42: What food will a dietitian always have in their pantry?

Lyndi
 0:00:00
 Hey, if you're struggling with disordered eating, if you feel like you're constantly trying a diet and don't know what to do, a really good starting point is to read or listen to my book, Your Weight Is Not the Problem. That book, that sweet little book has been on the best-selling list of Amazon Women's Health in Australia for weeks and weeks and weeks. I've had many people, hundreds of people reach out telling me that it has changed their life. So if you are thinking about it, if you're going, oh, I like this podcast, I would recommend giving the book a listen to or reading it the old-school way. Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the No More Wellness Wankery podcast. I'm Lyndi Cohen and I'm joined by my lovely co-host, Jenna D'Apice.

Jenna
 0:00:43
 Hello. Yes, my name is Jenna and I joined Lyndi on this quest to point out all the wankery in the wellness world and we can just decipher what to eat, when to eat, all these things that we think are questions and are they

Lyndi
 0:00:57
 really important? Really we ought to be asking ourselves those questions and yet on today's episode what we're talking about is I know there's a lot of people who are very interested to know what should I be eating, which brands should I be eating. I'm going to see if I can maybe help you with a little bit of that, give you a bit of an idea of what I'm buying when I'm going to the grocery shop. So what's going in my fridge, what's going in my pantry without being prescriptive and telling you like my exact day on the plate.

Jenna
 0:01:22
 The best brands to buy.

Lyndi
 0:01:23
 No, we're not about that life.

Jenna
 0:01:25
 Do you have a very similar formula of what you buy each week at the grocery store?

Lyndi
 0:01:30
 Firstly, I just want to put it out there, the full disclaimer, my husband typically does the grocery shopping, but I've done it for many years as well. We do. We generally buy similar items. I'd say there are some stock standard items that I would always have in my pantry. So let's start with the pantry. I always have a very loaded pantry. You've seen my pantry. It's a big pantry.

10
 0:01:52
 It's huge.

Lyndi
 0:01:53
 I've lived in apartments before and I haven't even had pantry space. So right now I feel like, oh my goodness, this is so exciting.

Jenna
 0:02:00
 Yeah, I don't have very much pantry space.

9
 0:02:03
 It's tough.

Lyndi
 0:02:04
 It's tricky. You have to prioritize then, don't you?

Jenna
 0:02:06
 Yeah, I just buy the things I need for that week.

Lyndi
 0:02:08
 Yeah. Okay, cool. I like to get to the point where if I run out of stuff in my fridge that I could just go to the pantry. I want to be able to make full meals out of anything I have in the pantry. In fact, in Back to Basics, my app, that's kind of like a feature where I have pantry items only so that when you're in those situations, you can still pull together a healthy meal. So I have an entire tray, it's like a whole shelf, that is just tinned goods. I will have at least two tins of every item at all times because I go through them often. I'm always adding in tins of tomatoes to so much of the food that I'm eating. Like for example, we had laksa last night, too spicy. And I was like, okay, we didn't, I hadn't gone to the shops, we hadn't prepared, so we had coconut oil, we had laksa paste, I had stock, and I had some carrots, and I had some corn, tinned corn, and like peas, you know, and that was like, with some vermicelli noodles, and we were like done, adding in the tinned tomatoes, because it was so spicy, and suddenly we've got like four servings of veg in a pantry staple dish that was quick and easy and so tasty. And so having those legumes and beans and canned vegetables is such an essential for me. I just drain them. If you're having tinned legumes and stuff, it's actually gentler on your gut health. Unless you get like excessive bloating or any of those things, it can actually be easier for you to digest than if you're soaking them yourself. But if you want a more affordable option, definitely soak it yourself, but an entire shelf is just tinned legumes and veg and I don't think we eat enough legumes in our life, in everyone's life. I feel like we could all do with having more. The recommendation is to have three to four serves in a week, which I'm like most people rarely get one a week. So when we talk about crowding and more of the healthy stuff, if you have it in your house, you're more likely to eat it. If you're only ever buying it when you need to eat it, I don't think you're going to be eating it that often. But it was staring me in the face like one of my go-to options, I'll make a chickpea shuck sugar. So that is a very fancy way of just saying tomatoes and chickpeas in the frying pan with an egg and some paprika. It's like a cooked, baked egg for breakfast. And it's so quick, five minutes, high fiber, high protein, delicious. I love it.

