Essential Foods
The Power of Food in Recovery
While in recovery, make cooking a hobby
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Learn about healthy spices, choosing the right oils, and more.
Meats: In recovery, the right proteins are involved in virtually every function our body carries out.
Eat salmon once or twice a week. You can eat it baked or grilled, or you can even eat smoked salmon on your bagel or in your salad.
Truly natural grass- fed beef means the cattle are fed entirely on their mother’s milk and grass from birth to harvest.
The most notable benefits of eating lamb meat include the protection against anemia, improved muscle mass, better bone health, improved immune system.
Pork is like a natural protein powder. It is packed full of essential vitamins and minerals — just three ounces of cooked lean pork covers you for more than a third of the daily requirement for thiamin, niacin, selenium and vitamin B6.
Chicken is highly nutritious and a good source of protein. Adding chicken to your diet may help support weight loss, muscle growth, and bone health.
Turkey is believed to have mood-enhancing properties. It contains tryptophan, which produces serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps improve your mood.
Whole Foods: Healthy eating helps you with addiction recovery by allowing your mind and body to heal faster.
The health benefits of apples include the prevention of cardiac and GI disorders, constipation, anemia, and diabetes..
Research has linked hummus and its ingredients to a variety of great health benefits, including helping fight inflammation, improving blood sugar control, better digestive health, lower heart disease risk and weight loss.
Almonds are high in magnesium which is important in helping the body gain energy from food. People low in magnesium may have symptoms that are harmful for a person in sobriety: irritability, difficulty concentrating, and fatigue.
Chia seeds are the richest plant source of omega-3 fatty acids and are a complete protein, containing all nine essential amino acids that cannot be made by the body. Chia seeds are easy to add to many foods.
Grain has been stripped and the flour so refined that it hits your body the same way as sugar. You get an instant jolt of energy, but then you experience a crash. Look for breads that are 100 percent whole wheat, brown rice, whole wheat pastas, and more.
During recovery, your body is detoxing of free radicals that can wreak havoc on your immune system. Antioxidants help boost your immune system to eliminate these toxins.
If you’re worried about your liver or immune system, go for Brazil nuts, they’re packed with powerful antioxidant selenium, which is required for immune cell production, supports detoxification pathways, and help restore liver function.
People who have abused alcohol or drugs are often low in potassium, magnesium. Bananas are a source of these minerals.
Oranges are packed with Vitamin C, which boosts your immune system. The citric acid also helps to clean your liver, and the fiber helps to promote digestive health. Don’t drink orange juice as this is refined and loaded with sugar. Instead, snack on oranges, or have one with your breakfast or in a salad.
Dairy and more: Foods in the dairy and non-dairy group provide nutrients that are vital for health and of your body.
In general, plant-based milks have less fat and every other nutritional element than dairy milk. Look for unsweetened, non-dairy milks that are free from carrageenan and that preferably have a short ingredient list.
Heavy cream offers some health benefits from protein and fat as well as micronutrients, but its greater benefit is in making other healthy foods more palatable and satisfying.
The biggest difference between canned & carton coconut milk is that carton coconut milk has more fillers & is watered down quite a bit more. If you love whipped cream on your desserts, try whipping up canned coconut cream, it's amazing!
Everyone loves real butter, but you will have a hard time telling the difference! Plant-based butters are often lower in saturated fat and higher in heart-healthy monounsaturated fat, compared with regular butter. Depending on the product, vegan butters can be a convenient substitute when cooking and baking.
Loaded with 13 essential vitamins and minerals, eggs also provide key sources of these important nutrients that are needed as part of a healthy diet to help you be your best during the recovery phase.
Cheese is a whole food and is a great source of calcium, fat, and protein. Cheese made from the milk of 100 percent grass-fed animals is the highest in nutrients and also contains omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin K-2.
Butter might be one of the most beloved types of food on the planet because it makes everything taste so good, but Ghee is a clarified type of butter, meaning that it has been simmered into a concentrate and the residue has been removed.
Try eating more yogurt, but watch out for fruited or flavored yogurts, which contain a lot of added sugar. Buy plain yogurt and add your own fruit. Look for yogurts that have "live active cultures." You can use yogurt in place of mayonnaise or sour cream.
The taste of nutritional yeast is slightly nutty, sour, savory, and creamy, which makes it a suitable replacement for cheese in many recipes. Nutritional yeast is also gluten-free.
Healthy Spices: Spices contribute rich flavor to food without adding any calories, fat, sugar or salt.
When it comes to taste, parsley has a peppery flavor. The leaf is further divided into two more types: curly leaf and flat-leaf or Italian parsley.
Turmeric has been used for thousands of years to treat a variety of conditions such as arthritis, joint pain, diabetes, digestive issues, and cancer.
