And welcome back to part one of how to revamp your refrigerator and pantry. So some of these ingredients may already be familiar to you. You may have seen them in supermarkets, you may have seen them in other stores and others you might have never seen before. That's no big deal. That's why we're going through this. Almost all these products can be found in your in health food stores or supermarkets and things like Whole Foods, farmer's markets, excuse me, other stores like that, you can definitely find these things.

Worst case scenario, many of them can be ordered on the internet, Amazon has their own food supply business at this point. And I'm sure many of you who are listening to this have amazon prime accounts so that will not be an issue for you. Some of these are actually just alternatives. So you can actually use the same angry the same recipes and just switch out maybe one or two ingredients because they might they might not contain any harmful additives and pesticides, things like that that could be detrimental to your health. Or the alternatives may be may include things that are not commonly that people are not commonly allergic to. And just before we get started just to make sure this is definitely not a comprehensive list, but it is a good place to get started.

So there will be things that you might not see, don't worry about it, you can always ask me, and I can give you more information on it. So to kick it off, we're doing it in alphabetical order. So we're gonna start with almond butter. So the reason I like almond butter is it's there's less food sensitivities associated with almonds, but they do exist. There are tree nut allergies, but it's much less than peanuts, which are very highly processed now and have high amounts of GMOs, pesticides, things like that. This is a fairly easy thing.

You can substitute for basically anything that calls for peanut butter. Personally, I prefer the taste. So I don't think it's that much of an issue. When you're shopping from butter, you want to find something that's unsweetened, organic, and free of GMOs. I would also recommend staying away from flavored almond butters. Sometimes they contain added sugars.

And if you want to add flavor, just edit yourself, it's really a gives you more autonomy as as to what's going in the food you're eating. I'm in flour. So this is an alternative to regular fire when you bake. When you're making pancakes, other things like that cookies that can all this can be an easy substitute. Alternatively, you can make this yourself and all you need is a blender and you just take some almonds, you can just grind them up in a blender. And just make sure they become fine enough they become a flower and that's it.

You make your own Fire, it's very simple. If you don't want to do that or you don't have a blender, you can go to any health food store. It's readily available online and again, look for GMO, GMO free products when you can. Okay, so almond milk and here also there's going to be a few milks based on based off of nuts as a base as opposed to dairy and almond milk will be the first one. So again, very similar to almond flour in terms of how to make it if you want to take that step and do it at home, you would just take those almonds in a blender and you would actually add water and then again, you grind it up and you obviously you want to make it as smooth as possible so you're not drinking pieces of almonds. And that is how you would make out milk at home and alternatively, of course you can buy it at the store that's that's, that's readily available in almost any supermarket today.

But the nice part about making it is you can add your own flavors if you want. So again, like I've tried making it with Honey are dates to make it a little sweet and yummy much like half a tablespoon of honey or a couple chopped up dates. And you get a nice sort of sweet flavor. If you're looking to make it on your own, I would suggest that if you're looking for it at the store, you just want unsweetened unflavored. Again, we're looking for as close to unprocessed or with that with as few additives as possible. And that's something to look for again, loyal avoid products that are labeled low fat or light.

These are generally replaced with filler products. So again, it would be wise to check your ingredient list not only with this, but really any food that has an ingredient so aluminum free breaking powder. So just generally you want to avoid aluminum in your foods whenever possible. aluminum can be toxic when it's at high levels and unnecessary exposure can lead to metal toxicity and chronic infection. Over time, it could actually increase certain symptoms, especially from autoimmune disorders or other kind of low grade chronic inflammatory diseases that build up over time. So you do want to make sure that when you buy baking powder, make sure it's free of aluminum.

And again, this is just going to take you taking the time to go and turn that can around and just see what's in what you're buying. And that's really a great place to start. And again, you could find these in in many supermarkets all across the country today. Our app, so this is becoming a more popular grade. In recent years. It's gluten free, which is obviously a big reason for its appeal.

It can be substituted for rice and pasta, especially like smaller types of pasta or rice. It's definitely much more similar to but some of the benefits of amaranth is it has a high protein content which is great for vegetarians who are looking to get protein in their diet, and it also is a great source of vitamins A and C, and fully and it's also a good source of the minerals, calcium and manganese. You can find amaranth in really all health food stores and again, you can find it online it shouldn't be too difficult to find. So apple cider vinegar, this is actually something I use a lot. I almost always have it in my pantry. And again, you use it for dressing sauces, marinades.

