All right, so kicking off the last part of this revamping your pantry series is oatmeal. Oatmeal is one of the healthiest grains available and should be, it can be a staple breakfast option is a great source of many vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. It has been shown to help lower blood sugar, health and weight reduction and reduce the risk of heart disease. Now when you go to bio you know it's really important to watch out for which kind you're going to buy. Pure oats and oatmeal are gluten free on their own. But most brands aren't producing pure oatmeal.

Many companies have cross contaminated with some form of wheat or rye or something else containing gluten. So while it is true, like I said that oatmeal in itself is is gluten free when it gets cross contaminated. With these other grains that contain gluten, that in turn, makes them contain gluten, and that can cause some of the reactions associated. So when you're looking to buy a meal, you want to make sure that you're buying one that is for sure gluten free based on how it's processed and raised. And some companies that you might find helpful are Bob's Red Mill harvests Quakers, gluten free oatmeal, Montana, gluten free. He's also gluten free options.

So stick to those if you're getting olive oil. So olive oil I use on a daily basis pretty much and I use it for Sartain for dressings for marinates. In any form, I'm using it and it does have a lot of health benefits we'll get into so it consists of mostly mono unsaturated fatty acids, most of the form of oleic acid kind of put together the names later on. This actually came up. And yes, oil contains many high level anti inflammatory compounds polyphenols. There are some studies that have come out that said, let's say when you cook with olive oil at too high temperature, it goes rancid and the polyphenol content is ruined.

That actually isn't necessarily true and even swatting at high temperatures, you still retain about 80 to 85% of the polyphenol content so that's not something to be aware of. But that being said, when you do buy it, you want to make sure you're properly purchasing a pure extra virgin olive oil. Now some companies will mix extra virgin olive oil with some other cheaper oil like canola oil and then branded as olive oil or extra virgin olive oil. So you want to make sure you sourcing it from protein powder is another another big one. The big ones here. So there are a ton of different protein powders out there and you saw them at your local GNC or vitamin shop or whatever, you can get professional grade ones by working with me or another health care provider, we can provide that.

And it's very easy to get confused and lost in the amount of stuff that's available and it but it's important to know that many of them contain huge amounts of artificial sweeteners, sugars, additives that are just awful for your health overall. So it is it is really, really important to find a quality one and actually work with a health care provider that has access to professional grade supplements that aren't made with some of these extra processes. Now, two popular forms are waiting cases. These are both Jerry versions. So if you are lactose intolerant, you should avoid protein powders that contain way in case there are vegetarian and vegan versions. They usually have some sort of rice protein, pea protein, soy bean, and those are the big the biggest four I'm sure there are others out there.

There's there's new concoctions with protein powders coming out all the seems like mostly now so but those are the main ones. Those are better options if you're looking to use one and you're vegetarian. Now it's important to notice I would not suggest having protein shakes regularly, unless for whatever reason you're skipping a meal and it's your only option. So there's no point where I would say you need to replace quality food and nutrition that way with Protein Shake is rather an alternative on a case by case basis. And I wouldn't use it as a meal replacement long term. It's always better to get your protein from, again, unprocessed natural sources as best as possible.

So, I'm pretty sure anyone who's heard of chemo automatically healthy or, or really into, you know, how they look how they feel things like that, but there's a few reasons for that. So, he was actually a pretty high protein grain is native to South Africa. It contains along with the protein, a lot of important vitamins and minerals, and that includes phosphorus and magnesium, B vitamins, zinc, vitamin E. Iron is also high in fiber. So if you're adding more fiber to your diet, reading Whole Foods to begin with, you're going to increase your fiber intake but you A great way to do it as well is considered a complete protein. That means it contains all the essential amino acids. So all animal products are complete proteins but many vegetables and fruits are considered incomplete because it cannot contain all 20 of the amino acids that we use to build proteins in our bodies.

So yeah, like I said, it's a great source of protein. And it can be used as an alternative for rice and sometimes pasta if you only go that far. It has a nice texture but I think it would be much easier to substitute for rice and you can cook in very similar ways. Bob's Red Mill Alter Ego into harvest they all make readily available. sea salt, so there are many types of table salt. And they all have different amounts of mineral contents and that means they have could also have harrowing effects on your health good or bad.

