Are there good processed foods?

Surprise! Yes, there are!

This week, I thought I’d put all my favorite shortcuts in one post, to make them easy to find and share.

Look, we all know processed and ultra-processed foods are a problem. Their top ingredients are generally oil and salt. They’re fatty and unhealthy and contain almost no whole foods. It’s soy protein or pea protein or wheat gluten instead of soy and peas and wheat. The fiber is usually non-existent in those foods.

But things are getting better. As the whole food, plant-based movement grows, and people become more and more educated about how to truly eat healthily and how to tell the bullshit from the actual science, the big food manufacturers have begun to get better, reducing the amounts of fat and sodium in their meat and cheese substitutes. But more importantly, small food companies have begun filling in the gaps.

Ten years from now, heck even five years from now, I expect there to be many more options.

But right now, today, there actually are a handful of minimally processed whole food, oil-free products that are the real deal. I’ll include them with all my other shortcuts and discoveries below.

The first and greatest source

Plantstrong.com <–That’s a link. I’m not an affiliate and I don’t even know if there’s an affiliate program. (I should probably check, right?) But this company, founded by Rip Esselstyn, son of Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., renowned cardiologist/surgeon/researcher featured in the documentary Forks Over Knives, which is required viewing for all this page’s readers.

• Plantstrong’s products include:

• Spicy Cajun Jambalaya

• Kitchari Indian Lentil Stew

• Spit Pea & Vegetable Stew

• Thai Carrot Chickpea Stew

• Black Bean Chili

• Sweet & Smoky Chili

• Spiced Lentil Chili

• Chunky Chipotle Chili

• Engine 2 Firehouse Chili

• Creamy White Bean Chili

• Apple Pie Granola

• Dark Chocolate Granola

• Mixed Berry Crumble Granola

• Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Granola

• Gluten Free Cornbread & Muffin Mix

• Gluten Free Pancake & Waffle Mix

• Sweet Potato & Ancient Grain Pancake & Waffle Mix

• Seven-Grain Pancake & Waffle Mix

• Milk: Almond

• Milk: Oat

• Milk: Oat & Almond Blend

• Milk: Oat & Walnet Blend

• Organic Pizza Kit: (Crusts & Sauce Packets)

• Peanut Curry Secret Sauce Mix

• Plantstrong Popcorn

• Rip’s Big Bowl Breakfast Cereal: Banana Walnut

• Rip’s Big Bowl Breakfast Cereal: Berry Almond

• Rip’s Big Bowl Breakfast Cereal: Date & Raisin

• Broth: Shitake Mushroom

• Broth: Slow Simmered Vegetable

• Broth: Spanish Style Sofrito

• Broth: Sweet Corn Broth

• Skillet Burgers (mix): Black Bean

• Skillet Burgers (mix): Portobello Mushroom

• Skillet Burgers (mix): Sweet Curry

• Multiple teas, chai, iced teas

All of the above can be found at Plantstrong.com. All are whole food, plant-based, low salt, low sugar, and oil-free. Watch for bundles and definitely sign up for sales, because they do regular deep discounts. I stock up when things are on sale.

Plantstrong also has a great weekly show, The Plantstrong Podcast which you can find wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Only Truly WFPB Home Meal Delivery System

GoLeafside.com <– That’s a link

I’m not an affiliate of this one either. The products are a similar to the Plantstrong line of products, and include chowders, soups, stews, grain bowls, smoothies, and “sweet bowls” with fruits & grains.

This company is endorsed wholeheartedly by Dr. Michael Greger, author of How to Survive a Pandemic, How Not to Die, How Not to Diet, How Not to Age, and his most recent book, Ozempic. He’s a respected expert on plant-based nutrition and founder of the NutritionFacts.org

Leafside’s offerings include:

• Cozy Carrot Spice Sweet Bowl

• Apple Cinnamon Crunch Sweet Bowl

• Cacao Raspberry Sweet Bowl

• Berry Medley Sweet Bowl

• Goji Peach Paradise Sweet Bowl

• Comforting Corn Chowder Soup

• Sweet Potato Dal Soup

• Golden Garlic Bean Soup

• Black Bean Chunky Tomato Soup

• Smoky Pea Soup

• Creamy Potato Leek Soup

• Tex-Mex Savory Bowl

• Lentil Tomato Pasta Savory Bowl

• Creamy Forest Mushroom Savory Bowl

• Broccoli Cashew Alfredo Savory Bowl

• Thai Veggie Noodle Savory Bowl

• Madras Curry Savory Bowl

• Pesto & Peppers Pasta Savory Bowl

• Plus Smoothie Mixes in 7 Flavors

These are all whole food, plant-based, low salt, low sugar, and oil-free.

Time savers in your grocer’s freezer section

• Pre-shredded Hash Brown Potatoes: No salt, no oil.

• Pre-cut French Fries: No salt, no oil

• Ezekiel Bread

• Ezekial Raisin Bread

• Ezekial Wraps

• Ezekial English Muffins

• Ezekial Cinnamon Raisin English Muffins

• Actually Veggies Brand Black Bean Burgers

• Actually Veggies Brand Purple Root Burgers

• Eat Meati Brand Mushroom Root Steaks

• Eat Meati Brand Mushroom Root Cutlets

• Hillary’s Prime Plants Tomato & Spinach Fritters

• Frozen Rice & Veggie Mixes (without sauces or oils)

• Frozen Diced Peppers

• Frozen Diced Onions

• Frozen chopped spinach

• Frozen chopped broccoli

• Frozen chopped cauliflower

• Frozen snap peas

• Frozen stir fry vegetable mixes (can include broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, onions, watercress, snap peas or any combo thereof.) No sauce, no oil. Read ingredients.

