tryna stay healthy and move away from processed meats, whilst also spending as little time prepping food as possible.
Most often we will eat either:
- One or two slice of fresh (whole or even black) bread. Not the industrial type of bread, real handmade bread (we get it from the artisan bakery down our street). Toasted or not, with a tad of jam, and a cup of tea. Some fruit, depending the season. It takes mere instants to prepare.
- An egg. Boiled, omelette, scrambled, whatever. With my omelette, I like to add some fresh tomato, mushrooms and a tad of parsley. No bacon or things like that. This too takes mere instants to cook. Followed by a tea or a coffee.
- A croissant (it helps to live in France, as we get ours handmade from the same small bakery at the corner of our street we get our baguettes and bread from ;)) and a coffee.
For lunch and/or diner both my spouse and I like to prepare a few meals in advance (mostly vegetables even though we’re not vegan, we just want to eat less meat), using fresh non-industrially processed condiments. To save time, we will make 2 or even 3 meals worth in advance and store it in the fridge.
Today it was felafel Greek salad and Greek potatos. Gotta mix it up…
Assuming the rest of your diet isn’t stuffed with red meat I wouldn’t worry too much about eating bacon. Replacing meat with vegan meat-substitutes doesn’t automatically make the meal healthier - just free of meat.
Til nitrates free can have just as much nitrates https://www.americastestkitchen.com/articles/1701-nitrate-versus-nitrite-what-s-the-difference
The eggs are fine. You could replace the bacon with a veggie burger patty, or 96% lean burger patty, occasionally tuna salad. Or chicken salad.
Agreed here. I’ll say that the nitrates aren’t bad necessarily - if you do it in moderation. Daily like that and yeah, something will probably happen. Rotate the protein out daily like what you’re saying and it’d be great. (and some more variety)
Or chicken salad or even egg salad sandwiches. Whenever I get a rotisserie chicken, I immediately cut it up for other meals: eat the legs now, and pull out a big pot; cut off the breast and bag it, cut off the thigh meat (no bones) and every other bit of meat and bag that, break the carcass along the spine and stick it in the pot. Add water and boil/simmer for 4-6 hours (use a timer so you don’t forget to turn it off). Once the pot is done and then cool enough to stick yuor hands in, fish out every piece of cartlidge and bone you can find – especially the teeny ones. There will be a lot of meat, too. I generally pile the meat in a bowl and chuck the bones in a bag destined for the trash. I then strain the small amount of remaining liquid, but it back in the pot with the bowl of meat and add carrots, onions, celery, spices, and whatever else I feel like – from lemons to salsa, depending on leftovers. This becomes about two generous servings of still-boney soup (sometimes more).
Oh, I forgot: the point was that you can chop up the leftover bagged chicken to make chicken salad: mayo, relish, celery, spices, maybe onion, maybe mustard, maybe parsley. Same basic idea for egg salad… and you can boil the eggs for 7 minutes in the eventual soup.
Tacos with vegetarian beans! Takes a bit of prep but tasty and good for you!
Did you mean to say “vegetarian tacos using beans”? Because the way you wrote it makes it sound like you’re implying that some beans aren’t vegetarian…
Lots of beans have lard or pork in them.
Is this a joke I’m not American enough to understand?
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The word tacos implies Mexican food, and Mexican preparations of beans traditionally use lard as the cooking fat.
Well, the Fediverse has taught us that cats have beans on their paws… :)
Refried beans are traditionally made with lard. Many canned beans have fatback (pork) in them. Even vegetarian looking canned beans are not always vegetarian, I always look for the ones that specifically say vegetarian.
I do something different every week, but my “lazy” lunch prep for the week is chicken breast w/ cottage cheese and I throw in some taco seasoning. You can make your own and it’s super easy and lets you control sodium but when I’m extra lazy I just use store bought. Then you can throw that into some tortillas or taco shells. I prefer tortillas, high fiber just cause I like eating as much fiber as I can.
For the chicken it’s basically: -Cut chicken -Season with salt and pepper -Throw chicken in pan with some oil (I use olive, I know you shouldn’t but I don’t think I heat it enough to be a problem plus I just use a little bit) -When chicken is cooked, add 1 cup of cottage cheese, wait til it melts a little and then add taco seasoning.
You can add onions and peppers, and you can add some garlic while cooking,the chicken but it’s all purely optional.