Now, metal table salts are mine and process. And sea salts are unprocessed because they just come from pools of seawater that have evaporated and what's left is the salt. One benefit of conventional table salt which I do not recommend is it does have iodine and iodine you would get from your sea vegetables, seafood, things like that. You should avoid standard table salt again because it's highly processed and all usually, most of the minerals you find in your own process diesel are stripped away during the process. Therefore, if you do want the iodine, I don't think it's necessarily certainly necessary on all occasions but there are iodized versions of sea salt so that's kind of a happy medium. That being said, I would stick to As much as possible, more than Celtic, there are other companies that are probably a little smaller and local, but very easy to find in supermarkets and help.

Sort of. So another another ancient grain that's beginning to transition over here into the West sorghum was originally in India and was the staple great until rice became popular, also gluten free. So that's it's a great option again, for those who have some sort of sensitive sensitivity or celiac disease can be used for baking and cooking. There's other applications you can use it as a snack, breakfast cereal, again, you can make it in a similar way to oatmeal. If you're unsure of what oatmeal get this can be a good thing and you can kind of toast it and put it on top of salads as a snack. It has a high Dino content and similar to those are all antioxidants that help fight off free radical damage.

So servings a great source for that. The darker the sorban the more antioxidants it tends to have. So you can look for that if that's what you're looking for. And again, this is usually pretty widely available. So, stevia, stevia is a natural zero calorie sweetener and become very popularized over the last few years. So stevia comes from a plant is extracted from the the extract is actually about 300 times sweeter than sugar.

So again, super, super potent. You could find it in a powder or similar to like you would find table sugar or in a liquid form in a drop bottle. Important thing to watch when he buys tibia is the same thing when you're looking at actually Other other sugars we talked about honey maple syrup, even even cane sugar to an extent you're looking for, again, as unfiltered and unprocessed as possible because again, they contain fillers and editors that become detrimental to your health or sugar alcohols that can play with blood sugar levels. So this is all these are all things to watch out for. When buying stevia in my personal opinion, I don't use stevia I would rather say stick with coconut nectar or honey Those are my two favorites and even maple syrup occasionally but stevia is an option. Tomorrow so this is the closest thing out there to actual soy sauce and the great thing about tomorrow is it's actually gluten free.

So if you love Asian food or you love soy sauce, but you've had, you know you have issues with gluten sensitivities or your celiac disease tomorry is the closest substitute out there actual soy sauce so one to one in any recipe that calls for soy sauce flip out tomorrow and you will be very pleased there are some options similar to soy sauce you can find ones with low sodium to promote for those but smart is ubiquitous and source now you can find it in every health food store in almost all supermarkets so not too hard to look for usually in the Asian section, so give it a look there and give it a try. I definitely recommend it for soy sauce alternative in any sort of moving on to tomorrow. So turmeric has become very popularized for a few reasons we'll get into. It is mostly noted for giving a bright, vibrant, yellowish color into what is edited when you see it mostly in curries or other Indian or Asian style dishes.

Merch actually comes from our roof which is been ground into a powder. So you can actually have the roof you can on it yourself or you can find it in the powder form powder form that is very valuable in many grocery stores. So the act of compound The main reason for its health benefits is this compound is known as curcumin, which has any inflammatory properties and also antioxidant properties. And having curcumin in your diet will again help relieve some free radical oxidation and oxidative stress if you are suffering from some of these chronic inflammatory conditions, or adding fermented food is a good way of helping with that. Now the nice thing about it as vibrant and bold as the color is the flavor itself is very mild so you can edit again curries, rubs, vegetables, meat And really most things you're cooking and you're not going to get a massive flavor profile from it.

So it's actually fairly easy to add the things and not worry about some overbearing taste. And again, there are organic forms you can find in supermarkets. But even nowadays, it's fairly easy to find tempo. So we're going to talk about temp and tofu which are two soy forms of protein, especially for vegetarians and vegans. Now, I prefer a template and tofu. We're going to get into that.

Today is submitted a permit soybeans and then they're pressed into blocks. And you'll see when you bought when you go see something in the stores that usually the vegetarian or vegan protein section, usually packaged and just kind of it looks almost rectangular in shape and you can kind of cut it and break it into pieces on your end. I prefer it against tofu for a couple reasons, it's less processed. So soy is in ground all the way up and then pressed into a block. These are just the beans themselves are fermented. So again, less processed, that's kind of what we're looking for.

As close to getting to as close to Whole Foods impossible is also permitted. Now tofu is also fermented but you will get the probiotic benefits along with any other soy products that we talked about. It's Paramount that you stick to organic products because commercially soy commercially raised soy products are rampant in in the United States and they're packed with GMOs and preservatives and that's where a lot of these issues with estrogens come up because they're sprayed with these vital estrogens that act as estrogen in the body and can wreak havoc. So stick to organic soil. tofu. So tofu is probably the best known vegan source of protein.

