To ask for healthy meal ideas? Feel shit, need to eat properly

[OffredsNose]

As per previous thread, I feel shite, I have no energy at all. My hair is falling out …

my diet is also crap. I’m doing a grocery online order right now - hence why I’m posting here for traffic.

Any healthy recipes/meal ideas you can recommend would be highly appreciated. Preferably packed with vitamins!

Eat black pudding (easy to grill, available from supermarkets, high in iron), eggs, steak, chicken, fish, slow cooker beef. You need more red meat and vitamin c like orange juice, lemon juice, tomatoes, peppers.
You need to take supplements.

The below is a great lentil soup recipe and the guy has loads of veggie recipes on his channel. Mostly Asian style recipes but you feel it’s easy to do once you watch him demonstrate

Instead of your jar curry:

2 or 3 tablespoons curry powder
A tin of chopped tomatoes
500ml vegetable or chicken stock
Chopped onions & garlic (can be ready prepped frozen to make it easier)
Handful dried red lentils

Add various chopped vegetables, lentils and beans - whatever you like, e.g. chickpeas, peppers, potatoes, peas, kale, carrots, mushrooms, courgettes - pretty much anything is good in a curry.

Stick it all in one pot and bake in the oven for 30-45 mins. If you usually have white rice with it, swap it for brown rice.

Have a look for tray bake recipes that you can have with steamed veg, rice/pasta. I'm doing a lemon feta chicken one tonight, found the recipe online. Chuck everything on a tray/in a big oven proof dish and put it in the oven while you do a side. Takes less than 30 mins, tastes great, usually healthy and I find there are always leftovers for lunch the next day.

Also minestrone soup. Costs little to make a big batch, it's hearty, freezes well.

I find the thing that restores my balance better (and faster) than anything is a week of home made soup and wholemeal bread for lunch.

Easy & cheap to make, you need a pile of assorted veg, but include an onion. You can add left-over chicken or other meat, cheese, lentils or beans to add protein.

It settles your gut, provides lots of vitamins and minerals, rehydrates you, helps with things like constipation, is warm and comforting, and a great way to use left over food or slightly tatty looking veg.

This holiday I've made minestrone, leek & potato, chicken & sweetcorn. Give dcs lots of bread to soak it up with, and they love it too.

One of my new year resolutions is to use what I have in the freezer and cupboards before I buy more. Yesterday we had what was supposed to be a soup, but was more a casserole! It had a tin of chickpeas, chopped tomatoes, a little pasta which I had in the freezer, a few peas, onion, chicken stock and I threw in a couple of slices of ham and a small potatoe. I slow cooked it for a couple of hours and it was lovely with some part baked bread I had over from Christmas. I added basil and rosemary and cheese on top. Very easy and all from items I had already. Tonight I am going to cook some fish I have in the freezer. I am also trying to use much less meat and replacing it with pulses. Good luck. The BBC have some good recipes too.

All I can advise you is do not do too many changes at once as this is a sure fire way to not continue. Make sure you get some tests done at your doctors as this will help to understand why you are losing hair, etc… They can then suggest a multivitamin/vitamin to take. Pretty much everyone should take vitamin D from October to March in the UK.

Try adding in rather than taking away too. Add in some fruit or some veg to meals you enjoy. I would say though that you don’t have to love veg, you don’t have to adore the veg you’re eating but if you can tolerate it, eat it.
Try sauces or seasonings to make them more tolerable. People will say oh don’t eat ketchup because it’s high in sugar but if eating your veg with ketchup is the only way to get it eaten then do it.

I love anything that will go in my pressure cooker as you throw it all in and it’s dead quick so homemade curries just tinned tomatoes, curry powder, different veg, lentils, chickpeas, potatoes, etc… Moroccan stews similar concept but using ras el hanout seasoning instead, serve with pitta.

If you’re concerned about iron intake then make sure you’re eating iron rich foods such as lentils, spinach, tofu, mince beef, broccoli, kale. Search online and on the NHS for foods high in iron too.

Most importantly, I read your comment saying you’re autistic so it can be hard. I’m sure there’s lots of different resources online that are for people in a similar boat to you. Good luck and don’t be too hard on yourself.

Try to make sure you have protein, whole grain carbs and veg at every meal, that will keep you full so you are less likely to snack and crave junk.

