Grocery Shopping Tips 🛒🛍

Grocery shopping can be very overwhelming, especially when there are so many products and places to shop at. With a few tricks and tips, I’ll help you navigate the grocery store to get the best quality products for the best price!

Your best choice is always to shop the outsides of the markets and to avoid the aisles (that’s where the processed junk is). Even foods marketed as health foods are often ultra processed and should be avoided.

As a rule, our family tries to minimize the amount of processed foods we eat and try to make as much as we can from scratch. We do however use some bread and pasta swaps in addition to some dairy swaps and nut butters that are minimally processed.

We shop mainly at Sprouts and Whole Foods for specialty products and try to utilize local farmers and online butchers for local and regeneratively friendly meats and produce. We find that shopping locally and with online butchers is not only cheaper but also more nutritious and tasty. Often times, online butchers like US Wellness Meats will have sales where we bulk up on frozen meat!

We also love Thrive Market which is an online platform that sells healthy products at a discounted price (think Costco, both are membership based).

We also love Costco for some staples such as water, raw organic nuts, and sometimes they have bulk versions of healthy companies (for example they have Jojos Chocolate, wild planet sardines, Siete almond flour tortillas and Primal Kitchen sauces in stock right now)! Just make sure to read the labels since sometimes the formulations are different.

Protein 💪🏻

We get most of our meat and fish from online merchants such as US Wellness Meats, Northstar Bison, ButcherBox, White Oak Pastures and Vital Choice Seafood since those are places we trust in regards to quality and animal welfare. Check out my guides to regenerative agriculture, nose to tail eating, beef/bison, lamb, pork, and poultry!

ButcherBox is a great subscription meat service and we get a large box with cuts of our choice every month. We usually load up on their super yummy bacon, ground Turkey and Hot Dog sausages 🙌🏻 it’s very economical and we know we are getting high quality heirloom products!

US Wellness Meats is also great for all meats but I like to get poultry, beef and lamb here. They also make great organ meat sausages like Braunschweiger and Liverwurst.

Northstar Bison is my go-to for of course bison, and more “exotic” meats like rabbit and elk. Their turkey legs and tomahawk ribs are also to die for 🙌🏻

Using my referral link you can save 10$ on your first order

White Oak Pastures is also great for pork and poultry!

Whole Foods sells great prosciutto (from La Quercia) and Pork Liver Pate (Les Trois Petit Chochons). That’s the only deli meat we get, since deli meat is often times super processed and full of fillers.

Some grocery stores like Whole Foods also carry Force of Nature, which is a brand dedicated to regeneratively raising their animals with a species appropriate diet! They have regeneratively raised grass-fed and finished bison and beef, pastured heirloom chicken and pork, as well as some wild caught venison and boar. Usually I can find their burger patties and ground meats at the store, but their website also has steaks and sausages. They have a really yummy ancestral ground blend (meat and organs) which is a great way to eat nose to tail!

For other suppliers that practice regenerative agriculture, also called holistic management, check out the Savory Institute!

Many grocery stores also sell high quality canned SMASH fish and tuna. Our go-to brands are SafeCatch and Wild Planet (thrive market sells these brands as well) or Vital Choice Seafood. When buying canned fish, make sure it’s either in water or extra virgin olive oil!

Vital Choice Seafood is one of the only sources of fish filets/shell fish/scallops/etc that I trust. We love the King and Sockeye Salmons and the Nova Lox 🐟

I recently discovered Rainbow King Foods which sell very high quality smoked and fresh trout! I love the product so much that I have started to work together with the company. You can get yours at a discount using my code CUREATED and this link!

My seafood guide can be found here

Eggs 🥚: we get our pasture raised eggs from local farmers, but grocery stores also are selling a wide variety of pasture raised organic eggs! When buying eggs, look for pasture raised, and a verified humane label. Additionally, eggs should not be from vegetarian fed hens, since chickens are omnivores! Learn more about eggs here!

