Turning Fast Food Into Healthy Food: 10 You Can Quickly Make At Home
One way to enhance your diet is simply to make foods from scratch. It used to be that making foods from scratch was a time consuming and sometimes tedious process. However modern technology has changed the rules of the game, and many foods that were once labor intensive can be made in a fraction of the time. The key is having the proper tools on hand and sourcing the right ingredients.
Another thing to keep in mind is that nearly all junk foods can become good foods if you make them at home. The same is true for compromise foods, i.e. foods that don't quite pass the smell test from a traditional healthy food perspective, but aren't the equivalent of chowing down a few double stuffed oreos either.
Concerned about the problematic quality of whole grains and whole grain flours from seed to storage that have been sitting on shelves for who knows how long exposed to heat, air, and light? Then quickly and easily make your own flour and bread and pasta.
Want tasty coconut milk without the added gums, water, and the potentially hormone disrupting chemical BPA from the can? Then make your own!
Do you prefer premium hamburger made from grass fed tenderloin or another cut rather than chuck? Want to hide healthy organ meats in foods where your kids (or you) don't notice? Do you simply want to steer clear of the chemical solvents used to clean the meat grinder at the store, or avoid the oxidation that occurs with typical ground beef in your local store's display case?Grind your own. And so it goes.
Not everything below is a converted fast food. Some are converted compromise foods but all can be prepared fast (though with some you will have to wait to eat them).
Homemade food is the new fast food. Join in on the fun.
[editors note: Please ignore all ingredient recommendations in the videos linked in this article. It is the mechanics of the process we are interested in, not the use of sub par ingredients].
1. Mayonnaise
Tools needed: hand blender, suitable container for blending
Typical ingredients when buying at the store: soybean oil or canola oil, whole eggs, vinegar, water, egg yolks, salt, sugar, lemon juice, natural flavors, calcium disodium EDTA (used to protect quality).
Ingredients you are avoiding: The oil alone makes store bought mayonnaise something to be avoided. Kaayla Daniel is good on the dangers of soy. Canola is best described as Con-ola oil. The eggs are surely from CAFO chickens and natural flavors most likely means MSG, a known neurotoxin.
Ingredients to use at home: oil of your choice, eggs, lemon, salt, mustard.
Total time: less than 5 minutes
Personally regarding oils I don't like the taste of 100% olive oil mayonnaise. Too strong. You can use a half and half mixture of coconut oil and olive oil. Or you can go 1/3 olive, 1/3 coconut, and 1/3 macadamia nut oil. 100% coconut oil can be problematic because it gets too stiff in the refrigerator due to the saturated fat content. Depending on your tastes, 100% macadamia oil may be the best choice of all. It has its own distinct flavor without being overpowering like olive oil.
2. Butter
Tools needed: food processor of some sort (I use a Vita-mix, absolutely the best all around kitchen tool in my arsenal)
Typical ingredients when buying at the store: nutritionally inferior cream from genetically freakish cows, salt, coloring (I'm sure you knew butter wasn't yellow all year around, didn't you?)
Ingredients you are avoiding: cream from any breed of animal bred only for maximum milk production
Ingredients to use at home: cream (preferably raw), salt (optional) – for a good source of raw cream in your area please see the Real Milk website of the Weston A Price Foundation.
Total time: less than 10 minutes
3. Ghee
Unfamiliar with the benefits of ghee (which I actually prefer over butter)? You can read about the benefits of ghee from a previous post. Want a tasty food that will enhance your food storage program in the event of a crisis? Ghee is the answer as it can potentially last for almost two decades while taking only a few moments to make! Forget about powdered milk and freeze dried meats. Ghee (and pemmican) are the answer for the meat and animal fats lover food storage issues.
Tools needed: bakeware, oven
Typical ingredients when buying at the store: butterfat
Ingredients you are avoiding: butterfat from genetically freakish dairy cows
Ingredients to use at home: good quality organic grass fed butter
Total time: for prep and putting onto glass containers less than 10 minutes other than the time in the oven, which doesn't require your presence.
4. Potato Chips
Tools needed: slicer, fryer, potato peeler
Typical ingredients when buying at the store or restaurant: potatoes, salt, oil. Now if you get a flavored variety, all bets are off.
Ingredients you are avoiding: potatoes were fresh when the chips were made (less than 24 hours old) but you can be assured the oil is not up to par.
Ingredients to use at home: potatoes, beef tallow, salt. If you are a first time visitor, and are confused about the health benefits of animal fats, here is a link that will give you more information than you ever wanted to know.
Total time: less than 10 minutes
5. French Fries
Tools needed: fryer, peeler, french fry slicer or a good chef's knife
Typical ingredients when buying at the store or restaurant: McDonald's French Fries – Potatoes, vegetable oil (partially hydrogenated soybean oil, natural beef flavor (wheat and milk derivatives)**, citric acid (preservative), dextrose, sodium acid pyrophosphate (maintain color), dimethylpolysiloxane (antifoaming agent)), salt. Prepared in vegetable oil ((may contain one of the following: Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, partially hydrogenated corn oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness), dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent). **CONTAINS: WHEAT AND MILK (Natural beef flavor contains hydrolyzed wheat and hydrolyzed milk as starting ingredients.)
Ingredients you are avoiding: Does this really need a comment?
Ingredients to use at home: potatoes, beef tallow, salt
Total time: less than 20 minutes
6. Kombucha
Tools needed: cloth and rubber band (for covering jar), gallon jar, ph test strips
Typical ingredients when buying at the store: from what I have seen, if you find kombucha in your local store the ingredients are the same as homemade kombucha, though obviously more expensive to purchase at retail than make yourself
Ingredients you are avoiding: none
Ingredients to use at home: black or green tea, organic cane sugar, kombucha culture (known as a scoby), distilled water
Total time: less than 20 minutes but takes two weeks before the initial batch is ready to drink.