Jenna
 0:04:28
 What else is in the pantry?

Lyndi
 0:04:29
 Okay, cool. So I also have loads of seeds and nuts, pretty much like all my seeds, my grains at all times. I like every single nut that there is imaginable. I don't buy salted because I use it in cooking. I really, I don't, I'm not the kind of person to go for a handful of nuts. I just don't really do it as much as I probably would like to do it. I'm using my seeds and nuts to make a muesli that I make every single week. I should change it up, I know, but I'm just stuck on this. It's like my OG muesli recipe. You can get this recipe on my website lyndycohen.com and it's my go-to muesli recipe. So just throwing in whatever seeds and nuts I have at that time. What else do I have? I have a whole shelf that is just pantry heroes of things that are full of flavor. What's a pantry hero? It's stuff that's gonna add so much flavor to your meals to not make them sad and tasteless. So I like sauces, I like flavor ingredients, I like anchovies, that's an essential in my household to add salt to things. So for me, if adding a little bit of sauce, yes, it adds in calories and it adds in salt or sugar, but if it means I'm more likely to cook at home, enjoy the process, want to eat my leftovers the next day. That's a big thing. We all have big intentions of eating our leftovers, but if they're a bit too sad, you're not going to eat it. You're not going to eat it. So you're going to save money by actually making more flavorful meals rather than try to save 50 calories here and there. Done is better than perfect.

Jenna
 0:05:54
 Sweet chili sauce is such a winner. Such a winner. And I used to be so scared of it.

Lyndi
 0:05:59
 She got a bad rap.

5
 0:06:00
 She got a bad rap.

Lyndi
 0:06:02
 Yeah. I mean, and so just always having those options with those heaps of flavors. I have all different types of oil, but predominantly I eat extra virgin olive oil. Some tips about extra virgin olive oil, really rich in antioxidants, really lots of polyphenols, a lot of benefits from having it. The extra virgin does matter. We want the extra virgin and not just like an olive oil. And you want to replace it pretty often, so every six weeks, so the antioxidants, they start to oxidise. And so after six weeks, you'd want to have consumed it. So I know often what we do is we buy these really huge things of extra virgin olive oil. You're probably not getting through it. It oxidises once you've opened the cap. And our extra virgin olive oil, we'll be storing it in a dark, cool place, not above the stove, because heat affects those antioxidants and it oxidises at a faster rate, changes the composition of oil, so we want to be keeping that all in a cool spot in the dark.

Jenna
 0:06:55
 Oh, I did not know that.

Lyndi
 0:06:57
 That's why olive oil comes in green bottles and not clear bottles because light affects it as well.

Jenna
 0:07:03
 But what about if like, I'm sure a lot of the Mediterranean diet and people that follow that way of thinking, they've got those huge big drums.

Lyndi
 0:07:12
 They're going through it.

Jenna
 0:07:13
 They're going through it.

Lyndi
 0:07:14
 They go through it. The consumption of olive oil in those countries far exceeds anything we're doing in the Western kind of cultures over here. We need to up our olive oil intake considerably to be meeting them where they are. They're also cooking in community, whereas we're more likely cooking for one or two or four people or six people at home. You know, you're going to get a nona there who's cooking for like the whole village.

Jenna
 0:07:36
 My nona.

Lyndi
 0:07:37
 Your nona. My Nonna.

8
 0:07:39
 Your Nonna.

Lyndi
 0:07:40
 So I think as long as you can get, I mean, personally, we can get through like a one

Jenna
 0:07:44
 liter pretty easily in my family. Yeah, so can we. I remember my mom telling me, obviously my mom had the very diet culture brain as watching my Nonna cook and she was like, the only way you can cook like Nonna does and follow her