So breakfast (if you eat it) could be porridge with fruit and a dollop of Greek yogurt, or egg on toast with wilted spinach, a protein shake with added veg and oats, or Greek yogurt with nuts, seeds and fruit.

Lunch- a large tuna pasta salad with tons of veg in and a boiled egg, a soup with some beans and/or meat (minestrone is easy to make, or ham and lentil), a jacket potato with cottage cheese and salad or veg on side.

Dinner just try and focus on it being half the plate non starchy veg, a quarter whole grain carbs and a quarter protein. Finish with a square of dark chocolate.

Google how to eat for good gut bacteria- when you have a good microbiota you will feel better.

Tray bake?

You can either mix all the ingredients together or place them in small piles. I tend to use an oil spray on the baking sheet.

I did one for my father recently, salmon - with just salt and pepper. Sliced mushrooms that had been tossed in a little oil and herbs.

Slices of peppers. Asparagus. cherry tomatoes.

Veg soup done in the slow cooker, root veg work really well so carrots, swede, maybe some sweet potato, onions, stockcube and maybe a bit of ginger.

Pour boiling water over it and 2-3 hours later blend it. If it is too much to eat in one go then freeze some.

Add veg into everything you cook, so if you do a cottage pie add peas and corn with the mince and mash some swede either to replace the potato or in a 50/50 miix.

If you have a slow cooker, you can make tasty curries

All of these are good and easy you should be able to find some you like

www.bbc.co.uk/food/programmes/b09l5mdv/recipes

Tray bake meals are your friend because they're really easy and minimal washing up. If you do a Google for 'healthy tray bake dinners' or something you should find loads, BBC Good Food has a nice selection. They just involve chopping veg/protein, adding spices or herbs for flavour and baking everything on the same tray. Less washing up, so much quicker. Some have potatoes or sweet potatoes but otherwise you could boil some brown pasta or rice to have with it.

My current go-to is roasted courgettes, peppers and red onions with a tin of chickpeas (roast the chickpeas in the pan with the veg after draining them) and then served with one of those microwave grain pouches between two. The Merchant Gourmet ones are pricey but delicious and come in different flavours to make it more interesting.

I've recently rehauled my diet and feel a lot better for it- you could either start by improving breakfast (easiest meal IMO) for a few days, then add a healthier lunch for a few days, then start improving your evening meals. Or you could do it in one big blitz (this worked better for me than the slowly slowly approach because I'm a bit all-or-nothing.) Things I've done are:

-add a piece of fruit or some spinach to my breakfast so I've already ticked off a portion of fruit and veg first thing, psychologically I find it really helps to start as you mean to go on at the beginning of the day
-finding alternatives to cereal to get a wider variety of foods in at breakfast. I have cereal maybe once a week and also have things like yogurt with fruit and a couple of spoons of muesli, eggs/avocado/nut butter on toast, omelette
-swapped all my carbs to a whole wheat version. I've got quite into that very dark rye bread (schwartzbrot), it's a bit of an acquired taste but I think it's delicious 😁
-jacket potato (or a baked sweet potato) with baked beans or ratatouille if I can't think of what to cook

Good luck!

This is really good advice. I make what we call 'fridge soup' at the end of each week before the big shop to use up whatever leftover vegetables we have. Great way to use up slightly floppy carrots or anything else you didn't get around to eating. Split it in two pots- keep one in the fridge for lunches through the week and the other half in the freezer in case I need a last-minute meal because I'm ill or can't be arsed to cook.

www.simplycook.com/invite/N6FYNV?t=cp&pg=ref&via=dt
Give SimplyCook a try-lots of healthy and easy to make dishes.Use my code and we both get a completely free box with 4 recipe kits.No p&p or obligation to order more,plus loads of healthy dishes to start the new year off.

Lentils are a good protein source so it's important to include them and beans and nuts if you don't eat meat.
Dropping meat is a personal choice and there's conflicting views on the health benefits.
I'm no nutrionalist, so I can only speak for myself, but in terms of weight loss and general health, moving (gradually) to a vegan plant based diet is the best thing I did. (I have yoghurt and honey on the list above which obviously aren't vegan, but have dropped these myself now I'm more confident with eating this way)
I've lost two stone and maintained for two years this way and I've never felt better. Eating well and maintaining weight is so much easier now the foods that I used to over eat are no longer an option. My digestion is great, I no longer bloat or get cravings, and my skin and hair is fantastic.
I'm older so less issues with iron (no periods) but make sure to include leafy greens, brocoli, cabbage, spinach, and vitamin C rich foods, tomatoes, oranges to help it absorb.