Should take 40 minutes tops for 5 portions.
Buy a pork belly. Make your own bacon. It’s pretty easy and very delicious. That said, nitrates are in lots of things like celery.
Wait what? Nitrates in celery?
Yeah, that’s how food processors cure meat without using curing salts: they just replace it with celery juice or celery powder that contains natural nitrates, which cause the same effect but allow for different labeling rules.
You can find lots of packaging for ‘nitrate free’ things that have a disclaimer somewhere saying ‘*except from celery.’
Can you describe the process in general, or point to a good recipe?
Mix salt, cure and sugar by weight based on weight of belly to be cured. Coat both sides with cure and place on a rack in the fridge. Turn daily and remove any fluid that drips on the tray under the rack. Leave for 5-7days. Remove from fridge. Rinse with cold water to remove the cure. Dry and place back on the rack in the fridge overnight. The next day smoke to your liking. You can cold or hot smoke it.
Slice and yummm bacon…
Is “cure” an ingredient?
Sorry it’s called “Prague powder”. A pink substance that looks kind of like salt. Yes it’s an ingredient. It’s the ingredient that replaces some salt as the curing agent. Basically nitrates. Instead of salted meat you get cured meat. It’s also used in most processed meats like Salamis and Coppa and such and gives “that flavor” to sured meats.
How to make bacon: https://youtu.be/8fuOmhzGAtg
The eggs aren’t your problem, the bacon is. Dunno if they sell these where you live, but these Chicken Breakfast Sausages have no nitrates. This company makes chicken bacon also. You can also add some veggies to your eggs like peppers, onions, spinach, or kale. You can also try making a Pepper & Egg sandwich.
Easiest solution is to use unprocessed meats. Get thin sliced pork, (butchers usually have a deli slicer for raw meat, or you can do it yourself with a knife if you are careful) add a dab of honey or maple and a sprinkle of cayenne and cook.
Half a pound of tofu with some sesame oil, honey, soy sauce, and sriracha.
A handful of frozen “stir fry Veggies”
Toss it in the air fryer for like 15 minutes at 360-ish.
Sometimes I serve it with microwave steamed brown rice from costco.
It’s like $3 of ingredients at the most and its super healthy.
If you have a diet high in seed oils, consider a different aromatic oil or skip the oil altogether.
Where are you getting a half pound of tofu alone for under 3$?
Also, its personal preference but damn if siracha isn’t over and just tastes badic and boring. Surely there is a better sauce substitute here.
I buy 4 pounds at a time from Costco and cut the bricks in half.
There is a little part of course but I end up cooking with days meals at once
You can make a serviceable bacon substitute from smoked tofu. Cut it into strips, coat them in oil and put them in the air fryer.
+1 for tofu! Seitan lunch meat is pretty tasty, too!
theoretically you could try a vegan version of egg and bacon sandwiches - Just Egg frozen patties aren’t half bad, and seitan bacons sometimes are OK
not sure if the idea is that you’re trying to reduce fats?
im fine with fats. just looking to cut nitrates from processed meats like bacon/deli slices
If you live here in the Nordics, Snellman and sometimes HK has bacon with no phosphates.
Canned tuna once or twice a week. Mix in mayo/olive oil/apple or pickle/salt and pepper, and if you have it, a dash of fish or oyster sauce. Toss in some green onion if you like. I like to add crispy jalapeno or crispy onions. You can swap in canned salmon if you want instead of tuna, although i would opt out of the apple at that point.
Peanut or mixed nut butter can be really good too. Use sourdough or a good sead bread. Try it with some added flax/chia seed, or hemp heart for more protein/fiber. Use different jams like mango or gooseberry for variety.
Liquid lunch is also something, although boring. Lots of 30g of protein/150 calorie options now a days, mostly whey or collagen based. Down a couple of those in a pinch.
Eggs and spinach and hot sauce is fantastic. No prep, just toss them on top of each other.
guess that’s what im doing already but without bread or bacon. should be easy. thanks
if you have access to an Indian market, get paneer (firm cheese). you can slice it thin, add oil and seasonings like smokey paprika salt pepper. then either fry it in a pan or air fryer. it gets crispy and delicious. I used to make PLTs (paneer, lettuce, tomato) sandwiches.
ill look into that thanks. never heard of it