Sometimes I'll add a little bit to a shake in the morning just to add a little flavor and you don't need a lot. This is really potent stuff. So again, like other vinegars, you really don't need a lot to make a big difference. There have been studies that have come out that show that show that apple cider vinegar can be helpful with weight loss and lowering blood sugar levels now. This is in conjunction with proper eating and nutrition. You Like just putting apple cider vinegar in your diet is not gonna make a great difference.

It works in conjunction with everything we're trying to do. So just taking a shot of apple cider vinegar is not going to be the key to success long term if that's the only thing you're changing. When you buy it, you do want to find a product that is that has pulp. It's unfiltered. Again, a lot of the benefits do come from the pulp itself. And really these are just from the apples.

So it is not something to be disgusted by it's just what it is. Avocados, there are very few people who don't think like avocados because they just add such a creamy texture and they're great first spreads and guacamole is most famously, avocados are a great source of cholesterol which we have gone over but cholesterol is not the enemy in a lot of cases. It actually has many antioxidant properties and is important for proper hormone health. It's just a question of when those get out of hand, it's usually a sign that other things are going wrong. So don't look at cholesterol as a bad thing in and of itself. I'm cows also have antioxidant properties so that they help fight against free radicals, which is very important.

It's also a great source of healthy fats. And again, like people love fatty things and things that tastes sweet. So, and this is because as we were growing as humans, and evolving over time, we needed to get our, our energy sources from somewhere and fats are the most energy dense of the macronutrients. So we're just genetically kind of drawn to fatty things and avocados would fit that and again, you find avocados in many supermarkets, health food stores, and you want to search for organic ones when possible. And moving on to the different part of the avocado, the avocado oil. Oil so I personally like olive oil when I cook a lot and we're going to get to that later in this lecture.

But avocado oil is nice because it's much more neutral and tastes. It does not have that pungent smell and again does not affect the other flavors of what you're cooking. So if you think if you don't like the taste of olive oil, maybe we think it's maybe too aggressive I'll avocado oil can be great as a substitute. It's also great for cooking at high heat because there's a high smoke point so it doesn't denature or go rancid in the cooking process. Black Pepper so one of the most common spices you can find today. Interestingly enough, so I prefer buying the whole pepper coins and then grinding them myself because the larger the flakes, the more spicy they tend to be.

So if you're not someone who tolerate very well, actually getting the finer ground ones will will not Spicy so that's something you might want to take advantage of as you're going along and obviously it's a great way to add some flavor and heat if you like. spicy foods. cashew butter so cashew butter can be bought in stores fairly readily now especially in health food stores. It's a great source of fats and it's rich in protein. It Again it's very creamy and has a richness. And again this goes back to what we were talking about people being drawn to fatty foods, or they like that appeal.

Cashew butter is great for that cashews are high in vitamins B six, K and E and it also is high in the minerals copper, zinc, phosphorus, magnesium, selenium, and iron. You can use cashew butter or you can actually use soaked cashews to make cheese sauces. This is very popular among vegans and vegetarians who want to add cheese sauce or Cheese style is something they are cooking and using cashew butter or soaked cashews in a blender with salt, the nutritional yeast or there are other super simple recipes out there you can find to make kind of cheese sauces. cashew butter can be very useful in that sense. So cassava flour so we talked about almond flour earlier in terms of baking cassava flour actually is better if you're looking for tradition if you're looking to incorporate traditional baking methods into what you're cooking or it's what you're baking again like he creates a much more fluffier texture, much more so than almond flour so it reacts much similar to white flour when you bake.

Personally I'm not a huge Baker but I have noticed I have baked the same thing using cassava flour and then almond flour and using the cassava flour it the texture comes out much more More like you were baking something using regular white flour. And again this is something that can be easily found in health food stores. I am pepper so cayenne pepper is very, very spicy so if you find the peppers themselves, I would recommend removing at least half the seeds probably more and all of them if you're not a fan of very spicy foods but they do add a lot of flavor. And obviously you can also buy it in its ground form. And this is a great space to buy ones because you're not going to be using a lot of it in any one sitting so if you have it it will last you a while even if you do like spicy foods and you don't eat a lot of it but it's great to add to sauces and soups and things like that so it might be worth investing in.

