Welcome to

The Autoimmune Wellness Podcast Season 3: Real Food on a Budget. We’re dedicating this season to discussing an aspect of natural healing that often gets left out of the conversation: affordability. We’ll be chatting with experts and peers from the AIP community about how to best balance money with your health priorities.

This season is brought to you by our title sponsor, The Nutritional Therapy Association (NTA), a holistic nutrition school that trains and certifies nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants with an emphasis on bioindividual nutrition. Learn more about them by visiting NutritionalTherapy.com, or read about our experiences going through their NTP and NTC programs in our comparison article.

Season 3 Episode 2 is all about how to implement some kitchen hacks to help you save money on food. We discuss our personal best practices when it comes to getting food on the table affordably, the first of which is meal planning. Some of you have heard us chat about these topics before, but just stick with us, because you may not have looked at the benefits from this angle before.

Then, we chat with Alaena Haber of Grazed and Enthused about her favorite AIP kitchen tools and how she sets herself up for success in an AIP kitchen. Scroll down for the full episode transcript!

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Mickey Trescott: Welcome to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast, a resource for those seeking to live well with chronic illness. I’m Mickey Trescott, a nutritional therapy practitioner living well with autoimmune disease in Oregon. I’m the author of The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook, and I’m using diet and lifestyle to best manage both Hashimoto’s and Celiac disease.

Angie Alt: And I’m Angie Alt. I’m a certified health coach and nutritional therapy consultant, also living well with autoimmune disease in Maryland. I’m the author of The Alternative Autoimmune Cookbook, and I’m using diet and lifestyle to best manage my endometriosis, lichen sclerosis, and Celiac disease.

After recovering our health by combining the best of conventional medicine with effective and natural dietary and lifestyle interventions, Mickey and I started blogging at www.AutoimmuneWellness.com, where our collective mission is seeking wellness and building community.

We also wrote a book called The Autoimmune Wellness Handbook together that serves as a do-it-yourself guidebook to living well with chronic illness.

Mickey Trescott: If you’re looking for more information about the autoimmune protocol, make sure to sign up for our newsletter at autoimmunewellness.com, so we can send you our free quick start guide. It contains printable AIP food lists, a 2-week food plan, a 90-minute batch cooking video, a mindset video, and food reintroduction guides.

This season of the podcast, real food on a budget is brought to you by our title sponsor, The Nutritional Therapy Association.

Angie Alt: A quick disclaimer: The content in this podcast is intended as general information only, and is not to be substituted for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Onto the podcast!

Topics:

1. The benefits of meal planning [1:40]

2. All about batch cooking [14:59]

3. How Mickey and Angie implement meal planning and batch cooking [26:20]

4. Guest interview, Alaena Haber: AIP kitchen tools [33:14]

5. Setting up your AIP kitchen [40:15]

6. Alaena’s favorite batch cooked AIP recipes [43:10]

7. Myth busting about an AIP blogger’s pantry [45:37]

8. How cooking changed with a baby [50:15]

Angie Alt: Hi everyone! Angie here. Welcome back to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast, season 3. How are you doing today, Mickey?

Mickey Trescott: I’m doing great. How about you, Angie?

Angie Alt: I’m good. I’m excited to talk about this topic. Today we’re continuing our discussion related to the topic this season, which is real food on a budget. This episode is going to be about how to implement some kitchen hacks to help you save money on food.

Before we even get into sourcing food, we wanted to take a little detour and discuss about some of the best practices that, when used effectively, will really help you in the kitchen. Some of you have heard us chat about these topics before, but just stick with us, because you may not have looked at the benefits from this angle before.

Mickey, there’s a couple of topics here. Let’s start with a biggie; what is meal planning?

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. So meal planning is something that we talk about a lot, but it’s because it really solves a lot of problems. But meal planning is really the act of just sitting down with a pen and paper, or with some software, which we’ll maybe talk about later. Maybe an app on your phone, maybe calendar. And just writing down what you’re going to eat and when.

It maybe for some people seems a little bit obsessive, and a little bit like too much. But honestly, meal planning is something that is going to help you a lot. And we’ll talk about all the benefits to it. But some different ways that you can meal plan are, like I said, you could just sit down with a sheet of paper and you could say; ok, for Monday dinner I’m going to make a roast chicken. For Tuesday dinner, I’m going to make a roast beef. For Wednesday, maybe I’ll try to work in some seafood.