Lyndi
 0:07:58
 recipes if you pour the oil and like look away, because you are going to be pouring a lot. Yes, because I feel my brain, where my brain's like, no, just a little smidgen of oil is all you're allowed. But if that oil helps you enjoy that meal a lot more, it makes you cook more at home, it makes you more likely to eat the leftovers, once again, we are winning at life. Winning, we love that. What else? Anything else in the pantry? Loads more in the pantry, but I definitely have snacks for my son. I have dried figs. That's kind of a bit of my go-to at the moment, a high five, a little like, a few figs when I feel like something sweet, dried dates, peanut butters, all that kind of stuff, maple syrups, you'll find white sugar, you'll find all types of plain flour, you won't find coconut flour and tapioca flour and all those kinds of weird ingredients, you

Jenna
 0:08:57
 won't find things of protein powder, that's

Lyndi
 0:09:01
 just that's not my jam, it's not where we're hanging out, just like normal

Jenna
 0:08:50
 Another thing I loved in your pantry is the beautiful little bit of chocolate that you can sprinkle on your coffee every day that you taught me about and it is such a nice way to start your day and show you that you can have chocolate.

Lyndi
 0:09:02
 Yeah, these are the Lindt chocolate flakes. They are expensive, you can get them on sale. I wait for sale, I buy them in bulk. And then I sprinkle them on my choccy and it makes me, on my cappuccino in the morning, it makes me a very happy lady. And it's just like a little sprinkling of chocolate. I like the idea of adding in the foods we love into our day so they don't feel like a special occasion. It's just part of life. Now I have spices. I have spices. This lady loves spices. I have, I want to say, at least 30 different spices in my spice drawer. I don't know if that's a common, that's how much many people have, but I have the full plethora of things that I commonly use and I want, when I am in my kitchen, I want to be able to, like my fully stocked pantry idea, I want to be able to make cooking as enjoyable and experienced as possible so I have the things I need on hand because I find it stressful if I have to think to myself, what should I make for dinner every single night, then rush out and go get those ingredients. I like it to be a little bit planned. If you're like that and you like to have a bit of an idea of what you're cooking, you don't want to spend the rest of your life obsessing about what the hell should I make for dinner. You should definitely try out my Back to Basics app. That's kind of like the point of Back to Basics is to help take the mental load of thinking about what to cook all the time, to help you get those groceries delivered so that they're easy and you can adjust the portion sizes and the things to suit how many people you're cooking for. It is just like family meals done in like 20 minutes because I got your back. I want you to enjoy cooking. Well, my Back to Basics will help you do that.

Jenna
 0:10:28
 It's so much easier to be able to sit down on a Sunday or whatever time you want and spend just like 10 minutes is all it really takes to plan what you want to eat and what you just need to buy.

Lyndi
 0:10:38
 Yeah, I mean, I think so. In Back to Basics, there's like a button that you press and it auto-suggests and then it's like one button. It's one button away from telling you like loads of healthy ideas that you can get.

Jenna
 0:10:48
 There's nothing worse than being at work and thinking, what am I going to make for dinner tonight?

Lyndi
 0:10:52
 Yeah, and okay, so we talk about this whole idea of the leftovers. So there's current self and there's future self, and sometimes current self is more optimistic about what future self is going to want to eat. So we make ourselves these really overly healthy lunches, and then we get to lunch, we don't want what we're eating, we go get takeaway instead.

Jenna
 0:11:09
 And we've made 18 serves of it, and it's in the freezer, and you're like, I don't want any of this.

Lyndi
 0:11:15
 So we need to have a meeting of current self and future self so that they are a little bit more in sync with each other. So that means including carbohydrates in your meal, including flavor, including fat, having the balance and think to yourself, will I actually want to eat this? Does this actually excite me? Because I know lots of people who are like, I can't eat pasta. Of course you can eat pasta. And it's great. It's delicious. It's great. It's satisfying. It's quick. It's easy.

Jenna
 0:11:44
 It ticks so many boxes. Also, back to spices, I know a lot of your recipes you use just like the spice mixes that are just so easy and done for you.

Lyndi
 0:11:51
 Yeah, Mexican spice, lemon herb spice. I love Moroccan spice, Cajun spice. One ingredient, yes, you can make your own with seven different spices, but I don't have time for that. Do you have time for that? No. Yes, it does contain salt but it contains flavor and it's going to get us to where we need to get to a whole lot quicker. We love that. Anything else in the pantry? Listen, I could go on and on. Rices? Oh yes, rices, grains, all that kind of stuff. Pasta, son loves pasta. I like pasta. So we just said we definitely have all these kinds of grains. Oats. I have quinoa, I don't eat it that often. I much prefer Frica and couscous, like pearl couscous is, I feel like adding pearl couscous to anything makes it suddenly so much better. Pearl couscous is great.

