Mela Health

View Original

MELA’s pantry, fridge and freezer staples

MELA Health

Like many of you, we have spent the last few weeks processing, grieving, terrified, overwhelmed, heartbroken and horrified. We could not dive into this week’s edition of the newsletter without acknowledging the state of our world and our heavy hearts, but we did find relief and joy in writing this week’s issue - if it’s not what you need today, we get it, if it helps you in some way, we’re so glad.

xo,
Lauren and Merrill

MELA’s pantry, fridge and freezer staples

We’re so excited to share today’s issue, a full run down of MELA’s pantry, fridge and freezer staples.

We’re often asked about our favorite food products and more generally, how to think about navigating the grocery store and stocking a healthy kitchen. Our general food philosophy is the more whole, unprocessed foods = the better, but we’re also realists and rely heavily on a number of high quality, minimally processed packaged foods in our day to day life. 

There are so many good products out there these days (along with a lot more not so great ones) - here are some things we look for when choosing MELA staples: high quality, recognizable ingredients; minimally processed/as few ingredients as possible; flavor/taste, and we try to steer clear of anything that could be inflammatory for day to day use. 

While this isn’t an exhaustive list, it includes some of our go-tos that you’ll usually find in our kitchen and that MELA clients have grown to love.

Pantry

Fridge

  • Some produce we typically like to have on hand (or some version of this depending on seasonality and the week!):

    • Pre-washed spinach and greens (e.g. arugula, romaine, spring mix, baby kale, etc.) for salads and smoothies.

    • Cut up veggies for snacking (e.g. celery, carrots, bell peppers, cucumbers, etc.) and any seasonal veggies for roasting/steaming/grilling/sauteeing (e.g. broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber, zucchini, radish, asparagus, winter squash, etc.),

    • Berries for snacks, dessert, yogurt and chia parfaits.

    • Seasonal fruit for snacks, salads and desserts (e.g. citrus in winter, stone fruit and melon in summer).

    • Lemons and limes for everything.

  • Proteins we love to keep on hand: tons of organic eggs, wild fish, organic poultry and grass-fed beef.

  • Almond milk for smoothies, chia pudding and our favorite banana pancakes (we love Malk and Califia Farms). 

  • Ketchup for everything (we love Primal Kitchen). 

  • Sriracha and various hot sauces for drizzling on hard boiled eggs and everything else.

  • Primal Kitchen buffalo and bbq sauce. Love these lower sugar buffalo and bbq alternatives that are so good on everything (salads, roasted chickpeas, pulled rotisserie chicken, etc.). 

  • Primal Kitchen salad dressings and marinades. We love to make our own dressings when possible, but these are high quality runners up for when we’re short on time.

  • Nuts & seeds for salads and snacking (we love Go Raw sprouted pumpkin seeds, Massa Organic roasted almonds, any of the Old Dog Ranch seasoned walnuts and Thrive Market or Nuts.com for bulk nuts and seeds).

  • Miso. We always have this on hand for our citrus miso ginger dressing and for the best roasted sweet potatoes (from this recipe). We love the Miso Master and South River.

  • Low-sodium tamari and coconut aminos. Gluten-free, lower sodium soy sauce alternatives - great for sushi, marinades, stir fries and dressings!

  • Pesto. We love Gotham Greens’ classic and vegan pestos, or our homemade pesto!

  • Hummus. Great for snacks and wraps. We love Cedars, Ithaca and our newest favorite Little Sesame. 

  • Primal kitchen mayo. We love this avocado oil based mayo that’s made with organic eggs - a nice swap for traditional mayo without sacrificing any flavor (we think!). We use this on our 3 go-to deli salads (curried chicken, herbed egg and tuna), for dressings, and on sandwiches/wraps.

Freezer

  • Frozen proteins are such a gift to your future self, and allow you to have access to some of the highest quality products in a pinch. We love Vital Choice for wild salmon. For poultry and beef, we often get ours from Whole Foods, the farmer’s market or butcher and freeze it ourselves.

  • Frozen, pre-cooked brown rice and/or quinoa. We love Whole Foods organic and Trader Joe's organic options. Such a good weeknight hack. We like to defrost with a little water in a saute pan.

  • Veggie burgers. We love, love, love this one from Dr. Pragers and Hilary’s veggie burgers (all varieties) over a big salad with some roasted veggies for an easy weeknight meal. 

  • Bread. We like to store it in the freezer to extend shelf life. Some of our favorites: Food for Life, Dave’s Killer Bread, Bread Alone, and for gluten-free: Base Culture, Erewhon (LA local) or Knead Love (NYC local). 

