Foods to buy during COVID; quarantine groceries

Strategic quarantine grocery trips

Use this time to refine your strategic, or lack thereof, shopping style!  Improve your quarantine style grocery shopping with these healthy and strategic resources! Try new foods, cook more and spend less. We’re still here, but we’re here together!

After my first resource post, I realized how many more recommendations I had for you! Let’s continue to flatten the curve and decrease contact, without losing our minds and feeling overly restricted with the foods we’re consuming.  Jump in the kitchen and utilize the combinations of these shelf-stable meals for a delicious, and nutrient-rich, dinner.

These carbohydrate and fat-based items that are most shelf-stable. And below, I’ve listed the items that I’m personally stocking in my pantry right now!

Nutrient dense carbs to stock up on!

• Lentils, beans
• Apples keep well in the fridge, also dried fruit.
• Frozen vegetables
• Canned pumpkin – I use this in my smoothies and in the base of sauces for pasta.
• Oats- SO versatile beyond breakfast. A breading for meat, into oat milk, blended into oat flour.
• Potatoes
• Pasta; consider whole grain, lentil based, or the kinds made of edamame for a punch of fiber and protein.
• White rice; lasts longer than brown

Healthy fats to keep you full & satisfied on your work calls!

• Nuts and nut butter, seeds
• Olives
• Flax & chia seed
• Frozen avocado
  

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Now, what’s in my pantry?

• Sunbutter (A sunflower seed-based nut butter replacement)
• Seed crackers
• Raw nuts
• Ghee
• Oats
• Canned and frozen chili
• Tuna (I like Wild Planet and Safe Catch pouches)
• Shelf-stable non-dairy milk (flax and almond)
• Popcorn
• Jerky & meat sticks (Epic, The New Primal)
• Bean based pasta (Banza is my favorite!)
• Seeds
• Beans
• Olive oil in a dark container (to prevent early rancidity)
• Vegetable broth/stock (shelf-stable cartons and broth cubes in the freezer)
• nutpods & Purity coffee 
• Spices (I use both Paleo Powder & Primal Palate spice blends to keep a variety in our meal flavors)
  

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Tips to support your community:

It’s really time to support your local farmers! Choose a CSA (community supported agriculture!) program that provides delivery options. Or, reach out to a local farmer about buying meat in bulk. Not only is this a really quality source of meat, but the grass-fed option is usually discounted when you buy it in bulk. Plus, you can get cuts of meat you do not normally consume. Consider this a challenge and a nice way to add variety in your diet! Find a CSA program here. 

We use a mix of both ButcherBox, Burgundy’s (a local DFW farm) & Thrive Market’s grass-fed boxes. Not only have we grown in our cooking skills, had more variety in our meals, but we’ve also saved money from avoiding last-minute shopping for dinner ingredients or grabbing take-out instead.