Jenna
 0:12:33
 Much better than normal couscous in my opinion.

Lyndi
 0:12:35
 Yeah, I think so. I definitely love a healthier stir fry kind of thing, so like some rice and egg and peas and corn. My son loves it. I love it. It's like such a big last minute kind of freezer-friendly pantry staple only meal in our family. Let's go over to the fridge. Yes, what's in the fridge? So always I have dairy. Personally I can tolerate dairy unless I personally feel unless you can't tolerate dairy or you have like environmental reason not to have dairy. I always have I have dairy so I have milk. I drink light milk only because I grew up on skim so much so that full fat milk makes me feel sick. There's no moral obligation to it. It just feels a bit much for me sometimes. And I personally like to have a glass of milk. I'm the kind of person who will. I like milk in my cereal. I always

Jenna
 0:13:43
 have plain Greek yogurt. I add honey to it sometimes. I don't add honey to it sometimes.

Lyndi
 0:13:48
 I add raspberries. I just see where the weather takes me on that day and we do it. I've recently been getting into Keffiyeh, which is like, it sounds wanky, but there's It's basically like a fermented milk drink that kind of tastes like drinking yogurt.

Jenna
 0:13:42
 Yeah, I don't like the concept of... I've tried it and I feel strange to drink yogurt.

Lyndi
 0:13:47
 Yeah, I get that. I get that. I feel like I really vibe it. I like the probiotics that it gives me. It's kind of like me, instead of taking a probiotic, it's what I do. I like it more than yogurt sometimes and that's why for me, it doesn't feel like wankery. For you to force yourself to do it, it sounds like that would be way greefier for you.

Jenna
 0:14:02
 Yeah.

Lyndi
 0:14:03
 It's like I'd rather eat yogurt than drink yogurt. When it comes to yogurt, I like the idea of being able to get the plain Greek and just adjust it yourself. Sometimes you get yogurts that are sold to you being like, it's 93% fat-free, which means it's 7% fat, which means it's a pretty high fat kind of thing. Just be mindful of all that labeling and things that they're trying to sell you. If you're going for non-dairy yogurts, I'd be going for stuff that has added probiotics, please do that. I have all cheeses in my household, I'm a big fan of cheese, I like dairy as well. I do have butter, I can't say I use it often, but I definitely like it, there is an option, because some things are gonna taste better with butter. It's just not my daily cooking fat of choice, because extra virgin olive oil just has,

7
 0:14:47
 you know, it's good for my heart health,

Lyndi
 0:14:49
 so it's there for that.

Jenna
 0:14:51
 And Greek yogurt is just such a versatile thing to have in the fridge. It can go on anything.

Lyndi
 0:14:56
 She helps me a lot, that lady.

Jenna
 0:14:58
 When you get into it, it's like sometimes, because if you just want to whip together like a bit of a vegetarian Mexican burrito bowl type thing, a lot of that stuff, rice, beans, cheese, you have in the cupboards. You don't often just always have sour cream lying around, but Greek yogurt, sub it in.

Lyndi
 0:15:16
 Yeah, I use it a lot for that kind of thing, or like dolloping in soups, or adding to curries that are too spicy, making tzatziki out of it. Yeah, yeah, she's adding value. Adding it to smoothies, you know?

6
 0:15:27
 Yes.

Lyndi
 0:15:28
 She's a lady. What else is in the fridge? You'll always find in my fridge pre-marinated tofu.

Jenna
 0:15:35
 Oh, yes, I like this.

