Choosing More Nourishing Ingredients

Do you need help choosing better ingredients for your recipes? Here you will find a guideline that Oh Lardy uses when we are trying to choose more nourishing ingredients. We base our choices on Weston A. Price’s teachings, as well as information from Real Food advocates such as Michael Pollan and Joel Salatin.

Beans

Best: organic dried beans, soaked to minimize enzyme inhibitors and phytic acid.
Better: conventional dried beans. Organic canned beans (no bpa can, if possible)
Good: plain canned beans
Avoid/limit: canned baked beans and similar products (READ INGREDIENT LABELS FIRST!)

Beef

Best: Pastured grass fed/finished
Better: grass fed/(organic, if possible) grain finished from pastured animal
Good: hormone, antibiotic free
Avoid/limit: conventional meat

Broths/Stocks

Best: homemade bone broth made with bones from ‘clean’ animals (pastured, etc.)
Better: organic carton/can
Good: carton /can broth without additives
Avoid/limit: most canned and dehydrated soups (loaded with MSG), bullion cubes

Cheese

Best: Whole, raw cheese from grass fed animal milk
Better: pasteurized whole milk cheese organic or from grass fed animals
Good: whole milk cheese
Avoid/limit: low fat cheese, processed cheese, cheese slices, fake cheese spreads and cheese like substances.

Chicken/poultry

Best: pasture raised, organically fed
Better: organic, or natural, look for no hormones/antibiotics
Avoid/limit: conventional chicken, turkey

Eggs

Best: Fresh from pastured poultry (from a farmer, CSA, Vital Farms brand at Whole Foods, or your own backyard)
Better: Organic, cage free, soy free
Good: cage free, vegetarian fed
Avoid/limit: fake eggs, egg beaters, cholesterol free eggs, etc.

Fats/Oils

Best: (organic) cold pressed Coconut oil, organic, pastured raw butter, ghee, and cold pressed extra virgin olive oil. Lard, tallow, and bacon fat should come from pastured animals only.
Better: palm oil, organic pasteurized butter or butter from grass fed cows (kerrygold)
Good: occasional use: cold pressed (organic, if possible) sunflower oil, cp avocado oil, cp macadamia nut oil, cp walnut oil, cold pressed sesame oil. These are all really good oils for occasional use.
AVOID: all vegetable oils (canola, corn, soybean, cottonseed etc). Fake butter spreads, margarines, butter sprays, butter buds

Fruit and Vegetables

Best: Organic or organically grown (local and in season if possible)
Better: Frozen organic fruits/vegetables
Good: Conventional (Dirty Dozen) wash well. Frozen conventional.
Avoid/limit: canned fruits/vegetables. If you must, look for organic and non-bpa cans. Also try to avoid papaya as almost all are GMO.

Grains

Best: Organic whole grain or whole wheat, sprouted
Better: Whole grain, whole wheat

Milk/Dairy

Best: Raw (unpasteurized), whole milk from grass fed cows
www.realmilk.com
Better: Full fat, pasteurized milk, organic from grass fed animals, preferably not homogenized.
Good: Full fat, pasteurized, organic
Avoid/limit: low-fat and skim milk, ultra-pasteurized milk, and most non-organic milk (presence of GMOs due to grain fed non-organic cow)

Milk, alternatives

All organic when possible; rice milk, almond milk, coconut milk/cream
Avoid: soy milk

Nut Butters

Best: Organic with minimal ingredients (nuts, salt)
Better: Nut butters with minimal ingredients (nuts, salt)
AVOID: nut butters that have sugar and trans fat

Nuts/Seeds

Best: Organic, soaked/dried, sprouted or raw
Better: Organic
Good: Any nut and seed, they are good for us!

Processed meats (bacon, deli meats, etc)

Try to find from pastured animals, Organic if possible. No hormones or antibiotics. They should be Nitrate/Nitrite free (this is controversial, though, as these meats are usually cured with celery salt which naturally contains nitrates). Read ingredient labels!

Processed/Packaged Foods

Few ingredients (rule of thumb is 5 or less)
Do you know what the ingredients are? Can you pronounce them?
Would your great grandmother consider this food?
Read Ingredient Labels!!!

Salt

Best: Celtic Salt, himalayan salt, good sea salt.
Avoid: processed, refined salt, iodized salt, kosher salt.

Seafood

Best: wild-caught (fresh or frozen), trout and catfish guaranteed from clean waters, smoked or fresh roe; salted small fish
Better: canned tuna without additives; canned sardines/anchovies in olive oil; canned Alaskan salmon; canned oysters; canned crab
Avoid/Limit: Farmed salmon, catfish and trout. Canned fish containing soy/vegetable oil or hydrolyzed protein

Soy

Best: naturally fermented soy (examples…tamari soy sauce, natto, tempeh)
Avoid: unfermented soy sauce, edamame, soy lecithin, soy milk (WAPF soy alert brochure)

Sweeteners

Remember to limit all of these. No matter how much nutrition a sweetener has, it is still A SUGAR!! Use sparingly!
Best: Organic maple syrup (grade b, if possible), molasses, raw honey (not for under age 1), stevia plant
Better: rapadura, sucanant, stevia liquid, coconut palm sugar
Good: organic cane sugar, non-organic maple syrup, non organic molasses, organic jams (minimal ingredients), honey, concentrated fruit juice, agave, stevia powder
Avoid/limit: white sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners