Is there such a thing as nutritionally balanced meals and if so, what does that look like? The way we’re going to ensure our meals are balanced, is to eat real food for each meal.
According to the American Nutrition and Dietetic Association, a balanced meal looks like this:
1/2 of your plate is vegetables and fruit
1/4 of your plate is grains
1/4 of your plate is a “protein source”
Alongside the plate, consume dairy or a fortified dairy alternative and some nuts or seeds. This is a lot of mental gymnastics that needs to happen with each meal.
If you are following a meal plan that does not permit any animal products, such as eggs, dairy or meat then you are going to have to put significant energy into making sure you are satisfying your body with adequate vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, and proteins to meet its demands.
This also doesn’t mean you need to eat a 12 ounce steak 2-3x per day or 4 chicken breasts. You can, but most people are not going to feel awesome doing that, at least not over the long run.
A balanced meal looks like, meat, eggs, whole raw dairy, sprouted grains, fruit, vegetables, wild or black rice, potatoes, sprouts, beans, nuts, seeds, olives and all the other foods that you can pull from a tree, dig out of the ground or butcher.
Along with consuming real, whole foods, we want to consider the amount of energy, satiation, enjoyment, longevity these foods provide.
I am going to give you a balanced meal set up for my family. It is important to recognize that while these are real, whole food meals, they are not based on anyone in my family trying to lose weight or trying to control their blood sugar.
What nutritionally balanced meals look like for my family:
Breakfast
Breakfast is eggs, avocado, sprouts, turmeric, berries or apple slices/nectarines/peaches, depending on what is fresh over the summer. I will have sweet potatoes or of late, a slice of Ezekiel bread with olive oil.
When it comes to my kids, if they want bread for breakfast, which is either Ezekiel bread or my wife’s sourdough bread, then they have to eat it with either a nut butter or eggs.
As of late, my kids have been having an “egg sandwich,” which is a fried egg on top of a piece of buttered toast for 3 days out of the week. The other 3 days, it will often be plain whole yogurt with homemade granola or Purely Elizabeth granola, berries, finely chopped apple slices, cinnamon.
Once a week or every other week, the kids will make almond flour waffles from scratch. If you have blood sugar issues, sourdough bread or sweet potatoes might be too much starch or carbohydrate load for you. For some of my patients, even starting off their morning with fruit can lead to craving sweets the rest of the day.
It is vital to recognize what works for your personal life situation within the umbrella of whole foods.
Lunch
Lunch for me will often be yogurt, homemade granola, berries, 2 scoops of goat whey, and an apple and peanut butter.
For the kids, meat, eggs, smoothie (raw milk, goat whey, peanut butter, frozen banana, or drop the peanut butter and use frozen strawberries), cucumbers, carrots. Meat and cheese sandwiches, muenster cheese is their favorite (some will have lettuce, pickles, tomatoes) and others only meat. Homemade protein balls (oats, goat whey, nut butter, dates, chia, flax, hemp seeds) and apples with peanut butter.
Dinner
- Beef 80% of the time chicken 15% and fish 5%.
- Sweet potatoes, black rice, basmati rice, potatoes
- The most common vegetables are cucumbers, broccoli, carrots, celery, fermented cabbage.
- Mixed greens salad with homemade olive oil vinegar based dressing. The salad is generally quite large so its basically if you are still hungry, well then finish out the salad.
- I do find that the sweet potatoes and especially the wild or black rice greatly enhance how filling the meals are.
This is the reason I keep my starch content from breakfast and lunch pretty small because I don’t like feeling I am having to digest as I go about my day. I don’t want all this energy going to digestion when I have to be thinking creatively and problem solving for patients or do I want to feel weighted down when I am working out.
Now recognize the idea of a nutritionally balanced meal is all marketing and based off organizations trying to convince humanity that it is more important to count proteins, carbs, fats, fibers and calories, than it is to consume whole undenatured food and permit the body to let us know when it is satisfied or need of particular nutrition.
I dare you to eat real whole foods for 30 days rather than focusing on a balanced meal.
These are foods that have only been processed via your cooking or blending them.
Put all your focus into real food.
Once real food is established, then we can start dialing in the most optimal whole foods routine for you as an individual.
Be prepared, as it will likely have a massive positive impact on every facet of your life.