  • Frozen fruit and veggies for smoothies, stir fries and/or soups.

  • Some sweet treats. Obsessed with Dream Pops bites. We also love this So Delicious dairy free coconut whip paired with berries or frozen sliced banana and a few mini chocolate chips (we love Enjoy Life).

  • Some make ahead mains and proteins. Not a product, per se, but another gift for your future self. We especially love having meatballs, soups and stews and /or some type of pulled meat situation in the freezer to make weeknight meals come together more easily. See A Few More Things (AFMT) below for some of our favorites!

A few more things

Where we share all the things we’re loving, reading, listening to, cooking, discussing and purchasing as of late.

  1. Some of our favorite storage jars for pantry and fridge: various sized Weck Jars with these lids and Mason jars with these lids - both great for storing nuts, seeds, whole grains and prepped food. We also have various sizes of Glasslock and Pyrex glass tupperware for prepped foods (everything from soups, proteins and roasted veggies to pre-cut fruit and veg).

  2. We don’t know what we did before Vejibags - the best reusable veggie storage bags that are not only environmentally friendly but keep produce fresher, longer. On the pricier side but we have had ours for 4+ years and they have stood the test of time. Here’s how we use them as part of our meal prep strategy most weeks: purchase veggies at the farmer’s market or grocery store and wash (most) veggies right away (broccoli and cauliflower cut into florets, whole peppers, carrots, zucchini, fennel, radish, cabbage, cucumber and eggplant), place WET veggies into a WET vejibag (twist to wring out excess water) and store in the crisper. Your veggies will last forever, and when you’re ready to use or cook them, they’re already washed. Win win!

  3. Thrive Market. Chances are you guys have heard of Thrive Market at this point, but we couldn’t do a pantry guide without mentioning Thrive! It’s basically an online Costco with all of the best health food brands on the market (in other words, there’s an annual membership for great discounts on tons of brands). Thrive is incredible - it has tons of pantry staples and many of the brands mentioned above, but also has its own label with high quality staples of everything from nuts and seeds to grains and spices to cleaning supplies. More recently, they started offering refrigerated and frozen items as well. If you have the space, we highly recommend stocking up to make your life easier! 

  4. A few freezer friendly recipes we love for when you feel like making a gift for your future self: Red Lentil Soup with Lemon (NYT Cooking), Best Lentil Soup (Cookie & Kate), Pressure Cooker Chicken Salsa Verde (NYT Cooking - there’s a slow cooker version as well), our favorite easy turkey meatballs (freeze in sauce or without), Ottolenghi’s Turkey Zucchini Meatballs, Giada’s California Turkey Chili, and our vegetarian chili (featured in our Fall & Winter Reset). 

  5. Good Inside: Atomic Parenting Habits (Dr. Becky with James Clear). We loved this recent quick episode on Dr. Becky’s podcast featuring the king of habits and behavior change, James Clear. Clear is known for his ideas on approachable behavior change and creating habits that stick (which has largely influenced our own approach). We loved this intersection between two thought leaders we love - lots of takeaway tips and easy ideas for creating good habits for the whole family. 

  6. Workout buddies + a workout we both loved. Lately, we have been holding each other accountable to doing one longer format work out per week. We love the idea of a workout buddy (in person or online) for accountability (and for making your workouts more fun!), but since we’re on opposite coasts, we’ve defaulted to taking turns choosing a pre-recorded workout and then reporting back to one another. This week we did this perfect 50-minute foundation style class from Kara Duval (more on Kara and why we love her in this issue’s A Few More Things). We used 1 lb Bala ankle weights and 5 lb hand weights for arms. Reminder: if a 50 min workout feels daunting and not doable, find something that works. We found this one hard and took a few mini breaks, but it really hit the spot! Per usual, grounding, nourishing, challenging and energizing all at once. 

  7. Roseline Coffee. We admittedly have a vested interest in this company since Lauren’s husband Matt is a cofounder and partner, but we do not take coffee lightly in either of our households and Roseline has quickly become our new favorite. This coffee is so, so good. Roseline is a Portland based specialty coffee roaster retailer and they ship their beans throughout the US. The beans are sustainably sourced direct from origin and high quality supply chain partners and grown without pesticides (even those without an organic certification because it can be expensive for small farmers to obtain). We love this single origin Ethiopian coffee and the Catapult blend, but you cannot go wrong. Use FRIENDSOFMATT for 10% off!