Veggies 🍅

We eat a large variety of non starchy veggies and greens, most of which we get from local farmers or farmers markets. It’s a lot cheaper and a great way to support local agriculture. When we don’t get something at the market, I always buy organic and ideally a heirloom variety (these are usually more nutrient dense). We don’t buy potatoes, legumes, pumpkins or any other starchy vegetables since those are inflammatory (they raise insulin). We eat the rainbow other than that!

Staples include: zucchini, bell pepper, tomato, cucumber, broccoli, cauliflower, romanesco, bok choy, green beans, cabbages, carrots in moderation, spinach, Swiss chard, etc.

We also buy some frozen vegetables such as broccoli or Brussels sprouts which I love to throw into a stir fry for lunch when I don’t have much time! I usually get those at Sprouts or Whole Foods and find that frozen organic vegetables are often times a lot more economical than fresh ones. For some vegetables it really doesn’t matter .

I like Stahlbusch Farms brand frozen veggies since they are organic and farmed regeneratively 💪🏻

Salad and Herbs: we get these exclusively from a local hydroponic farmer, but I know that not everyone has access to these. Your best bet it always organic and if you’re buying salad, I recommend to buy a living lettuce 🥬

You can also buy herb pots like basil and rosemary and keep those on your windowsill 🪟

Avocados 🥑: ideally organic and if possible not-gassed. I am lucky to have a subscription with Avocado Organic which is a farm in California that grows avocados without any pesticides and herbicides. They pick the avocados the day of shipment and send them straight to my house. With proper storage, I have a perfectly ripe avocado every day 😋

Cooking Fats: we cook exclusively with ancestral fats which we purchase either through Thrive Market or at Whole Foods. Listed below are my preferred brands:

Olive Oil: we use Especially Puglia where we adopted an olive tree. We get freshly harvested olive oil sent to our house.

Avocado Oil: Chosen Foods is a great source

Coconut Oil: we use Nutiva which is sold at most grocers or on Thrive Market

Ghee: we use Pure Indian Foods Ghee exclusively since they are tested to be milk protein free. You can buy it directly from them or from US Wellness Meats

Butter: any grass-fed and pasture raised butter works but we love Lewis Road Creamery

Tallow and Lard: we use FatWorks sold both at Whole Foods and Thrive Market. Regenerative farms like White Oak Pastures or US Wellness Meats also sell lard and tallow.

Condiments: this is another category of products that we buy that are processed. Thrive Market and many grocers like Whole Foods and Sprouts have a wide range of paleo/keto friendly sauces.

We love Primal Kitchen and use their hollandaise, ketchup and ranch dips. It’s all avocado oil based which is very important.

Chosen Foods sells our favorite mayonnaise which is based on coconut MCTS (it’s called Keto Mayo) but their regular avocado mayonnaise is super yummy (as is Sir Kenigstons avocado oil Mayo).

Rao’s Homemade is the only line of tomato sauces that we trust since they don’t use any funky oils or fillers! It’s great for Bolognese Sauce, lasagnas or as a keto pizza topping 😍 it’s sold both at Thrive Market and also many grocery stores

Whole Foods own 365 organic brand also has a yummy chunky salsa which is without any added sugars and tastes pretty good as well! I just advise you to always check the labels since formulations can change!

Nut Butters: most grocers or Thrive Market sell high quality nut butters. Check out my guide here!

My newest obsession is tahini from Seeds of Collaboration. You can get yours at their website and use code cure.eated to save 20%! I love the pesto flavor, it’s such a treat on roasted veggies or in my tuna pasta bowl 😉

Chocolate and Treats: my complete guide to chocolate is posted here but most grocery stores sell some sugar free brands including evolved chocolate and Jojo’s!

We get most of our chocolate directly from the supplier website to benefit from promo codes as chocolate can be expensive!

You can save on your order at Bulletproof by using code CURE.EATED at checkout. I love their milk style chocolate in both the original and almond variety.

The Good Chocolate is also a great alternative, you can also save some money by using my link. My favorite chocolate is the ginger or the coconut turmeric variety. They come in a few different sizes making them perfect for on the go!

Marigolds Foods also makes great fat fueled cookies, we love pecan chocolate crisp but they have other yummy flavors too. You can also save using code CURE.EATED at checkout

Body Health Bars from are Full of essential amino acids and come in 4 tasty flavors. We love brownie and mocha chip. These make a great workout fuel or treat with coffee! You can also save using my link!

Ke Fuels also makes yummy high fat bars which are really clean and are a great granola bar style snack!

Bread and Pasta Swaps: I have a whole guide posted here , most products I can get either at Whole Foods or Sprouts, Thrive Market or directly from the merchant online (look for promo codes 😉)!

Almond Butter Cups 🍫

If you’re an ooze lover like me, these will not last long 😇

The cold crisp white chocolate encases the creamy almond butter, and a cocoa dusted almond gives it an irresistible crunch!

As always, this recipe is chock full of healthy fats like cacao, coconut, or optionally ghee, and of course almond! Since it’s sugar free, this is truly a food and not a candy (as chocolate should be 🍫)

To make you need:

3 ounces cacao butter

3 ounces coconut butter or ghee (or a mixture)

1.5 ounces allulose + more for toasting the almonds

Almond butter for filling (I like condensed almond milk from Blue Mountain Organics) – check out my nut butter swap guide!

Cacao powder to dust the almonds

Raw almonds

How to:

Begin by heating up the cacao butter and coconut butter/ghee over a water bath. Use a whisk to stir them together slowly. Add in the allulose when the fats are melted.

Next use a spoon to cover the bottom of the nut butter cup molds. I got mine on Amazon.

Place them into the freezer to cool. While they are cooling, Toast/caramelize the almonds in a pan using allulose and cacao powder. Make sure to move them frequently and to keep the temperature low so that they don’t burn.

Remove the mold from the freezer and use a spoon to add a dollop or almond butter into the center of each mold. Place an almond into the center as well and move them back into the freezer.

When they have set, use a spoon to cover them with the remaining white chocolate, and back into the freezer they go!

Store in an airtight container in the freezer or fridge and enjoy as a fat fueled snack or desert !

These also make a nice gift in a truffle box with these hazelnut truffles, white chocolate hazelnut bark, coconut cream filled chocolate eggs, or these funky marbled chocolates!

Savory Jungle Peanuts 🥜

I have to be honest, I am a sucker for peanuts…unfortunately most peanuts are a no-go since they are very moldy and are actually a legume.

I recently discovered a heirloom variety of peanuts called jungle peanuts, they are slightly purple in color and taste very similar to the modern variety. Good news is, they are essentially mold free 🤩

I would say that they have a more earthy taste than regular peanuts, so we are giving them a savory roast today 👩🏻‍🍳

It’s important to roast nuts on a low temperate so that the polyunsaturated fats do not oxidize. I’m doing a low and slow roast at 200°F for an hour.

I think garlic and herb seasoning goes will with just about everything so here we go 🤩

To make these you need:

Jungle peanuts (or another earthy nut such as walnuts, Sancha Inchi, Macadamia or Almond) 🥜

Ghee 🧈

Garlic and herb seasoning – I used Pizza Party from Burlap and Barrel 🧄

How to:

Preheat the oven to 200°F

Melt a little bit of ghee and toss the nuts in it. This is so that the coating sticks and that the nuts crisp up a little. Coat with garlic and herb seasoning and throw them onto a baking dish lined with parchment paper! I had some extra coating left over so I tossed in some walnuts at the end 🙌🏻

Bake for about an hour or until crispy and enjoy as a fat-fueled snack 🙌🏻

Curried Paprika Chicken Legs 🍗

Dark meat is the best part of the chicken 😉 Who agrees with me?

For starters, it’s definitely more nutrient dense than its white meat counterpart, the chicken breast, which contains almost only lean protein! Don’t get me wrong, amino acids are very important but with dark meat, you’re getting more bang for the buck and a delicious flavor too!

The darker meat and bone in cuts (like drumsticks, wings, thighs and leg quarters) contain more collagen and connective tissue as well as glucosamine which helps our body build connective tissue, skin and nails, and results in a deeper flavor and more juicy meat! Plus you’re eating nose to tail, which I think is our responsibility as a conscious consumer!

