Healthy Food Shopping

How To Food Shop for Health

• A well stocked kitchen and pantry is a vital behavior for a healthy lifestyle.
• Shopping at big chain grocery stores is for basics like aluminum foil, diapers, etc. – it’s not where you buy fresh, organic, quality, nutritious, foods. For that, you must find you nearest ‘whole food’ markets (it might be closer to work versus home – take an ice chest and shop at lunch or after work).
• Whenever possible, buy and eat ONLY organic meats, fruits, and vegetables. Not only does organically grown produce have little to no pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, etc., organically grown crops are grown in soils that contain vitamins, minerals and trace elements which are vital to healthy physiological function. Commercially grown produce is grown on depleted soil and herbicides, fungicides and petrochemical fertilizers are used. And now commercially grown produce is often genetically modified (GM) which has been proven to be a health concern.
• The Master Shopping List (see below) is designed to make it simple and easy for you to save time and make your diet style not only one of great pleasure but of great health. Your first week’s shopping list will be more extensive in order to stock up on staples for your kitchen. Please cross check your Menu Plan shopping lists with your pantry items.

It’s important to have some version of a Master Shopping List each week and review with menus and recipes before going to do your shopping.  You will probably have to shop at more than one store (i.e. whole food or health food store and your nearest Trader Joe’s and Costco – although my wife and I able to only go to Costco every two to three weeks).  Yes, there are some healthy foods at Costco and Trader Joe’s, but be careful – both stores have many, many ‘disease foods’ on their shelves as well – don’t shop hungry.  Your best option is to go to your local farmer’s market (make sure to ask which items are organic if they aren’t labeled).

IMPORTANT: As mentioned above, whenever possible, always buy organic fruit, vegetables, and meats. However, if this is not possible due to inconvenience or lack of availability, please do not get discouraged. Any fruit or vegetable, even if it is non-organic is a much healthier option than processed or packaged foods.  Do the best you can!

If you choose to consume dairy, the best choice is raw dairy products; if not available, be sure to only buy organic dairy products that do not contain rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone).

Master Shopping List

NOTE: This list is meant to be a guide. You don’t/won’t need to buy everything, particularly with regards to seasonal fruits and vegetables, spices and meats. Buy what you can, what you like, and what the recipes that interest you require. Each week there will be staples that you always buy, such as eggs, vegetables, fruit; when buying meats for dinners, be sure to buy extra so that you always cook extra to have leftovers for lunch the next day.  

Some of these items are only available at a ‘whole foods market’ or comprehensive health food store; some things are available at Trader Joe’s or Costco (i.e. frozen organic berries); if neither of those are conveniently available to you, do your best at your local market, farmer’s market, or as a last resort, a supermarket.

Organic Vegetables
___celery
___carrots
___red leaf lettuce
___green leaf lettuce
___romaine lettuce
___organic baby green salad mix (Costco)
___tomatoes
___avocados
___garlic
___kale
___chard
___spinach
___beets
___leeks
___onion (yellow, white, red and/or green)
___red cabbage
___yams
___broccoli
___cauliflower
___cabbage (red, green)
___ginger
___zucchini
___yellow crook-neck squash

Meat, Poultry & Fish
___fresh fish
___frozen fish (Costco, Trader Joe’s)
___chicken
      ___legs/thighs
      ___whole chicken
      ___breasts
___ground turkey
___beef (organic grass fed if possible)
___ground beef
___stew beef
___chuck roast
___flank steak
___rib-eye
___filet mignon
___Australian rack of lamb (Costco)
___bison/buffalo
___venison
___shrimp
___sea scallops

Eggs
___organic free-range eggs

Organic Fruit
___bananas
___apples
___pears
___oranges
___lemon
___nectarine
___organic blueberries
___organic raspberries
___organic strawberries
___organic grapes
___pineapple
___peaches
___honeydew melon
___cantaloupe
___plums

Nut Milks
___almond milk
___hemp milk
___rice milk
___coconut milk
___coconut water

Canned or Carton Foods
___kidney beans, navy beans
___chickpeas
___tomato puree
___chopped tomatoes
___organic vegetable stock
___organic chicken stock (available at Costco)
 

Raw Nuts (no roasted, salted)
___almonds
___sunflower seeds
___cashews
___walnuts
___pecans
___hazelnuts
___macadamia nuts
 

Dried Fruits (unsulphured)
___organic raisins
___dried organic figs or prunes
___dried organic bananas
___dried organic cranberry
___dried organic cherry
 

Breads and Grains (Level 1 only)
___Ezekiel sprouted grain bread
___brown rice burrito wraps
___organic rolled oats

Dairy
___organic butter 

Nut Butters & Honey
___raw almond butter (TJ’s has best price)
___tahini 

Flours
___almond flour
___coconut flour

Oils
___cold pressed virgin coconut oil
___cold pressed virgin olive oil (Trader Joe’s)
___cold pressed sunflower oil (high heat/low smoke point)

Sauces, etc.
___organic red wine or Balsamic vinegar
___tamari (this is a gluten-free ‘soy’ sauce)
___Bragg’s Liquid Aminos (available at all health food markets) 
___organic mayonnaise
___Dijon mustard

Frozen Fruit
___organic blueberries (Costco, Trader Joe’s)
___mixed berries
___organic peaches (Costco)

Herbs, Spices, Powders & Extract
___vanilla extract
___sea sat
___cayenne pepper
___red pepper flakes
___cracked pepper
___Italian spice
___cumin
___cinnamon
___vanilla extract
___curry powder
___marjoram
___parsley, dried
___thyme, dried
___dill, dried
___oregano, dried
___basil, dried
___bay leaf
___anise seed
___fennel seed

Sweeteners
___stevia
___raw honey
___raw agave nectar
___raw cocoa powder, unsweetened
___raw cacao nibs

HEALTH TIP: Whenever walking into a whole food store, first stop at juice bar and order 1-2 oz. of wheatgrass juice and/or a “green” vegetable juice drink; drink it/them (the wheatgrass juice first) as you shop in the store (but don’t forget to pay for them .

Bikinis and washing machines - If only health was this simple.

Recently our fancy (read ‘over priced’) front-loading washing machine stopped working. When the repairman showed up, without any poking around, his first diagnostic impression (in the first 30 seconds, no less) was that there was a problem with the water pump. Sure enough, he found a small triangular pad from a bathing suit top had somehow made it into the water pump and clogged it up, bringing everything to a halt (sorry you mid-westerners and east coasters, yes, in San Diego we can wear bathing suits in October). It was a very simple mechanical problem and solution – open up the machine and pull the offending chunk of fabric from the water pump. The repairman was able to reduce the machine to the sum of its parts and figure out the problem and correct it.

If only our health problems were so easy to manage…

One thing I love about pursuing health through proper eating, moving and thinking is that it’s appropriate for everybody, and it works whether you’re sick or well. I love how it’s always correct to eat fresh organic foods, move every day, get optimal rest, and be thankful and optimistic. I’m comforted by the fact that the government and drug companies can’t take that lifestyle, tool or strategy from away from us (although I’m sure Monsanto is working on that exact strategy – check out The Future of Food, if this doesn’t give you the creeps, nothing will).

If the body’s ‘water pump’, the heart, clogs up, we can’t just reach in and pull out the clog. Despite what cardiac surgeons may optimistically tell us, bypassing a clogged artery won’t produce a healthy heart – that comes from our lifestyle choices. When we provide our bodies with fresh whole foods, lots of exercise and rest, and lots of pure water regularly and consistently provided in sufficiency and purity, we flourish in a healthy state. When our body malfunctions due to a lack of those lifestyle components or nutrients, contrary to what medical science advocates, we can’t fix a lifestyle-caused health problem with drugs and surgery – only by returning to proper lifestyle behaviors. Although our bodies’ are made up of a multitude of systems, organs, tissues, and cells, they are all part of a dynamic biological system and they all require the same things for optimal function and health.

As America marches toward an uncertain future regarding how we will take care of ourselves and each other under the delusional misnomer of health care, lurking in the foreground and the background is the dark side of medical or allopathic research and treatment – reductionist thinking and methods. [Wikipedia defines reductionism " ... to either mean (a) an approach to understand the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things; or (b) a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents. Reductionism is strongly related to a certain perspective on causality."]

It’s that last part about reductionism being ‘strongly related to a certain perspective on causality’ that has proved to be a cultural stumbling block for modern society to understand health. Although using reductionist methods of investigation and correction proves successful when seeking to understand and repair mechanical things like cars, watches and refrigerators, in vitalistic living biological systems like the human body, it rarely proves successful. The current medical or allopathic model proposes and acts upon the premise that if we break down the functioning of the human body to its smallest level, be it cellular, molecular and now more recently, genetic, it will enable science to overcome virtually any disease or condition with drug or surgical treatments targeted at those small parts. The bad news is that that misdirection is leading us astray – science has now shown that it’s only by choosing the correct ‘large’ lifestyle choices that can bring those ‘small’ components into an alignment called health, not chemicals or surgeries.

The good news is that you have the ability to affect your own genetic, molecular and cellular requirements without having to check into a state-of-the-art health facility or hospital. It’s really quite simple – just eat a plant-driven* diet centered around fresh whole foods, get plenty of exercise and rest, drink pure water, and keep your attiitude, thoughts and words in the positive column and the good life is yours to keep!

You can do it!

Yours in health, Dr. Paul

[*by the way, 'plant-driven' does not mean vegetarian.]