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convenience TF foods

post #1 of 9
Thread Starter 
my family is currently in an extremeley busy periond in our lives right now, and although I enjoy eating TFs made from scratch ( my husband and I both LOVE to cook, bake, etc) we have no time to cook. what TF foods do you know of that are "convenience" type foods? for example, instead of sprouting my own bread, i can buy ezekiel sprouted bread and tortillas. i'm open to fast tf meals as well (snacks as well as full meal ideas). we have a nine month old baby, a cat a dog, we both go to school fulltime (grad students) and we both work part time as teaching assistants. please help.

we've resisted relying on convenience foods, but we've been finding ourselves getting fast food or just doing unbalanced snacking instead of eating nice meals too much and we need an alternative. i've also started getting some "amy's" brand frozen meals, just for quick lunches. we're going shopping at the best health food store in the state tomorrow, so i'm hoping to have some ideas before we go. TIA for any help you can give!!!!!!!!!!!!
post #2 of 9
In a pinch, I'd buy:

Larabars
Raw almonds
Almond butter
Raisins
Roasted chicken from the health food store
Salami
Pickles
Olives

You can make a batch of hard boiled eggs for grab and go snacks

Spend an hour or two to pre-chop and wrap individual portions of fruits, veggies, meat and cheese

Hope that helps!
post #3 of 9
I don't know if any of these qualify as 'TF' per se but hopefully will be more 'whole foods-like' than not (any convenience food will have convenience ingredients that aren't TF like canola oil, refined grains, etc.)

Do you have a Chipotle near you? They have humanely raised pork (and probably their other meats are too but I usually get pork), a cultured sour cream (made just for them by daisy to be from milk that is rBGH free I believe) and you can get a 'bowl' with or without rice that you can customize--2 types of beans, fajita veggies, guacamole, salsas, etc.

We've found that small ethnic restaurants can be fast and traditional--many around us still cook in lard/ghee, make homemade flatbreads, tortillas, etc.

If you like sushi and can get it with quality fish, raw or not, that would be pretty traditional. The sushi rice won't be 'TF' and anything fried will no doubt be fried in vegetable oil. I like to think the nori (seaweed wrap around the rolls) is good (lots of omega-3 I think), you get good enzymes if you eat the raw fish, tons of nutrition in the shellfish, roe, ?sea urchin, miso and other fermented soybean items, etc.

Have an oyster bar near you?

Not sure where you are or if you do dairy (I don't) but if I could get it and tolerate it, drinking raw milk and cultured dairy products (good yogurt, kefir, kombucha) would be huge, and that's something you can just buy and consume. Also, buy a jar of Bubbie's sauerkraut and eat a little with any 'fast food' you bring home to add some probiotic to your meal. Have raw cheese on hand.

'Snacking' may not seem like a meal but you could quickly eat lots of TF things that way--set up a charcuterie plate for dinner of pate, olives, raw cheese, lacto-fermented pickles, salami's, hardboiled pasture eggs, avovado, apples, dried fruit, sourdough baguette with butter--pretty much all things you could have on hand in fridge/pantry.

There's a number of companied making soaked/sprouted/raw nuts and snacks now--they're pricey, but convenient. (Better Than Roasted is one brand I remember off the top of my head).

You can also buy Ezekial cereal and use it to top yogurt, eat it with raw milk, etc.

Grab a salad from the natural foods store with as many good add ons as you can.

There are reasons why these aren't 'TF' but there are so many 'superfoods' in powdered form now that are so packed with nutrition that you could make a superfast smoothie, fruity or creamy, nutty or veggie, etc. full of good fats and protein and added nutrition (add in coconut oil or raw milk or nuts or greens, etc.) I haven't ordered from them before but lots of info on livesuperfoods.com and elsewhere.

If you have a decent bakery near you, get sandwiches there made with sourdough.

I know you don't want to cook but fish is SUPER fast in the pan or in the oven and you can do it simple--butter or coconut oil/salt/pepper or switch it up (salsa/olives/peppers; coconut milk/lime; lemon; any number of spices). Another fast dish we like is quick chilaquiles: fried eggs over a can of black beans (Eden brand uses BPA-free cans for beans) topped with salsa/sour cream on top of tortilla chips if you want. I can make that faster than stopping to pick up take-out.