So it can be something really simple, like just planning the major protein and then kind of letting the vegetables fill in as you find certain deals at the farmer’s market, or the grocery store. Or you can actually literally plan every single breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack through your meal planning exercise.

So you can use different apps to do this. We are really big fans of a service called Real Plans. Which is an online software-based solution that actually has all of our AIP recipes in our books and on our blog as part of their membership plan. And it’s really affordable. And what they do, you plug in kind of all the things that you’re avoiding, or that you’re eating. And then it will kind of randomly generate you a bunch of recipes that you can then plug into different slots. So that’s the most high-tech version of meal planning.

And then the most low tech, which is actually more along the lines of what I do, is just using a pen and paper. Maybe on a calendar. I actually do it often on my calendar on my computer that I use for all my work and my personal things. And then I’ll just have, at the end of the day, roast that chicken. Just so I know; ok, later today, this is what I’m going to do. So logistically, that’s how someone would meal plan. Do you have anything to add about that, Angie?

Angie Alt: Not too much. You kind of covered all the bases. I’m like you at this point. I’ve been meal planning for a really, really long time. Even before I got into the AIP lifestyle. And I just do it super low tech. Pen and paper, kind of boring.

Sometimes I use Real Plans, because it’s a cool tool and I like playing around with it from time to time. But I usually keep it pretty simple.

Mickey Trescott: When I was first getting started, I was doing more of that meal planning every single meal, every single snack. Just making sure I had all my bases covered. Because of course when something is new, it’s a lot harder to trouble shoot and make decisions in the moment. When you have everything planned out, you just know what you’re going to eat and you know when to cook and it just works out. I would have loved to have Real Plans in the beginning. Because I definitely was meal planning to that level back then.

Angie, let’s talk a little bit about how meal planning helps people save money.

Angie Alt: Mickey just touched on a biggie, and I do the same thing that she does. You plan meals around that main protein, and select that based on your budget and sourcing. You’ll know that you have the protein that you need for the day. And we all know that protein is the most expensive item on the menu, so kind of starting there is really smart. I do exactly what Mickey does. I start with whatever is going to be the main protein for my meal.

And by doing the whole meal plan at once, I also help make sure that we rotate our proteins and get the different vitamins and minerals and nutrition that comes from those different sources. And not overeat one kind of protein over another. Especially poultry, with those omega-6 fats. So this way, I make sure that my family gets a little bit of grass-fed beef. A little bit of pastured pork. A little bit of chicken, but not too much. And a couple of servings of seafood a week.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, you can also pick whatever protein is most affordable to you, and put it on your menu more often. I mean, if you leave it up to whim, and kind of what you feel like you want to eat in terms of flavor, you might be finding; “I want to make those scallops! Or I want to make that tri-tip!” or something that’s a little bit more expensive. You might be able to just be like; no, actually we’re going to have a lot of meat balls and meat loaf, and chicken thighs. That kind of thing.

Angie Alt: Mickey, there’s another biggie. Maybe you can dive into this one a little bit. Meal planning reduces waste.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. So by planning out your meals, one of the best things is actually that you avoid having too much food. So when you make a meal plan, then you make a shopping list from your meal plan. And then you make what you intend to. You’re not going to end up with a bunch of extra food that you just bought on a whim, thinking, “How much do I need to buy for a weeks’ worth of groceries?”

How many of us have gone to the grocery store without a plan, put whatever looked good into our cart, and then maybe 5 or 6 days later realized half of our vegetables are kind of wilty and looking sad in the back of the fridge because we didn’t have a plan to eat them? And that is, for me at least, the biggest way to reduce waste in my kitchen. Is actually to have a plan for using all the produce, especially if I buy.

If I don’t have a plan, then I find that even when I am really excited about something, I’m notorious with salad greens for this. Especially if I ever buy boxed salad greens, which I only do rarely. Because I have this problem. What ends up happening is they go bad so fast that I just kind of forgot about them, and that’s not good. We want to save money by using everything we buy.

Angie Alt: Right, exactly. I have to say that even back before my AIP days, when I was still a menu planner even then. This was the biggest reason I did it. Because I was really trying to reduce waste in our family. So making a plan helped me stick with it.

