Newsletter #8: My pantry tour, metabolic "zhuzh" to oatmeal, and using ChatGPT in the kitchen

🥑 Good food - My pantry tour 👀 

I have a teensy pantry and I use every square inch of it! See a 3-minute overview of what’s inside my pantry in this Youtube video. I originally posted the pantry tour on my Instagram stories and got tons of questions, so I am sharing the specifics of everything — see below! 👇️ 

My pantry principles mirror the Good Energy food principles: all organic, no refined grains, no seed oils and minimal refined sugars.

🫘 Fiber sources:

• Hemp seeds

• Chia Seeds

• Basil seeds (My favorite is Zen Basil) 

• Seed blends (My favorite is Beeya)

• Seed crackers: Flackers, Ella’s Flats, Top Seedz

• Lots of beans (both canned and dry)

• Dried red, black, and green lentils

🐟 Omega-3 sources:

• Canned wild-caught salmon, sardines, and tuna (I love Wild Planet)

• Hemp seeds 

• Chia seeds

• Basil seeds

• Walnuts

🥛 Probiotic sources:

None, actually! These all live in the fridge since they are alive! :) 

🍖 Protein sources:

• Bone broths (I like Kroma 24K chicken bone broth and Kettle & Fire bone broth)

• Canned fish (see Omega-3 sources)

• Canned beans and legumes

🍅 Antioxidant and micronutrient sources: 

• Nuts galore (Costco has great deals on bulk organic nuts)

• Capers 

• Olives

• Teas

• Spices (I love Spicewell for extra nutrients in my salt and pepper)

• Tomato paste

• Tomato sauce

• Diced/crushed tomatoes

• Nori sheets

📌 Other pantry Staples:

• Primal Kitchen mayo and ketchup

• Organic dijon (for salad dressings)

• Extra bottles of olive oil and avocado oil

• Vinegars galore: Persimmon vinegar (I love the one from Figure Ate), champagne vinegar, balsamic vinegar, others

• Full fat coconut milk

• Coconut cream

• Alternative flours: Chickpea flour (I use Navitas), Almond flour (I use Terranova and Bob’s Red Mill), Coconut flour (I use Bob’s Red Mill), Cassava flour (I use Carrington Farms and Otto’s), Tigernut flour (I use Thrive Market)

• Nutritional yeast

• Tamari

• Coconut oil

• Ghee

• Liquid aminos

• Nut butters (My favorite is NuttZo)

🍫 Treats:

• Purely Elizabeth keto granola 

• Hu Kitchen and Alter Eco chocolate (one of the only sources of added sugar in my kitchen at 4g per serving)

• Just Date chocolate chips

• Dates 

• RxSugar

• Organic yellow pop-corn

☕ For my coffee: 

• Creatine by Momentous (1 scoop with grass-fed organic A2 milk in the milk frother - can’t taste it!)

• RxSugar (every once in a while)

• Laird Superfood creamer (the pumpkin is so good🔥)

🥂 For drinks and smoothies:

• HVMN ketone shots

• Protein powder (My favorites are Truvani and Be Well By Kelly)

• Teas

Question for you: What’s 1 swap you can make today in your pantry to help promote more good energy in your body, and your household?!

🔄 Good swap - Metabolic “zhuzh” to oatmeal

We want every meal to have as many of the 5 metabolically healthy elements as possible, so let's take a very common American breakfast and give it a metabolically healthy upgrade! 

Swap out instant oatmeal for organic oats with nuts, seeds, berries, creatine, and protein powder.

So many people LOVE oatmeal for breakfast, so I “zhuzhed” (new favorite word) it up with some some metabolically friendly additions (without making it take any longer to prepare)!

Oatmeal zhuzh 🥣 ✨ 

🙅‍♀️ Instead of this:

• 40g (½ cup) instant oatmeal

• 1 medium banana

• 2 tablespoons peanut butter 

🔁 Swap for this metabolically-healthier upgrade:

• 45g (½ cup) organic quick cook rolled oats (like this one from Bob’s Red Mill)

• ½ cup blueberries

• 2 tablespoons basil seeds

• ¼ cup chopped walnuts

• 1 scoop creatine (I use Momentous)

• 1 scoop Truvani vanilla protein powder

• Optional: Add a dollop of whole milk Greek yogurt for probiotics!

💪 Why you should swap (or zhuzh it up!)

The issue with the first one (instant oats, banana, peanut butter) is that there isn’t much protein, omega-3 fats, antioxidants, or fiber. Ultra-processed commercial peanut butter also contains seed oils and refined sugars - both of which we want to stay away from. Simply put, it is a meal that is not giving your cells the molecular tools they need to function.

Replace the instant oats with organic rolled oats (or better yet, steel cut oats, but these do take longer to cook), add a handful of organic nuts and berries, some creatine and protein powder and you’ll have yourself a delicious oatmeal with almost half the sugar, more than double the fiber and protein, and over 5,000 mg of omega-3 fats (compared to the 170 mg of the first recipe).