Lyndi
 0:15:37
 I know a lot of people can make their own marinades. I personally don't eat enough of it to justify it, but I like to have mackerel, have like just like their pre-marinated. I just like, it's a bit expensive, but for me I just really like having that as like a little snack sometimes, just eat it raw. Or like I added it to our laksa the other night that we had, and that was delicious. You'll often find that. You'll find all fruits and vegetables that are in season pretty much and sometimes we do some, my husband likes to have a bit of a juice in the morning, he makes himself a juice so he's got all that kind of stuff like apple, carrot, ginger, whatever. I'm trying to grow lettuce in my garden at the moment. I like to grow all herbs in my garden. I'm a bit of a struggling gardener and I'm trying to grow a garden that my husband thinks costs a lot of money, but I really enjoy. It's a hobby. I'm getting better. One day I'll be good. Right now I'm in the beginner phase. Anyway, I do have all my herbs and my lettuces, so I do like to have those, and that's been awesome to have. Pro tip if you want to grow herbs, don't just buy one. You have to commit to a certain herb that you want. So parsley, for example, don't just buy one pot of parsley and stick it in your garden and think that's going to be enough. What's going to happen is you're going to harvest it, you're going to be finished with parsley, now you have to wait two weeks before the parsley grows back. No, when we do a herb you want at least four plants, ideally six, so you constantly have a full lush supply of that herb, a minimum by two, right? By a lot. And so that way you can just say a hand on heart, you always have that herb on hand.

Jenna
 0:17:13
 What about eggs?

Lyndi
 0:17:14
 Always have eggs, absolutely. Free range, for me that's important. What else do I have?

5
 0:17:24
 Sauces in the fridge?

Lyndi
 0:17:25
 Oh, heaps of sauces. So much sauce, so much hot sauce, so much like I have maple syrup, I have all that kind of stuff in there, lots of flavor ingredients, my anchovies that are opened. The top shelf of my fridge is very much like fermented vegetables, so like pickles, krauts and kimchi and stuff like that. My husband's kind of into the pickle thing, he likes the jalapenos. So

Jenna
 0:17:52
 that's definitely a bit of a thing.

Lyndi
 0:17:55
 Preserves are in there as well like chutneys and stuff like that. What about meat? Yeah, yes and no. I feel myself eating less meat these days. I feel like when I'm out and about to get my iron, especially now that I'm pregnant, I'm definitely like, okay, cool, I'll get my red meat a couple of times a week. It's something that I'll order when I'm out, but when I'm eating at home, I think we generally do more vegetarian meals. Maybe we buy a meat once a week, but that is a bit of a conscious decision, trying to eat a little bit more. If you're eating a lot of meat, you're not having that much space for your legumes and But apart from that, I want to have exciting fruit in my fridge. I am so sick of boring ass fruit that no one wants to eat. If you're struggling to get your fruit intake for the day, which is one to two serves, that's because you have sad ass fruit in your fridge.

Jenna
 0:18:44
 That's fruit you like.

Lyndi
 0:18:45
 Yeah, and then I eat a mango. I have one mango that I'm excited about in my fridge, I'm going to go eat her. Not just like if I only want to have half of her, I'll have half of her, but most likely I'll have the whole thing because that's how much I want. I'm into papaya at the moment. I'm into passion fruit. I'm into things that are in season. I'm constantly varying up what I'm eating. Last season it was persimmons and sumacitrus and they were really exciting me. Just constantly trying out those new fruits. I know they cost a little bit more, but if you actually end up eating them, then it's way more valuable than an apple that goes sad. What's that meme where it's like taking my apple on its daily excursion out of the house and returning it back into the fridge? How many of us do that? So apples are boring. Make them interesting. We just had some peanut butter with our apples and it was delicious.

Jenna
 0:19:33
 It was delicious. I think we're up to the freezer.

Lyndi
 0:19:35
 Yeah, so freezer, I will have pretty much all frozen fruits in there, like frozen bananas. I do try and do that. A lot of frozen meals for my son. So we like to meal prep for him. I'd like to say he eats, he does, he can eat whatever we normally eat. I have a toddler, he's almost two. But I, he just, I like him to have like his own little balanced meals. I definitely want him eating meat at home. So he has his little meals that he has in the freezer, ready to go. Apart from that, I would have ice cream somewhere. I love ice cream, big fan of it. What else? Probably some puff pastry from the way there in case I need it. I have that need. Oh, do you want to have frozen dumplings? Frozen dumplings, amazing. Oh my goodness, they go in the air fryer and that is just like such a, that's our like Sunday night, couldn't be bothered cooking thing is like some veggie dumplings. Yum. So good. What else do you have? Bread? I actually don't keep bread in the freezer. Bread's one of the things that I'm like just not in the routine of purchasing. It's a weird thing. You don't buy bread? Not really. No moral obligation to it. I'm just not in the habit of buying bread. I suppose the times that I would have bread is like I have toast for breakfast but if you're really on the muesli train. Yeah I'm a muesli train girl. You know I'm a papaya. Go get my papaya. You know I'll have sandwiches when I'm out. I just never think of sandwiches as a lunchtime option either. Yeah. Not a bad name.

