by Associate Clinician Alicia Leonhardt
Sometimes clients ask what we clinicians really eat… Well, I am going to get very real with you all today and show you a photo of the inside of my refrigerator! This is not a fancy picture for you all; it is what I saw when I opened my fridge door this morning, and I will do my best to break it all down for you. As a working mom with 3 kiddos, ages 6, 7, and 9, life is a bit chaotic most of the time. I tend to feel disorganized, drowning in laundry (clean or dirty), as if my house is a disaster no matter how often I am cleaning/picking stuff up, sometimes overwhelmed with kids homework… In order to help myself and the house get a little more organized, I try to meal prep for the upcoming week. Since I work on Saturdays, I have Mondays off and use that time to prep. Disclaimer: this picture was taken on a Tuesday, and by the end of the week it is not nearly as full!
Are you wondering what all of that yummy liquid is on the top shelf?! It’s bone broth and kombucha, with a mini side of organic non-gmo popcorn kernels. Have you heard what the benefits of bone broth are? It’s actually an ancient tradition that has gone along the wayside in today’s time. Bone broth is like the new coffee. It can be as flavorful or as mild as you would like it to be. It is loaded with minerals, amino acids, collagen, and can help to aide our bodies in the detoxification process. In addition, it can improve your hair, skin, and nails. And of course it is also a great base for making soups. The more flavorful the broth, the better your soup will be! The broth pictured is a fresh batch that I put in the fridge to cool off before placing a few jars in the freezer. Bone broth should be used within 3-5 days in the fridge. I just had to replenish all of the bone broth that went into making all of my soups recently! Kombucha is a new journey that I have embarked on recently thanks to a client. It has been a lot of fun to experiment with it. There is also a bag of organic grapes ready to go in the kids lunches the next day!
On the second shelf, we have some leftovers for lunches already put in containers, as well as leftover dinners that a babysitter can just heat up again. Then there is a jar of olives, eggs (from a friend and co-worker that has soy-free, pasture-raised chickens in her yard) and just a bag with apple slices in it for lunches. The leftover meal in the small glass containers is a sausage lentil soup, which is a fall and winter favorite of ours. The weather is getting cooler and I couldn’t wait to make soup again! The large container is leftover chicken Alfredo, made with turkey bacon, chicken, spinach, onions, carrots, celery, coconut milk, broth, brown rice and lentil pasta. It was amazing! For those of you not eating any grains at all, I also made a second container with spaghetti squash in place of the pasta. It was a little runnier, but I thought it tasted just as good. I also put some of the chicken and bacon aside after cooking them and placed them in a container to add to a salad later in the week.
The third shelf is just an extended version of the second shelf. The leftover spaghetti squash chicken Alfredo version is in one container, then leftover green beans from another meal to eat with the Alfredo because there may not be enough for another full meal, and cauliflower soup.
The “deli” drawer usually carries Applegate Farms hot dogs for us, raw cheeses if we have them, organic butter, and sometimes we get turkey bologna and sticks from Bolton’s Turkey Farm and use them with the cheese in the kids’ lunches. I’ll also store hummus or yogurt dip in there as well. But never lunch meat!
The mini shelf under the deli drawer consists of organic, non high fructose corn syrup ketchup… because that’s where our 6 year old put it before leaving for school that day. The kids usually eat their eggs with either ketchup or jelly. Yes jelly! No, I don’t know why.
The bottom shelf is probably the one that changes item categories the most often because it can hold bigger items. This is where the larger items usually go. It tends to be salad containers, a large pure maple syrup container, more food containers if there is no room on the other shelves, or fruit if it is not all able to fit in the bottom drawer. In this picture there is more cauliflower soup, spinach for salad and to throw in with any meal, spaghetti squash and ravioli (a rare treat for my hubby!) that went with spaghetti meat sauce, kiwis, celery, and banana muffins.
The bottom 2 drawers house most of the vegetables and fruit, which vary from week to week and seasonally. In the door of the fridge you will find different condiments and flours. There are different types of mustards, a Bragg’s dressing, safflower mayonnaise, maple syrup, almond flour, sprouted spelt four, coconut flour, coconut flakes, shredded coconut, Enjoy Life chocolate chips, sesame and sunflower seeds.
Well I hope you’ve enjoyed the tour of my refrigerator. Keep in mind this is just one week’s example. My goal for feeding my family is to give them as much food as possible that has not been altered or processed in any way, to eat local and seasonal foods, foods easy to put in lunches, and most of all foods that we enjoy. Remember… food has the power to either give you life or take your life! Be informed about what you put into your body.
Alicia Leonhardt, NTP
Alicia is an Associate Clinician at the Well of Life Center for Natural Health. The Well of Life Center is a holistic wellness center that specializes in nutrition, chiropractic, massage services, and more. Celebrating their 10th year in business, the Well of Life Center has locations in Doylestown, Bethlehem, and Ottsville, PA. For more information, please visit welloflifecenter.com.