This shows how you could upgrade your oatmeal to make it significantly more metabolically healthy: more protein, WAY more omega-3s, fewer net carbs, less sugar!

Making consistent swaps like this is a key decision point in determining whether we will develop diseases versus live a thriving, healthy, happy life. Swaps translate into different molecular information going into the body, different cell structure, different genetic expression, different microbiome composition, and different cell signaling. Don’t take it lightly. Every healthy swap you choose makes a difference.

Question for you: What’s 1 meal you can zhuzh up this week?

Just follow the Good Energy principles of adding omega-3 fats, antioxidants, healthy protein, probiotics, and fiber in every meal 👊 

🧠 Good thought - ChatGPT in the kitchen!

This weekend I accidentally discovered the utility of ChatGPT to help minimize food waste and to salvage a seemingly botched recipe…!

I was making a grain-free sugar-free chocolate cake for my incredible boyfriend’s birthday, and I was so excited about it because I rarely ever bake (when I do bake, it’s THIS foolproof brownie recipe) and had gotten all the healthy organic ingredients and was ready to create a cake masterpiece in his favorite flavors. BUT, instead of adding 1 ¼ cup almond flour, I added 1 ¼ cup almond milk (it was only supposed to be 2 tablespoons of almond milk), so the batter was super watery and clearly wrong.  I had no additional eggs in the fridge so couldn’t start over, and I was determined to salvage it!

So I asked ChatGPT if there was anything I could do to save the liquidy batter. I wrote in the program: “I screwed up a cake recipe and I put 1 and 1/4 cup almond milk, 1/2 cup allulose, 4 eggs, and 1 tsp vanilla, instead of using 2 tbsp almond milk. The rest of the recipe calls for 1 and ¼ cup almond flour, ⅓ cup plus 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, and ⅕ tsp baking power. How can I change the measurements to salvage this into a chocolate cake?”

ChatGPT came back with a very helpful (and frankly comforting!) workaround, with new ratios for all the dry ingredients. 

And the cake turned out PERFECTLY. 

The cake 🍰 in question - which you may have recognized from my Instagram stories this week!

This experience got me thinking, how else can I use ChatGPT in the kitchen?

My first thought was this: Tell it what ingredients you have in the fridge that you want to use up before they go bad, and let it suggest a dinner idea or recipe for you. You could say, “Hey, I have leftover salmon, 3 eggs, kale, cauliflower, a carrot, celery, garlic, and an orange. Is there anything I can make for dinner with these ingredients and normal pantry items that is gluten free and delicious? We don’t need to use all the ingredients!” If you don’t like the first recipe ChatGPT shares, just ask for another one, or ask it to omit one or two of the ingredients and come up with a new one! 

Here are some additional ideas of what to ask ChatGPT for in the kitchen:

Just copy and paste these to try them out!

🧑‍🍳 Let it help you come up with recipes:

1. "I have [list of ingredients]. What are some creative meal ideas I can make with these?"

2. “Can you give me a recipe for an easy grain-free low-glycemic bread with no seed oils using the chickpea flour or almond flour I have in the pantry? I have other normal pantry items.”

3. "I have leftovers from a previous meal that I need to use up: [list the leftovers]. Can you suggest creative ways to repurpose them into a new dish?"

🥗 Let it help you figure out how to make a recipe metabolically healthier: 

1. "How can I modify oatmeal [or any specific meal/recipe] to make it metabolically healthier without compromising on taste or adding more prep or cooking time?"

2. "What are some metabolically healthy ingredient substitutions or additions I can make in a normal breakfast of [add breakfast]?"

3. "Can you suggest some simple ways to add more vegetables or fruits into [insert meal idea]?"

🥬 Let it help you avoid having spoiled/wilted ingredients:

1. "I have some ingredients in my kitchen that are close to spoiling, like [specific ingredients]. What are some recipes I can make to use them up before they go bad?"

2. "I have a surplus of [specific ingredients] that I need to use up quickly. Can you suggest multiple recipes or meal ideas that are grain-free, sugar-free, and low glycemic that prominently feature this ingredient?”

3. "Some of my produce is starting to wilt or go soft. How can I salvage them in a dish or recipe to prevent wastage?” or “How can I prevent lettuce from wilting?”

🍽️ Let it help you come up with post-meal hacks:

1. “What are 10 food and lifestyle ways I can lower the glucose spike of a pasta dinner?”

I am curious to know in what ways you’ve used ChatGPT in the kitchen. Reply to this newsletter and let me know!

With good energy 💓

Dr. Casey

👀 In Case You Missed It

I had the honor of interviewing Jessie Inchauspé (@glucosegoddess) on Levels’ A Whole New Level Podcast where we talked about type 2 diabetes, the food industry, mental health, food cravings, her confidence framework, the Glucose Goddess Method, and her new Anti-Spike supplement. Watch the full interview here.

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