The best advice I ever came across when starting grain-free was to know that when you are shopping at your regular grocery store, avoid the middle of the store. That’s where all the processed foods live, your crackers, cereals, breads, candy, canned sauces. It’s where all the preservatives hang out with foods with labels 20 items long. I mean honestly, if you can’t pronounce the ingredient, should we really be eating it?
Here is a list of ingredients that you should keep on hand in your pantry, freezer and fridge at all times
- Eggs Always have a carton of eggs in the fridge. Grain – Free baking requires a fair bit more eggs than regular baking by 2-3 x the amount. As I’ve learned in my egg shopping experience, grass fed is best, and the more orange the better – the more rich in nutrients, and ultimately the tastier.
- Coconut milk, or regular milk from grass fed cows. I personally love the flavour of coconut and do enjoy the fact that coconut milk keeps longer than regular dairy. So you may want to stock up on some organic coconut milk, store it i the pantry for when baking calls for it. Of course you can use regular milk if you are fine with dairy as well.
- Coconut flour A fundamental basic for baking. I suggest stocking up on a large portion of this, as it keeps well and you will be using a lot of it for your morning baking goods.
- Almond Flour Great for baking cookies and other baked goods. A great alternative to coconut flour.
- Vinegar Necessary for weekly stock making and other cooking recipes. Have multiple flavors such as red wine, apple cidar etc. for variation with salad dressings
- Honey I can not express the importance of honey. This will be your sweetener for most ingredients. A definite must. The thicker kind is often tastier, but the liquid kind is easier for baking.
- Maple syrup Great for adding to yogurt and for other recipes. A natural sweetener and alternative to honey. Great for sweetening meat sauces.
- Coconut Oil Great for cooking and baking
- Coconut Ghee and butter
- Olive Oil Great for cooking, baking and most importantly, salad dressings.
- Almonds You will need these for making almond flour. Also a great snack when hungry.
- Baking powder and Baking Soda…you want your muffins to rise don’t you?!
- Bones Another great tip is to either keep stocking beef and chicken bones either by picking them up from the store from time to time, or keeping ones after cooking. You will need these for making stock. It’s good to keep an extra box of chicken stock in the pantry in case you run out of your own and want to make some soup.
- Spices -Lots of them, pick your favorites, and don’t forget salt and pepper. When picking salt make sure it is the mineral kind, an off-white color, don’t buy white salt, that has no minerals or nutritional value.
- Garlic Great for flavoring, I buy the minced garlic in a jar, its easiest that way.
- Herbs are great as well – basil, Parmesan, cilantro – buy as needed though as they do go bad, or dry them to use regularly.
- Vanilla Extract – you’ll use this a lot in baking.
- LEAN MEATS – i can’t stress this enough.
- Vegetables, lots of them, frozen or otherwise. Especially spaghetti squash, butternut squash and sweet potatoes.
- Fruits. You can freeze these in your freezer and use for smoothies, snacks etc.
