to tell you when you've had enough. We know through research that for most people the meal ends when the plate is clean, the bag is empty, or the food is gone. This practice results in a significant amount of non-hungry eating and contributes a lot of unnecessary calories, ultimately stored as fat, to our diet. 

Recently, the practice of intermittent fasting has become somewhat trendy. Intermittent fasts generally involve abstaining from food for 12-16 hours at time, but can also include longer fasts. Shorter, intermittent fasts appear to be relatively harmless, and may offer benefits to those trying to lose weight. I have found that one of the main benefits of these short fasts is that people get a chance to experience true hunger. It is amazing how many of my clients do not know what hunger and fullness feel like. 

5. Exercise. Daily if possible. Include a variety of exercise types to include endurance, flexibility and mobility through stretching, and strengthening through resistance training. And if you don't think you have time and even if you do, try HIIT (high intensity interval training.) HIIT has been around for quite a while, but it is only recently that scientists have identified the real benefits that can often be achieved in a fraction of the time. You can read more about HIIT ​here.

And that's it. 5 steps. No secrets. And simple even if not always easy. 

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I recently read a book called The Human Superorganism by Rodney Dietert, PhD. The title is meant to convey an emerging view of the human body which we now know houses trillions of bacterial cells in addition to human cells. Originally it was estimated that we might have as many as ten times the number of bacterial cells as we do human cells. And while that ratio has since been revised, putting it closer to 1:1, that's still pretty significant.    

More importantly than the sheer number of bacterial cells is our increasing understanding of how these cells interact with and impact our own, prompting many scientists  to view the human body as a complex ecosystem with a multitude of organisms that depend on each other for survival. And as time passes, more and more studies are published in the scientific literature that confirm this notion of interdependence.    

Take for example the bugs in our gut which help us digest certain foods, giving us access to nutrients and calories that otherwise would not be available. They also produce metabolites that are critical to normal functioning of the epithelial cells in the small and large intestines. Some even produce vitamins, like vitamin K, that are critical for normal optimal health and function. Our microbiome is even thought to impact our immune cells, which makes sense when you consider that 70% of immune cell activity occurs just below the surface of our gut. And if that weren't enough, there is mounting evidence to suggest that bacterial cells may result in the activation of epigenes, switches on the DNA that determine who does or does not get a certain disease. And whether through gene activation or another mechanism, there is  an emerging consensus that the gut microflora and/or its metabolites in particular might contribute to systemic inflammation, be a trigger for auto-immune disorders, and influence the development of diabetes, heart disease, Alzhiemer's, ADHD, food allergies and sensitivities, obesity, and a whole slew of other noncommunicable diseases, including the big “C” cancer.    

Of course, there are still many unknowns when it comes to our microbiome and its effect on our health, but there is a growing support for the idea that it does in fact have a significant impact on many body systems as well as our susceptibility to a number of diseases. The likely impact of microbes on our health is in part responsible for the increasing popularity of pre and probiotics, probiotics being the foods, powders, or pills that contain strains of bacteria believed to be necessary for optimal health while prebiotics are the food these bacteria eat.    
The term dysbiosis has been created to describe a microbiome that is unhealthy or out of balance.    

Unfortunately, what we know when it comes to the microbiome is somewhat overshadowed by what we don't know, and for this reason many of the current recommendations put forth to date have a tenuous basis in science at best, at least for now, and therefore may be completely off the mark. We just don’t know despite claims to the contrary. This is not to say the science and its implications aren't promising, just that we're not quite there yet. Yet given time, addressing the microbiome is likely to play a significant role in not only fighting disease but also in promoting optimal health.

Unknowns aside, it appears that a healthy diet based on nutrient-dense foods including fruits, veggies, nuts, legumes, beans, and seed supports a robust and desirable microbiome, and this may in turn at least partially explain the many benefits already associated with eating a healthy diet. Apparently, we’re not the only ones who are dependent on the foods that we consume to sustain us. Our many resident microbes also depend on us for their nourishment, and it just so happens they (the good ones at least) thrive off the fiber and phytonutrients found in fresh fruits and vegetables. On the other hand, there is some evidence that high protein diets (specifically animal protein), which have become popular thanks to their ability to promote short-term weight loss, do not necessarily support a healthy microbiome in the long-term and thus may be detrimental to it thanks to cancer causing metabolites produced in the large intestine when certain microbes break down undigested proteins. A lot seems to depend on the quality of the protein, plant vs. animal, and grass-fed or wild v.s industrially farm-raised. Regardless, this preliminary finding is consistent with the views of many nutrition experts who are increasingly critical of the very high-protein diets which are currently in vogue.

The dependence of gut microbes on the foods we eat may also explain why supplementing with nutrients is almost always inferior to obtaining those nutrients through real foods since popping a pill that provides nutrients X, Y and Z is not the same as eating foods that have a variety of phytonutrients and fiber, all package and proportioned perfectly thanks to millions of years of evolution.

Finally, exercise, stress management, and adequate sleep also appear to support a thriving and healthy gut microbe population. 

In the end, it does appear that we  are a complex ecosystem in which an alteration in one area of the system can have a ripple effect, ultimately impacting other areas, usually negatively. Likewise, too much of a good thing can sometimes be as harmful as too little because the ecosystem values balance first and foremost.  Consider a vegetable garden in which the ratio of plants to weeds may impact the overall health of the garden. We all know that the best way to keep the weeds at bay are to establish mature plants that are healthy and thriving. Yet if these weeds  are not kept in check but instead allowed to multiply, they will almost always leech essential nutrients from the soil, robbing our vegetable plants the nutrition they need to grow properly, often times resulting in a sick or unhealthy plant.

 At the present time, probiotics (pills, potions and a handful of fermented foods that contain microorganisms) and prebiotics (food for the microorganisms) do seem promising, unfortunately, there are still too many unknowns to make good recommendations, and so we are left with rough guestimations that may or may not deliver and could possibly even do more harm than good especially when taken outside the guidance of a doctor or other health professional. 
   
Until we have more definitive data, the best way to promote a healthy microbiome is via a diet rich in plant-based foods like colorful fruits and veggies, high-fiber beans and legumes, and healthy fats from nuts and seeds, in addition to participating in regular exercise, managing stress, and getting adequate sleep.

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