• Frozen carrots, corn, peas, black eyed peas, edamame (soybeans).

• Frozen peaches, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, berry mixes

All of the frozen and canned and dried options for fruits and vegetables will be even more important in colder climates in the US where fresh produce will soon be priced too high for most of us to afford.

In the produce section

The key here is to buy no more than you’ll eat in a week, because that’s about as long as most fresh produce is going to keep its nutritional value.

A second key is to buy things you can grab and eat without fussing. Those are the kinds of things I’m listing here.

1. Get the pre-washed mixed greens for your salads. Wash them again anyway. Way faster!

2. Get those tiny, ping-pong ball sized potatoes if they have them. I steam the whole bag and pop them into a bowl in the fridge to snack on during the week.

3. Small fruits for snacking: Cherries, dark purple grapes, red grapes, the green grapes they insist on calling white, plums, raisins (elderly grapes?)

4. Bigger fruits that are still EASY for snacking. Bananas, apples, those little mandarins sold under the brand names “Halo” and “Cuties.” You can all but pinch off the skins. Pears, peaches if you don’t mind the fuzz. Anything you can rinse off and bite into.

5. Raw veggies on which you enjoy snacking. Wash, cut, and place into covered containers in the fridge as soon as you get these home, for easy grab & go snacks. Celery, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower. (We eat red peppers raw too, but you can’t really cut those very far ahead. By Day 2 they’re already limp.)

In the Canned Section

Canned tomatoes: diced tomatoes, diced with mild green chilis, crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste. Nothing with oil, and everything no-salt or reduced sodium. Using canned tomatoes, paste, and seasonings, I can have a pasta sauce have it simmering in minutes.

Canned beans: black beans, pinto beans, white beans, kidney beans, cannellini beans, garbanzo beans (chickpeas) and canned lentils save me a TON of time cooking legumes. I nearly always drain and rinse before using.

By the way, I make hummus every week. Takes two minutes in the blender. Main ingredient is chickpeas.

Canned mushrooms: My hubby has issues with their texture, but if you pop them into a hot skillet you can fix that. If you’re in a hurry with no time to chop fresh mushrooms, use canned. Watch for high sodium though. Always drain, rinse, and cook.

Canned Super Greenies: I’m not a fan of canned vegetables unless there’s no other option. Fresh and frozen retain far more of their nutrients. Canning requires long processing times, and the more you cook a food, the more nutrients are depleted. However, I still keep canned spinach, canned beets, and canned asparagus on hand. Any day when I haven’t had a sufficient amount of veggies from the leafy green and cruciferous categories, I pop a can, drain and heat, and eat it right down. It’s that important to get plenty of these every single day.

The leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables send healing nitric oxide bubbling through your circulatory system, and it actually repairs the damaged epithelial cells that line the arteries, and removes arterial plaque that hasn’t yet calcified.

These vegetables can reverse heart disease.
Neither statins nor stents can do that.

In the rest of the grocery store
Or by mail order if necessary

Udon Noodles and Soba Noodles. Often in the Asian foods section, precooked and packed in red and white cellophane, these are whole grain noodles that are ready to use. They just need to be heated with moisture so they’ll pull apart. A tablespoon or two of water, a dish with a loose fitting lid, and a few minutes in the microwave works, or toss them into the pan with your vegetables. Poke them apart with a fork as they warm. Sometimes a package of frozen veggies, half a package of noodles, a drizzle of balsamic, and a scattering of sesame seeds is the perfect lunch, and it’s ready in five minutes. These noodles are not gluten-free.

Vitabella Brand Breakfast Cereals: Not entirely whole foods but still very good. They make it past my eagle eye and into my cupboards on a regular basis. They come in a chocolate puffed rice variety that’s like Cocoa Pebbles, as well as in whole grain flakes, and corn flakes.

Broth: Low sodium or salt-free vegetable and mushroom broths save me the effort of boiling veggie and scraps to make my own, because I have a day job.

They say the broths don’t need refrigeration until they’re opened.
I don’t trust the flimsy packaging and refrigerate them anyway.

There are a wider variety of broths are Plantstrong.com (see list above.)

Mom’s Place Brand Cream of Mushroom Soup Mix
This has white rice flour, which is not a whole food. Brown rice flour would be. It’s in every other way wonderful though, because you can’t find mushroom soup that isn’t dairy. At first I balked at the notion of a powdered mushroom soup, but this stuff is very close to the real deal, and now I can once again have tuna noodle casserole where the tuna is chickpeas with kelp salt, and lance can have his mom’s “stroganoff” with mushroom root steaks in place of the deer that was its main ingredient.

The final shortcut

Batch cooking. I’ve mentioned this before. When you cook pasta or rice, cook twice as much as you need, so it’s ready for another meal.

Always have cooked potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, and/or pasta cooked and ready to grab and eat, or to add to a pan of veggies with some spices for an instant meal.

When you make soups and stews, make mega batches. FILL the crockpot. Put the leftovers into single-serving or single-meal sized containers and freeze them.

Hope this was helpful!

See you next Saturday.

If you have specific questions, challenges, or just want to share your journey, drop a note into comments. I’d love to hear from you.

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