Rosemary has been used for thousands of years in cooking and in medicine and it is famed for its ability to stimulate the mind, enhance the memory and improve concentration.
For the best flavor, choose whole peppercorns that you can mill before adding to dishes. Medicinally, black pepper has been known to help calm digestive issues – it helps signal the stomach to produce more hydrochloric acid, which aids in protein digestion.
Oregano is an excellent source of vitamin K and a very good source of manganese. It is also a good source of iron, dietary fiber and calcium. Fresh Oregano should be added toward the end of the cooking process since heat can easily cause a loss of its delicate flavor. It is best to add dried Oregano at the beginning of the cooking time.
Cayenne pepper benefits are numerous and effective; it’s used to help digestion, including heal upset stomach, slow intestinal gas, stop stomach pain, stop diarrhea and as a natural remedy for cramps.
When it comes to nutmeg, it's all about experimenting. There is no telling what you might discover on your journey to the ideal taste mix. Aside from it being tasty, nutmeg has lots of nutritional benefits. Just some of those make including it in your diet a real no-brainer.
Very mild in flavor, with a sweet taste and subtle touch of heat. This generic paprika is best used to sprinkle on a finished dish, such as deviled eggs, and add color to grilled meat like in a rib spice rub.
Cumin is the dried seed of the herb Cuminum cyminum, a member of the parsley family. For generations, people have used cumin to treat conditions ranging from indigestion and diarrhea to headaches.
Healthy Oils: You'll want to choose your oil based on what temperature you'll be cooking at and avoid all seed oils.
Read why you should avoid seed oils
Choose virgin coconut oil whenever possible to get the most nutritious oil with maximum benefit for your health.
Palm oil absorbs fewer pesticides and chemical fertilizers than other oils, and it’s a great alternative to partially hydrogenated oils and other vegetable oils. Use in the place of Crisco.
Save the Extra Virgin Olive Oil for dipping and dressing, and use regular olive oil for cooking and baking. Smoke point: 375° F
Ghee is a form of clarified butter. The milk protein has been removed from butter so people who are dairy-intolerant can (typically) consume it. Since it is composed almost entirely of fat, ghee should still be used in moderation. Smoke point: 482° F
Avocado Oil is rich in monounsaturated fats, neutral in taste, and ideal for high heat, so you can use it for almost any type of cooking. Smoke point: 400° F
Lard has always been prized as a cooking fat because it has a higher smoking point than other fats. For that reason, foods fried in lard absorb less grease.
Natural Sugars: Natural sugars are naturally occurring, which makes them healthier.
Figs or anjeer are sweet and soft and their paste is often used as a replacement for sugar. Fig paste is used as a healthier option instead of corn syrup and sucrose. Fig spread can also be incorporated into pies, pudding, cakes, assorted baked goods, and preserves. Organic Turkish figs are considered a healthy snack.
These dried fruits are added to health tonics, snacks, and compact, high-energy food supplements for mountaineers, backpackers, and campers, who need a high calorific diet to better their performance.
Turbinado sugar is a type of raw sugar with a similar texture as brown sugar. You can add it in the same proportion as brown sugar in your culinary experiments. Turbinado Sugar is a less processed variety of the sweet, crystalline sucrose most often used as an additive to foods to sweeten or add texture.
Dark chocolate is loaded with nutrients. Made from the seed of the cacao tree, it is one of the best sources of antioxidants on earth. Chocolate is a source of polyphenols, the same kinds of antioxidants found in green tea. The fat it contains is mostly stearic acid, which doesn’t raise cholesterol levels.
One can eat it directly, put it on bread like a jam, use it in place of sugar in juices, or mix it with warm water, lime juice, cinnamon, and other herbs for homemade medicine. It is preferred for its taste as well as health benefits, making it extremely useful and versatile.
Maple syrup is not only tempting and yummy but is also a hoarder of ample health benefits. Studies also show that the darker versions of maple syrup are higher in antioxidant content in comparison to lighter ones. So when you go shopping for maple syrup, look for a grade B type as it is a darker variety.
Coconut sugar can be used in many ways, just as regular sugar, but the collection and production process requires a bit more effort. Furthermore, it is known to be sweeter than traditional sugar, so less is required to achieve the same flavor.
Dates are high in natural sugars like glucose, fructose, and sucrose. Many people around the world are estimated to eat natural low-fat dates for a quick afternoon snack when they are feeling lethargic or sluggish to help bump up energy levels fast.
Molasses is known for its iron content—one tablespoon contains about 20% of the daily value—but it is also a rich source of natural calcium, magnesium, and potassium. It is also a good source of manganese, vitamin B6, and selenium. And one tablespoon has only 42 calories.