You see it in blocks, it's also seen used to make soy milk on its own tofu and today for that matter have very mild flavors. So having them than raw or cooked with nothing on them, you'll notice there's very little flavor and tofu specifically was very on appetizer. Now, the cool thing about tofu is it actually is very versatile due to his lack of flavor initially, because it takes on flavors so well. So when you create sauces and marinate, marinate your tofu, it actually takes on that flavor really well. Same with tempo. So if you like making bold sauces and things like that, and adding tofu to it and then cooking it, you will get a much more robust flavor and I think is actually something that worth adding to your diet either tofu or tempeh.

I prefer to pay because of the texture but try both out and see which ones you like the most. Now when it comes to temper, tofu, the firmness ranges. If you've never used tofu before, I would suggest sticking to firm or extra firm. The softer versions break really easily and like I say, you can kind of really kind of break them down and make them into soy milk if you really wanted and like I said, along with the top with the template is really important to purchase organic tofu we spoke about estrogens that can wreak havoc and be disruptive to your health. The good news is organic tofu and tempeh are pretty widely available now. So most supermarkets will have some version of it doesn't work.

Vanilla Extract so if you're a bit I am sure you have used vanilla extract at some point. Um, that being said, it's not the only use. I use it to flavor yogurts, you can use it again and sauces and especially baking. The thing with vanilla extract is you wanna be wary of which ones you buy. Many of them contain chemicals, and very little of the actual vanilla bean extract. So when you're looking again, read your ingredient labels, understand what you're buying.

And just make sure when you're buying a vanilla extract, you're actually buying just the extra yogurt. So your eyes are in a ton of different forms. But I, I suggest when you buy them, you want to look for unsweetened unflavored organic yogurt. flavored versions do contain added sugars and sweeteners and that becomes a massive issue. I think a much easier way to approach this would be to add your own happens just by the unflavored ones. And like I spoke about just now with a vanilla extract, you can add a little Manila extra vanilla yogurt, you can get very creative with it once you get started.

So stick to the unsweetened versions you want to stick if you're going to buy yogurt, from a from a dairy perspective, I would suggest sticking to goats or sheep's milk, yogurt. These are much less likely to be tampered with and you won't have the negative drawbacks of other dairy products. But that being said, if you're looking to avoid dairy altogether, there are also yogurts now made from coconut milk, almond milk and other other nuts and these are also a great tasting and again, you can play through them the same way so it may take some experimentation but there's there's a lot of options out there if you're willing to look at many of these now, as many supermarkets and Help and wrapping it up. Well this will be our last topic but there are rap alternatives so when we go to the store and say you want to rap from subway or some other sandwich store, I'm using the example here of spinning travel.

The reality is that right is actually mostly still white flour and then with a little spinach or a little tomato to give it that green or red color and then that's kind of it. So if you're gonna buy these on your own, just make sure you check the labels and see what's in what you're buying. Now you want to get away from the flower alternatives altogether there's you can use vegetables as wraps which have become increasingly popular and actually fairly sturdy and and more of a crunch of that we're looking for so great options are collard greens and use other leafy greens with collard greens are sturdy and actually really good to use and that sense lettuce, lettuce wraps or you can see in many Asian restaurant menus that they're very easy on coconut wraps, you can actually use the coconut meat and then wrap that up.

That's another option and another problem only hit up before is is Nori. So seaweed wraps, sushi wraps kind of that these are all great alternatives to standard white flour. Now, we're wrapping this up here. I know this is a lot of information to go over. But just keep in mind, these are all incremental changes we're going to make overtime. So it seems like a lot to take in over time.

Don't worry about it. It's all about making incremental changes day by day, week by week and over time, every little victory begins to add up to a lot of smaller victories which eventually lead to the big results. So try some of these out Don't be afraid to fail. Because when you try new things I know it gets intimidating sometimes in the kitchen, but don't just look at it like an experiment. You can try all these things out and you will, it will be better for you in the long run because now you'll realize certain things work better with other ingredients. And because these are many things that you haven't used before, now's the time to get creative.

And make it a fun process that that's really the big the big thing to take away and use these new ingredients and try to be creative with them. If you have any questions, you can always feel free to ask me what I think on certain things or if you want a recipe for certain things, just feel free to reach out. But until next time, good luck getting started at the store.