I also find, and you kind of just touched on this Mickey, it reduces impulse buying. If you’re just kind of not sure what’s going to be on the table every night, and you just run out to the store and buy whatever is kind of convenient at that time, you’re going to end up having a very expensive grocery bill.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah! For sure. When I’m meal planning, I’m finding that I spend most of my time in the produce aisle, getting all those fresh fruits and vegetables. Which we all know a lot, depending on the variety, fruits and vegetables, especially organic, can be pretty expensive. But let me tell you, when you’re walking down the gluten free snack aisle, {laughs} that’s even more per ounce.

It’s tricky, because a lot of those products are in little bags. And it’s $3 or $4; and you kind of go; “Oh, 3-4 bucks isn’t really that much.” But when you think how many carrots can you get for $3 or $4, it really becomes obvious when you look at things that way. And when you fill your cart with things you actually have a plan for. And you know that you’re going to have enough food, you’re not going to be like; “I need those snacky things!” You’re going to be like; “Oh, I’m going to have leftover of this stew, or whatever I’m making.” So you’re going to be fine.

Angie Alt: Mm-hmm.

Mickey Trescott: Another benefit to meal planning is simply that it reduces eating out. Most of us know that eating outside the home; at a restaurant or even a fast food, fast-ish food. There’s even more clean fast food type places. Those places are going to be more expensive every single time the way that we eat on AIP and even with reintros than when compared to cooking and eating your food at home.

So having a plan for home cooked meals is definitely going to reduce how much you eat out. Which can get super expensive. Especially when you think of things like lunches at work, even. Brown-bagging it. I know a lot of people go out to lunch at their work, or near their work. And just simply bringing your own food, while that food, a lot of the cost that went into getting those ingredients, and sourcing them high quality might be higher than what you expect. That savings that you’re getting from actually not going to the restaurant around the corner or something is a big deal.

Angie Alt: Yeah. This is a really big deal. We noticed it a lot recently. A new restaurant opened up near us that’s sort of like a Mediterranean version of Chipotle. And it has some pretty clean options. And with a few reintroductions, I can eat there safely. And we kind of over did it over the Christmas holiday, eating out a few too many times. Going as a family and getting some Mediterranean bowls at this restaurant.

And it was delicious, but it was costing us between $50 and $60 for the whole family every time we went. And it’s like a Chipotle level restaurant. So it should be kind of inexpensive in comparison. But with $50 or $60, I can feed my family full meals for at least two dinners. And those dinners translate into leftovers that feed me and my husband during our work day. And it’s like; oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m spending this much on one meal.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah. That planning is really, really important. And a lot of times, that perceived convenience doesn’t really outweigh some of the other benefits.

Angie Alt: Right. The other thing about meal planning is that if you do it in this really super savvy way, you can use your weekly sales ads. Or pay attention to what’s on sale in the store, and be really strategic and save actually a lot of money.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, is this something that you’ve done in the past, Angie?

Angie Alt: Yes, it is. This is why I brought up this point. Even before I went AIP, when I would meal plan, what I would do was sit down with my local grocery stores weekly sales ad. I would look at the different vegetables and fruits that were going to be on sale that week. And the different meats. And I would plan my meals to incorporate those sale items. And it made a big difference in our grocery budget.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, I bet. I, in all honesty, have not gone here. But I see the ads, and actually how I use them is I’ll stock up on bulk things. Because I’m way more of a bulk opportunist. So if I see, for instance, whole chickens on sale at Whole Foods, I will go home with 10 or 15 of them and throw them in the freezer. {laughs}

Angie Alt: Right. That’s another way you can use those sales ads really smartly. If you’ve got the freezer space to do this. Or a larger family that might go through those bulk items. That’s really smart.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, and I’d say, too, for people that maybe don’t have a deep freezer that this strategy of going week by week, and seeing what the store has on sale is actually more useful to you. Maybe you live in an apartment in New York City, and you don’t have a deep freezer. That’s kind of part of why we’re giving you guys all these options, because we realize that everyone’s lives are a lot different. And what’s going to work for you is maybe not going to work for someone else.

Angie Alt: Ok, so a final point about meal planning and how it can save you. It reduced the amount of trips you have to make to the store, which equals fuel savings, which is...