Jenna
 0:20:57
 Sandwiches are a great lunchtime option.

Lyndi
 0:20:59
 I love them as a lunchtime option.

Jenna
 0:21:00
 I think that's the whole freezer.

Lyndi
 0:21:02
 I hope I've kind of covered it. I think the only thing I haven't mentioned is the fact that I have a snack section in my pantry.

Jenna
 0:21:09
 Oh, snacks. We have a whole other episode on snacks.

4
 0:21:11
 We do.

Lyndi
 0:21:12
 Please go listen to the snacks episode. I have a whole shelf that's just snacks. So when I open my pantry or my fridge, I don't want to go, I've got nothing to eat. I want to have a sensation of, oh, look at all the lovely options I have. So I have a section that's at eye level that I can just carve out where these are where my snacks are kept. So I might have like my roasted fava chickpea beans. I have my dried figs, my dried dates. I've got seeds. I've got nuts. Miso soups. What else is in there? Chocolate. Definitely chocolate. Love chocolate. Mmm, chocolate. Ali has a dark chocolate I just like to get really excited about.

Jenna
 0:21:48
 It's very good.

Lyndi
 0:21:49
 It's so good. Little things of popcorn. My husband likes, you know, like little rice cake-y things. Yeah, love me a, you know, that kind of thing. I've got, yeah, that's kind of like my options that I have right

Jenna
 0:22:05
 there. I feel like as we've seen here, you're a dietitian, you're a nutritionist, and you still eat all of these normal foods.

Lyndi
 0:22:11
 Do I sound normal? Do I sound crazy? Or do I sound like a little bit of both?

Jenna
 0:22:15
 No, I think you just sound like a person who leads a healthy, varied diet.

Lyndi
 0:22:21
 Yeah, and you know, the thing is that I do try and keep a healthier pantry fridge. That is important to me. I feel like it helps me feel good but what you need to know is whenever I'm out I like I know at any time if I want to go get anything from the shops I can go get it when I'm

Jenna
 0:22:47
 eating out I can eat whatever nothing is off the limits to me at all so don't in any way think that I restrict in any way this is just like what helps me feel good in my body yeah because I think

Lyndi
 0:23:08
 it's about we still want to eat foods

Jenna
 0:22:52
 do focus on eating more whole foods, making sure you're getting in all the veggies and legumes because you're filling up on other stuff, you're not eating those. And then when you're out and about, you're not going to be scouring the menu for things that are high in legumes when you're just

Lyndi
 0:23:05
 like, I'm just going to eat what I feel like eating. That's exactly how it is. I'm cooking at home more, I'm cooking foods that I enjoy, I'm crowding in the healthy stuff so that I don't have to stress any other time. I never stress There's no stress. There's no stress. Just food you enjoy. Thank you for the tour of your kitchen. You're welcome. Thank you everyone for joining us. If you do have any questions that you'd like answered, please leave me a DM at nudeunscornnutritionist on Instagram. I'd like to hear from your questions, leave me a voice message if you're feeling up to it. And we'll chat to you next time.

3
 0:23:37
 Do you feel like you know what you should be eating, but like you feel completely out of control of food? You're either eating perfectly or you're face planting into the

Lyndi
 0:23:44
 fridge. Well, if you've got binge eating or you're struggling with emotional eating, I can help. Check out my program. Keep it real. I've got lots I can teach you and hey, you don't have to be a binge eater for the rest of your life. You can get 20% off Keeper Real when you use the code podcast when you check out via the website and because I don't want this to be just another failed attempt for you, I'm offering a 30-day money back guarantee because you know what? You've got to give these things a go, no risk. You've got to give these things a go, no risk. Give it a try.