While the sugar is food for the culture (and thus consumed in the fermentation process), you can make a non-cane sugar kombucha tea using honey. Be sure and check out Dom's kombucha site which is linked in the video above.
Kombucha has a sweet/sour effervescent taste which I find quite refreshing, especially when made with ginger root or berries.
7. Kefir
Tools needed: kefir grains, jar
Typical ingredients when buying at the store: plain – pasteurized milk from genetically freakish cows; flavored – pasteurized lowfat milk from genetically freakish cows, nonfat milk, organic cane juice, raspberry juice concentrate (or whatever flavor you are drinking), natural flavors, inulin, red beet juice for color, vit A palmitate, vit D 3
Ingredients you are avoiding: milk from any breed of animal breed for maximum milk production (i.e. genetically freakish cows), everything in the flavored variety
Ingredients to use at home: full fat grass fed milk and cream (preferably raw) – for a good source of raw milk and cream in your area please see the Real Milk website of the Weston A Price Foundation.
Total time: less than 10 minutes and then it sits overnight for 24 hours. It will be ready to eat with your homemade bread in the morning.
The king of dairy probiotic drinks in my opinion. Think of liquid style yogurt and you have an idea of what kefir is like if you have never sampled this very tasty food. Mixed with berries and eggs and it is a quickly made nutritional powerhouse. Don't forget to check out Dom's Kefir site for everything you wanted to know about kefir but were afraid to ask.
Tools needed: meat grinder
Typical ingredients when buying at the store: beef and ??????
Ingredients you are avoiding: the "???????"
Ingredients to use at home: beef cut of your choice
Total time: less than 15 minutes
Besides all the issues I mentioned in the opening paragraphs with ground beef, ever wonder what a burger made from top sirloin or one of the other cuts might taste like? They are absolutely delicious. Even for chuck once you fresh grind your own you will never go back.
9. Ice cream
Tools needed: vita-mix
Typical ingredients when buying at the store: Ben and Jerry's Banana Split – Cream, Skim Milk, Water, Liquid Sugar, Sugar, Strawberries, Egg Yolks, Walnuts, Banana Puree, Sweetened Condensed Skim Milk, Cocoa (Processed With Alkali), Coconut Oil, Chocolate Liquor, Butter, Cocoa, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Guar Gum, Pectin, Natural Flavors, Milkfat, Soya Lecithin, Carrageenan, Elderberry Juice (For Color)
Ingredients you are avoiding: Skim Milk, Water, Liquid Sugar, Sugar, Sweetened Condensed Skim Milk, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Guar Gum, Pectin, Natural Flavors, Soya Lecithin, Carrageenan
Ingredients to use at home: frozen bananas, frozen berries, cream, and any other ingredient or flavoring you want to add
Total time: less than 1 minute
This is fabulous stuff. If you don't tell your guests how you made it they won't be able to tell the difference. The key is the frozen bananas. It is the base that makes this recipe work. I have used frozen bananas alone and have received rave reviews.
10. Milk shakes
Take the above recipe (the film icon you see to the left of "milk shake"), add your home made ice cream from #8 with some raw milk, and you have your own homemade milk shake.
And for my faithful readers, one bonus item.
11. Bread
Tools needed: grain grinder or vita-mix, bread machine
Typical ingredients when buying at the store: Enriched Wheat Flour [Flour, Barley Malt, Ferrous Sulfate (Iron)B vitamins (Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate (B1)Riboflavin (B2)Folic Acid)Water, Wheat Gluten, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Soy Fiber, Cottonseed Fiber, Yeast, contains 2% or less of Wheat Protein Isolate (sulfites)Oat Fiber, Corn Bran, Salt, Dough Conditioners (May Contain: Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Ethoxylated Mono and Diglycerides, Mono and Diglycerides, Datem, Calcium Dioxide, Dicalcium Phosphate and/or Calcium Iodate)Soy Flour, Soybean Oil, Cellulose Gum, Calcium Carbonate, Yeast Nutrient (may Contain: Ammonium Sulfate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Ammonium Phosphate, Ammonium Chloride)Wheat Starch, Cornstarch, Xanthan Gum, Extracts of Malted Barley and Corn Grits, Vinegar, Calcium Sulfate, Enzymes, Natural Flavor (Contains: Soy Protein Isolate, Eggs) Calcium Propionate.
Ingredients you are avoiding: Seriously?
Ingredients to use at home: grain flour, salt, water, yeast
Total time: less than 20 minutes prep
Anyone who really enjoys good bread from fresh milled grain berries but has a lifestyle that doesn't lend itself to traditional bread making is in for a pleasant surprise. You can throw the grain berries into the vita-mix, turn the berries into flour, knead the flour in the vita-mix with the other ingredients, and then put the dough in the bread machine. Set the bread machine and you are done.
If you prefer you can grind the berries in your own grinder and then let the bread machine knead the dough. Either way it only involves a few minutes of your time.
The next morning you will wake up to piping hot fresh bread, spread with your own homemade butter, and washed down with a glass of your own homemade strawberry kefir. As I noted in the beginning of this article, with the proper tools homemade food is the new fast food.
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[editor's note to email and RSS subscribers: There are many videos embedded throughout the above post, however because they are designated as popouts they will not be embedded as videos in either email or RSS. This is an exciting new feature that looks wonderful on the website but does not yet translate to email or RSS. You will have to click on what appears to be an ordinary link to view them, or come to the website to see how it all works).
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Michael Miles is the editor of Nutrition and Physical Regeneration. He also edits Michael's Daily Bread.
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