(Edited 06 August 2016)

“Go-to” Breakfast & Lunch for Monday-Friday

I picked the the foods below for a multitude of reasons, but two of the main reasons I chose these particular foods is the fact that 1) they are all very nutrient dense and 2) they can be cooked in an efficient manner. No one wants to spend 4 or 5 hours in the kitchen, which is why these 2 meals are very basic and easy to cook or throw together. Getting the most “bang for your buck” and efficiency are very important for me, because I do not want to spend more than I have to for healthy food, and I want to prepare my food for the week as quickly as possible. I want to live a healthy lifestyle, but I don’t have time to cook all day.

Breakfast:

2 Hard Boiled Eggs

1/2 Avocado

1/3 Cup Almonds

3-4 Large Raw Carrots

Lunch(Salad):

12oz Baked Chicken Breast(turmeric, sea salt, pepper)

Kale 1-2 Cups

Spinach 1-2 Cups

Cilantro

3 oz Blue Berries/strawberries

Extras:

Sauerkraut

Mustard

Olives

5 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Cashews

Almonds

Grocery List:

-2 bundles of organic kale $3.98

-2 bundles of organic spinach $6.98

-I bundle of organic cilantro $1.49

-5 organic boneless, skinless chicken breasts $28.59

-9 oz bag of cashews $6.49

-10 oz bag of almonds $8.49

-6 oz carton of blue berries $4.99

-3 organic avocados $6.00

-3 Fuji Apples $2.50

– 1 Jar of WF Almond Butter $6.99

-12 organic pasture raised eggs $6.99

-1 big bag of organic raw carrots $6.99

= $90.48

Cooking instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees(it takes my oven 10 min to heat up to 400 degrees)

2. Next, line cooking pan with aluminum foil and spread out 3 chicken breasts on top of aluminum foil pan. Add any spices you like. I prefer pepper, salt and turmeric.

3. Fill 3 quart size pot 3 inches high with water. Place pot on oven eye and set heater to high. (takes about 15 minutes for the water to start to boil)

5. Once oven is preheated to 400 degrees F, place chicken breast pan on the bottom rack. Set timer for 30-40 mins(Depending on how big they are) for the chicken.

6. Next, dump the big bag of carrots into the sink for rinsing. Rinse all of the carrots and place in a big tupper wear container.(The pot of water for the eggs should start boiling while you are rinsing off the carrots, so set a timer for 15 min to remind yourself to put the eggs into the pot)

7. Once the pot of water is boiling,  place 6 eggs in the boiling water individually with a spoon, if the pot is big enough. Once the 6 eggs are in the boiling water, make sure the water is covering the tops of each egg, then set a timer for 15 min. Once the timer goes off after 15 minutes, take the pot off the stove, dump out the hot water carefully in the sink, while keeping the eggs in the pot. Then, turn the faucet on, so that cold water is filling up the pot with the 6 eggs. Fill the pot up halfway with water and the rest of the way with ice.

8. Go back to rinsing the carrots

9. While washing the the carrots, the chicken breast should be finished cooking. Take the chicken breasts out of the oven and let them cool off.

10. When finished washing the carrots, the next prepping step is to make your 5 salads for the week.

11. Start with washing your spinach(if the spinach is in a plastic container, I don’t worry about washing it off before distributing it into the containers) and placing an even amount of spinach in each large tupperware container.

12. Then wash the kale and distribute the kale evenly to all 5 tupper wear bowls. To help distribute the kale evenly, take 2 or 3 leafs at a time, bundle them up, and rip off about 2 inch pieces at a time, starting at the bottom of the leafs.

13. Wash cilantro, then chop up cilantro on cutting board. Distribute cilantro evenly between the 5 tupperware bowls of salad.

14. Wash the blue berries and distribute one 4 oz package of blue berries between 2 salads. It’s usually about a half of cup of blue berries for each salad. (I like to buy which ever berries are on sale as well.)

15. Once the chicken has cooled off, cut each chicken breast and into bite size pieces.(about an inch in length and a half inch on width)

16. Distribute the 3 chicken breasts into into 3 tupperware containers. (Later in the week on Wednesday night you can cook the other 2 chicken breasts for Thursday and Friday lunches. Sometimes the chicken is on the edge of going bad by Thursday, so that’s why I suggest cooking only 3 chicken breasts, instead of all 5 for the week.)