You can make healthy eating really simple. Thinks like grilled chicken with lots of veg, stir fry, pan fried salmon with veg. Healthy eating doesn't have to be complicated at all.

If you want more recipe type meals have a look on websites like bbc good food.

A bag of frozen casserole veg, cover with water and a stock cube, boil til soft then blend for a really thick filling soup. groceries.asda.com/product/vegetables/asda-scratch-cook-casserole-root-veg-mix/910001606197
frozen butternut squash and a tin of tomatoes also makes a good rich soup (add water as well as the tomatoes)

All the supermarket websites have good recipes.

Tesco has a 'healthy meal' menu section, as does Waitrose.
Obviously you don't need to buy your food from them.

Look into the 30 plants a week way of eating.
This is the new science- it's about boosting your immune system and being healthy.

30 plants is all fruit, veg, seeds, nuts, grains, (rice etc) tea, coffee, dark chocolate (yes!), cereals.

They have to be 30 different plants.
www.theguthealthdoctor.com/how-to-get-your-gut-loving-30-plant-points-a-week/

Cook from scratch.

Typical meals for us

Breakfast
Porridge with seeds, blueberries, chopped banana or any other fruit
or boiled/ poached eggs on wholemeal toast

Lunch
Homemade soup
Cheese and fruit
Salad with tinned fish (salmon, sardines, tuna)
Avocado filled with prawns/ salmon

Dinner
Prawn or chicken stir fry (always serve with wholegrain brown rice)

Chicken casserole or other meat - always with green veg

Fish ( 3 x a week ) - salmon, sea bass, haddock, cod - baked in the oven, with roast veg-red pepper, sweet potato, aubergine, red onions, squash (a selection of them), with a green veg- spinach, broccoli, kale - maybe peas.

Chicken roast dinner- cold next day made into Coronation chicken with jacket spuds and salad - stock made from carcass and used for risotto, or soup.

Homemade shepherds pie

Vegetable curry

Pasta (wholegrain) with roast veg, spinach and lots of parmesan

Swap all white bread, cereals, rice etc for wholegrain.

This is basically my problem currently too. Here's my plan -

Plan all 3 meals.

Breakfast - if you like eggs, base your breakfast around that. Things like an omelette with spinach and mushrooms or scrambled eggs on decent bread (make your own if you have time and freeze it in slices)
Or
Porridge with some fruit and and some nuts (flaked almonds, spoon of good quality peanut butter)

Lunch - homemade soup. Include some protein so either lentils, beans or some chicken or meat.

Dinner - curry or casseroles with some protein and lots of veg if that's what you like. It's healthy.

Also
Drink plenty of water
A good supplement is floradix. Liquid form is better.
Take vitamin d and k
Do some exercise
Limit phone use and read a book.
Go to bed at a reasonable hour.

We've been using simply cook which is good. We had been doing hello fresh but ended up wasting quite a few meals if we didn't fancy eating that exact thing that evening or found ourselves eating when out and about. At least the simply cook spices just sit there.

Yum!! I'm going to give this a whirl 😀

xd posts almost @IHateFlies !

Planning is really important.

I tend to buy a whole mass of veg each week and then use it up as I go.

My standard list is

potatoes
sweet potatoes
red onions
carrots
mixed sweet peppers
aubergine
mushrooms
tomatoes
avocado
celery
spinach
broccoli
savoy cabbage
watercress or some green salad

fresh ginger
parsley
(I have other herbs in pots outside)

Frozen peas
Frozen sliced green beans

Anything that starts to go off is made into soup

The Roasting Tin recipe books are good start.

They are based on the idea of a piece of protein, plus veg , grains and herbs, all in one roasting tin and cooked in the oven.

My go to for a cheap healthy soup:
18 cheap tomatoes (around 80p a pack)
2 sticks celery
1 carrot
I red pepper
Roast with 1 tablespoon olive oil for 45 min at 180
Put in pan with 100g red lentils , 1 litre of water with a veg stock cube
Simmer 15 mins until lentils are soft
Salt and pepper to taste
Whizz it up and you have a huge tomato and lentil soup.Eat with slice brown bread.I don't use butter or spread.