So cinnamon cinnamon is a very versatile spice it's used in coffee It's used in baking, it's used in cooking and it adds very warm, a little spicy and sweet, kind of flavors all wrapped into one it can be used again in coffee teas, shoes in many rubs and marinated. So it's super versatile and has a lot of uses. The great thing about cinnamon is it's high in the amount of antioxidants it has, it has anti inflammatory properties, and it supports good heart health. And again, like we talked about the apple cider vinegar, cinnamon is great to add to things but again, if it's the one thing you're adding, it's not going to make a huge difference. It's again, it's the sum of all parts. We want to make changes over time that all the little steps put together eventually make a big difference over time and cinnamon can be a part of that solution.

Cinnamon is very easy to find. You want to look for organic sources, again non GMO and that really goes for everything on the list. So moving on to chickpea flour now, chickpea flour is a great source of iron, fiber and protein. It's made up of ground chickpeas. So if you want to make this at home you can easily do it by just throwing dried chickpeas in a blender and pulsing until you get a flower as a slightly sweet taste. And it can be used as a creamy alternative to eggs when you need a binder for things such as baking.

To be flour can be found now in many health food stores, and almost all supermarkets today so really easy to find. All right chocolate chocolates, a big one. Now, if you want to have some are using desserts, dark chocolate is the way to go. Now dark chocolate can actually be a great source of antioxidants. It is also a great source of many minerals that can help lower blood pressure. But the thing is it has to be dark chocolate and it can't be sweetened.

So not things like milk chocolate or white chocolate are not going to have these same health benefits and they generally tend to have higher Sugar contents as well. So when you're looking for chocolate, you want to look for an unsweetened one and that one that's at least 72% cookout. Now many again like I said many others have added sugars to make them taste sweeter. That being said, many famous companies now have chocolates that are at least 72% Krukow so you can find them fairly easily. So moving on to cocoa powder. Now this is actually different from cocoa powder mix.

Cocoa Powder Mix tends to have added sweeteners and should obviously be avoided. Now when you're looking for cocoa powder, you should look for a product that contains either potassium bromate or potassium carbonate or is just straight cocoa powder. These are okay and the reason these two products are used is to dull the bitter tasting polyphenols and the polyphenols are what make up the majority of the health benefits found in chocolate. So moving on to coconut aminos coconut aminos are another soy sauce alternative It is not as similar in taste to tomorry which you'll see later on in this list. It tends to be a little sweeter so it's not an exact substitute for soy sauce. That being said it is still incredibly tasty and versatile and is used very often in different asian style and inspired dishes.

It is very easy to find in most health food stores and you can even find it in some commercial grocery stores as well. Coconut Cream and coconut milk so this is actually one of my favorite substitutes for most dairy products in many different recipes. The difference between the cream and the milk is actually the consistency and how much fat it contains. So coconut milk can be found in drinks or even in a canned form usually has a thin liquid associated with its thicker parts. The cream has much less liquid if at all and is usually not watered down so it when you're at the store You're looking for these, you want to make sure you're avoiding products with added sugars that are labeled low fat, or F cans that are aligned with BPA. You can find either coconut cream or coconut milk in almost any supermarket today.

However, I prefer just buying the coconut cream. The reason for this is you can simply just water it down yourself if you want a thinner consistency. The coconut cream tends to last me longer than say a can of coconut milk. So another flower on this list is coconut flour. And coconut flour is actually much much denser than the other flowers you're gonna you have seen and we'll see on this list. And because it's denser, it's actually able to absorb more liquid.

So if you want to use coconut flour in recipes, I would recommend using flat coconut flour specific recipes because it's not necessarily a one to one replacement compared to wildflower and some of the other flowers on this list. That being said, it's still pretty easy to find you can find it in most supermarkets here in the states and most health food stores as well. coconut nectar so this along with honey are my favorite sweeteners at the moment. The reason why I like it so much is it's a very it has a very low glycemic index score, which means it really won't spike your blood sugar to the same extent as the processed sugars and refined carbohydrates that are run rampant especially here in the States. Also, you get the benefit of the minerals and nutrients that are found in other coconut products. This is pretty easy to find.

You can find it in most health food stores and commercial stores today. And coconut oil so we're hitting all the parts of the coconut today. It's good for cooking, especially if you cook at high temperatures. When you find it in supermarkets, it tends to be in a solid form usually it will actually Stay in its solid form up until around about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. After that, it will become a liquid. So if you are staying with it, just place it in a warm pan and it'll melt and by the time it's melted usually the pan will be pretty hot and you're ready to go.

When you're purchasing coconut oil, make sure you're finding organic extra virgin coconut oil similar to say if you're buying an olive oil and you can find it again in most health food stores and even supermarkets have it today.