17. After letting the eggs chill out for about 15-20 mins, pour out the water and ice and put 2-4 eggs in small upper wear containers.

18. 1-1:30 hours later… You’re done Food Prepping and ready for the week!

Now, I am going to go a little deeper into the reasons why I chose the specific foods above from a nutrition and cost standpoint, and I will also breakdown the how efficient it is to cook these particular foods.

Hard Boiled Eggs

Cooking Instructions

Nutrition:

-2 Hard Boiled Eggs contain approximately 12 grams of Protein, 1 gram of Carbohydrate and 10 grams of Fat.

-Boiled Eggs supply several vitamins and minerals as significant amounts of the Daily Value (DV), including vitamin A (19% DV), riboflavin (42% DV), pantothenic acid (28% DV), vitamin B₁₂ (46% DV), choline (60% DV), phosphorus (25% DV), zinc (11% DV) and vitamin D (15% DV). A yolk contains more than two-thirds of the recommended daily intake of 300 mg of cholesterol.

-Egg protein stimulates muscle growth and has been demonstrated to increase muscle protein synthesis in university studies.

-Eggs contain a significant amount of the amino acid Leucine.  Leucine is the major amino acid responsible for stimulating the synthesis of muscle protein after a meal. Eggs contain 10% to 20% more leucine than most other protein sources.

-“Eating cholesterol isn’t going to give you a heart attack. You can ditch the egg-white omelettes and start eating yolks again. That’s a good thing, since all of the 13 essential nutrients eggs contain are found in the yolk. Egg yolks are an especially good source of choline, a B-vitamin that plays important roles in everything from neurotransmitter production to detoxification to maintenance of healthy cells. Studies show that up to 90% of Americans don’t get enough choline, which can lead to fatigue, insomnia, poor kidney function, memory problems and nerve-muscle imbalances.”-Chris Kresser

Cost:

-Eggs are relatively cheap, which is awesome when you consider the nutritional value a single egg has.  You can buy a dozen eggs that range from $2 to $10.  I usually buy free range or pastured raised eggs, because the quality of life of the hens laying the eggs does make a difference in the nutritional benefit.

-Organic operations have a much higher level of oversight than conventional farms do. To maintain their certification and use the organic seal on their product, farms have to be inspected annually, at a minimum, by a third-party certifier with USDA accreditation. Compare that with the sporadic oversight of conventional facilities by the FDA, which has been chronically strapped for resources.

-Pasture Raised Hens are let out into fields and not crowded into tight quarters. The hens don’t spread infections as quickly as caged hens do, and farmers say they develop healthier immune systems this way. The birds can also engage in their natural behaviors, including “dust bathing,” which cleans their feathers.

-Research suggests that pasture-raised eggs may even have superior nutritional content. Scientists at Pennsylvania State University found 2 1/2 times more omega-3s and twice the vitamin E in the eggs of pasture-raised hens (which were given feed as a supplement to their forage) than those of caged hens that were fed only standard commercial mash.

Efficiency:

-It takes about 20 to 25 minutes to make hard boiled eggs.  The simplest method I’ve used is as follows: Fill a 3 quart pot about about 2/3 of the way, place the pot of water on cooking eye and bring the water to a boil on medium/high heat, once the water comes to a rolling boil, carefully place the eggs in the boiling water. Try not to let the eggs hit the bottom of the pot hard to prevent the eggs from cracking.(the eggs will cook even if they do crack, so its not the end of the world).  Let the eggs cook in the boiling water for 15 minutes, then take the pot of eggs and dump out the water in the sink.  Once all of the boiling water is dumped, turn on the sink with cold water and fill up the pot.  If you have and ice maker in your freezer, I would dump a significant amount of ice on top of the cooked eggs, because I’ve found that it is easier to peel the boiled eggs when you use the “ice” method.  Let the eggs cool off for about 10 to 20 minutes, and you’re done.  Boiled eggs can be kept in the refrigerator for up to a week.  So, you can cook your weeks worth of boiled eggs for work and not worry about them spoiling!

Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_as_food

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/egg-protein-unscramble-the-science-with-our-expert-guide.html

http://chriskresser.com/the-diet-heart-myth-cholesterol-and-saturated-fat-are-not-the-enemy/

http://www.prevention.com/food/smart-shopping/good-egg-should-you-buy-organic-eggs-or-cage-free

http://www.incredibleegg.org/cooking-school/tips-tricks/egg-storage/