You can also think of foods that you can start and ignore for chunks of time while you're doing other things (bathing the kiddo, etc.) Toss a couple yams in the oven and bake for an hour; crockpot cooking.

If you have a good natural foods store that delivers, take advantage of grocery delivery services! You can plan ahead that way and make sure you have quick items on hand.
post #4 of 9
When we have a busy week coming up I tend to make a huge batch of soup. We end up eating it for either lunch or dinner every day for a week to get through it, but it's better than junk food. Our favorites are butternut squash and chicken soup, taco soup, chicken and dumplings, and chicken quinoa.

Soups also freeze so nicely that if you had a free day you could make several kinds and freeze them in meal-sized portions.

Or, maybe roast a whole chicken or two and save the meat in the fridge for quick sandwiches.
post #5 of 9
Quote:
Originally Posted by ps4624 View Post
In a pinch, I'd buy:

Larabars
Raw almonds
Almond butter
Raisins
Roasted chicken from the health food store
Salami
Pickles
Olives

You can make a batch of hard boiled eggs for grab and go snacks

Spend an hour or two to pre-chop and wrap individual portions of fruits, veggies, meat and cheese

Hope that helps!
all great suggestions here.

also, make a fritata or quiche and cut it up as needed throughout the week for breakfast.
post #6 of 9
Burritos are super fast to put together, and freeze well. You could make some for breakfast and some for lunch/dinner and then grab one when you need a meal on the run.
post #7 of 9
another grab-n-go bar is the BARAKA BAR. I can get in the refrigerated section at my Whole Foods (near butter)...it's similar to a Lara bar, but the nuts are soaked and dehydrated! I like Goldenberry and Chocolate the best.

in times of harried stress, it helps me to have grab-n-go frittata "muffins" I eat cold or reheat in toaster oven while I get kids ready. (use muffin pan with liners if needed and put different ingredients-veggies, cheese, meat- in the cups...then add either raw scrambled eggs OR whole eggs and bake to desired done-ness)

also, if you have time on the weekend, you could make your own version of the Amy's burrito, etc with either breakfast or lunch ingredients and freeze them to eat later...not sure if you were also looking to save money by making any of these things...I know convenience foods add up...

we also order from US Wellness meats and get the snack sticks and hot dogs...they are grass-fed, no nasty ingredients, DELICIOUS!, and thaw fast under running water. The snacks sticks don't stick around in the fridge ong enough to go bad and make a whole meal with crispy nuts or some cheese cubes, frozen peas (thawed or not ), etc

OH! that reminds me...we rely heavily on frozen veggies and fruits for convenience. We like frozen berries with cream or yogurt as a snack and I always throw frozen peas, green beans, or broccoli in my sons' lunches and they thaw by lunch. I personally think they'd be better with some butter, but they like them plain.

we buy real sourdough and always have some sandwich things in the fridge:
natural nut butters
nice sliced meat
cheese
etc

I often need to let go of dinner being a full, sit down meat-and-two-veggies affair and realize that on busy nights a sandwich at home is almost as fast as fast food and faster than eating at a restaurant...AND nourishes us and leaves my body feeling a LOT better.
post #8 of 9
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rasa View Post
There are reasons why these aren't 'TF' but there are so many 'superfoods' in powdered form now that are so packed with nutrition that you could make a superfast smoothie, fruity or creamy, nutty or veggie, etc. full of good fats and protein and added nutrition (add in coconut oil or raw milk or nuts or greens, etc.) I haven't ordered from them before but lots of info on livesuperfoods.com and elsewhere.
I rely on whey protein powder a lot myself. Dr. Mercola has a delicious whey protein powder based on raw milk from grass-fed cows. I throw in some seeds (DH also likes to add a raw egg to this along with strawberries and banana) and then just add a non-dairy milk like almond or coconut milk. I usually enjoy it with a nice juicy organic apple and a handful of raw nuts. It is a super-nutricious mini-meal that keeps you going for hours. And you can certainly carry your drink to school (I'm an academic too so I do this often) if you have a small Klean Kanteen water bottle.
post #9 of 9
U.S. Wellness Meats (grasslandbeef.com) sells grass-fed pemmican, salami and beef snack sticks all ready to eat, no cooking required.
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