Healthy Eating Made Simple: Our Grocery Haul and Food Choices Explained
A mini haul from a quick trip to the grocery store today.
We often get asked about the types of foods we buy when grocery shopping and which foods to avoid. In this post, we'll share an example of a typical grocery haul for us. We're not saying you should buy exactly what we do, but we'll explain the reasoning behind our choices.
We prefer an animal-based diet, so you'll see our list is primarily filled with those foods. Occasionally, we like to treat ourselves, and when we do, we seek out the highest quality ingredients. If you follow a different diet, that's perfectly fine. Our main goal is to share the reasoning behind our food choices—what to look for and what to avoid—so you can find the least processed and least toxic options for any diet.
The bulk of our diet consists of 100% grass-fed or pasture-raised animal meat and eggs, raw dairy products, organic fruit, and raw, unfiltered honey. We include cooked or fermented organic vegetables mainly to add variety in textures and flavors throughout the week. We also supplement our meals with various grains for the same reason.
Below, we will break down our grocery haul into different categories, providing examples of what we buy and explaining why we choose these items while avoiding others.
Whether ordering online or picking up from stores, we always make sure our meats are 100% grass-fed.
100% Grass-Fed Animal Meats: When choosing our meats, we always opt for 100% grass-fed when available. If we can't find it in stores, we order in bulk online (we tend to do this anyway because we go through so much in a week). We seek reputable regenerative farms from which to order our 100% grass-fed meat. Our most recent order was from White Oak Pastures.
We choose 100% grass-fed meat because the animals are eating their natural diet and grazing on the land as nature intended. They are not pumped with antibiotics or fed an unnatural diet grown with fertilizers and other chemicals, which we would indirectly consume once the meat is processed.
*A note about packaging and labeling: if it says "grass-fed," it is not "100% grass-fed.” "Grass-fed" means the animal was allowed to eat its natural diet at some point, but it was finished on a non-natural diet of grains.
Some examples of 100% grass-fed meats we eat:
Ground beef
Ground bison
Ground lamb
Various cuts of beef steak
We tend to avoid or rarely buy pork, as ensuring it receives proper nutrition throughout its life is more challenging. When we do opt for bacon or the occasional sausage (less than twice a month), we look for corn—and soy-free pastured pork or organic pork at minimum.
When looking for poultry products, we opt for pasture raised eggs and chicken meat. “Free Range” means the chickens aren’t caged, but they still spend the majority or all of their life indoors.
Pasture Raised Chicken: We apply the same thought process to our poultry products, seeking animals that ate their natural diet. For this, we look for labels that say "pasture-raised."
Some examples of pasture-raised chicken products we buy:
Chicken breast
Chicken thighs
Eggs
When choosing dairy products we prefer raw dairy as our first choice and then look for organic or 100% grass-fed as alternatives.
Dairy Products: We opt for raw milk, raw cheese, and other unpasteurized products whenever possible, such as cream and kefir. When purchasing other dairy products we can't get raw, we look for 100% grass-fed options with very small ingredient lists, no added sugar, no added gums, and live and active cultures, preferably organic.
To source raw dairy where we live, we purchased shares of a cow and pick up our milk each week from a local store. Depending on availability, they also offer raw cream and raw kefir.
Dairy products we buy:
Raw milk
Raw cream
Raw kefir
Raw cheddar cheese
Good Culture Organic: cottage cheese, sour cream, cream cheese
Siggi’s Vanilla Yogurt
All of our fruit and veggies are always organic and we prefer fermented vegetables when given the choice.
Organic Fruits & Vegetables: If they aren’t organic and non-GMO, we won’t buy them. Numerous studies have shown that pesticides are ingested when consuming industrialized produce from farms that spray pesticides and other chemicals on their crops. Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) aren't natural, and we don't want them entering our bodies.
We avoid eating raw vegetables and consume minimal amounts of cooked vegetables. We primarily use vegetables to add texture or to switch up our meals. We prefer fermented vegetables when available due to their positive impact on gut health, and we have started making our own.
Our choice to minimize vegetable consumption is based on the fact that some people find vegetables hard to digest and that they may contain oxalates and other plant defense chemicals. Each individual is affected differently by various vegetables.
Some examples of organic fruits, vegetables, and fermented veggies we buy:
Berries
Melons
Oranges
Apples
Cucumber
Avocado
Bananas
Squashes
Bok choy
Arugula
Red bell pepper
Kimchi
Sauerkraut
Pickles
When we do splurge on grains, we go for organic options.
Grains: To augment our meals, we occasionally include some grains. We mainly opt for non-fortified white rice, but when we want a special treat and are craving gluten, we choose organic sourdough bread.
We choose sourdough because its fermentation process pre-digests and breaks down some of the difficult grains outside the body, making it easier for us to eat and digest.
We avoid most other grains and forms of gluten because the type and quality of crops in America are not what we evolved eating. The gluten content in these products is much higher, making them more difficult to digest, leading to inflammation and many unwanted symptoms.
Examples of grains we buy:
Non-fortified organic white rice
Organic sourdough bread
Organic pizza dough (when Danielle craves her pizza)
The good stuff - or as good as it can get.
Sweets: We are human and have cravings for sweets too. While we do indulge, we try to find the ones with the best quality ingredients. We look for organic options when available and choose products with short ingredient lists, avoiding seed oils, gums, and processed sugar.
Some sweets that we buy:
Hu dark chocolate (we look for 70% cacao or higher)
Dates and butter (a delicious sweet treat, if you haven’t tried - we highly suggest!)
Dried mango
Siete brand cookies
Van Leeuwen ice cream (only certain flavors are seed oil-free)
Our approach to grocery shopping and meal planning is centered on choosing high-quality, natural foods that support our health and well-being. By prioritizing 100% grass-fed meats, pasture-raised poultry, raw and unprocessed dairy, and organic produce, we aim to minimize our exposure to harmful chemicals and ensure that our diet aligns with how nature intended these foods to be consumed.
While we have specific preferences, the key takeaway is to be mindful of the quality and sourcing of your food. Whether you follow an animal-based diet like ours or have different dietary preferences, focusing on less processed, naturally sourced foods can make a significant difference in your overall health. Remember, it’s not about following our list exactly, but rather adopting a thoughtful approach to what you put into your body. Healthy eating can be simple when you prioritize quality and make informed choices.