These cuts also contain more healthy fatty acids, especially if the animal was fed a species appropriate diet. I really love Northstar Bison or Force of Nature as my source, since their chicken are not fed corn or soy. To learn why this is important, check out my guide to chicken here!

To save on your leg quarters at Northstar Bison, you can use my referral link!

This recipe is a great alternative to my curried chicken roast, especially if you’re only wanting to feed 1-2 people!

The best way to prepare this is in the airfryer, but I am sure an oven will work too. You may have to play with timing.

To make this delicious dish you need:

Chicken leg quarters, skin on and bone in, mine are from Northstar Bison. I made one for each person. 🍗

Cultured ghee 🧈

Sweet Paprika Powder 🌶

Curry Powder 🍛

Flaked Sea Salt 🧂

Butter, MCT Mayo or Primal Ketchup for Serving 🤩

To make:

Remove chicken from package, rinse and pat dry. Heat your air-fryer to 400°F.

Season your chicken on both sides and under the skin with salt, curry and sweet paprika powder.

Place legs into the airfryer and cook for 30 minutes. The fleshier side should face up. Flip after 20 minutes. After 25 minutes, check to see if it’s cooked through. Larger legs may need longer.

Let rest and serve with butter, or your other favorite condiments. We love to eat these with curried cauliflower, Brussels sprouts with mustard sauce, bell pepper dip, guacamole, and rainbow veggies!

Baked Tomato and Eggplant 🍆🍅

This is a delicious dish that is very easily prepared and goes well with many dishes such as halibut, chicken legs, or even an egg pancake 🐔

To make this you only need a handful of ingredients and a bit of time 😉

To feed 2 you need:

1 medium eggplant 🍆

2 large tomatoes 🍅

Extra Virgin Olive Oil 🫒

Salt and optimally Garlic and Herb Seasoning 🧂

How to:

Preheat the oven to 350°F and place the whole eggplant onto a roasting dish! Roast for about 35 minutes until tender.

Next, poke some holes into the eggplant and season with salt and olive oil! Cut the tomatoes in halve and place them into the roasting dish as well. Drizzle with olive oil and the garlic and herb seasoning and roast for about 15-20 minutes!

Enjoy 😊

Easy Lunch Noodle Bowl 🍲

I love a yummy veggie, meat and noddle bowl for lunch with lots of ghee, tahini and avocado 🤩

It’s a bit of a wild mix but it melts together to form a super succulent and nourishing bowl 🥘

I always use a staple template and tend to rotate my proteins based on what I have handy. It’s similar to my tuna pasta recipe.

My favorite pasta swap to use are the Miracle Noodle Shirataki Spaghetti but you can check out my other swaps here!

For my proteins, I love anything from left over turkey fajitas, shredded chicken roast, ground elk/bison/boar, bison brats or braised bison shanks.

If I want to eat more nose to tail, I like to choose ancestral blends (either beef, chicken or elk), which are a mix of meat and organs like liver, kidney and heart. Force of Nature or Northstar Bison are great sources. You can save 10$ at Northstar Bison using my referral link.

Sometimes I crave seafood with my bowl and I love to mash in some canned SMASH fish such as mackerel or anchovies for some omegas 💪🏻 or I use some leftover baked trout or salmon!

For veggies I normally just use the veggies that I’m prepping for breakfast and dinner and throw them into a bowl until I’m ready to use them. This saves me a bunch of prep and clean up time later.

This is the basic template:

Noodles + colorful veggies + brassica veggies + greens + herbs + salt/spices + lots of fat

Noodles: check out my guide, my favorite are the shirataki spaghetti

Colorful veggies: carrots, bell pepper, colorful cauliflower, green beans, zucchini, etc

Brassica veggies: Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, romanesco, etc

Greens: spinach, Swiss chard, dandelion greens, kale, bok choy, arugula

Herbs: chives, basil, parsley, etc

Spices: I really like Pure Indian Foods Vindaloo Curry right now

Fats: you can use any ancestral fat, I love butter or ghee for cooking and then love to drizzle over tahini and mash in avocado. You could also throw in some pumpkin or sunflower seeds for some crunch!

Below is my step by step guide to make the ultimate noodle lunch bowl 🤩

Today I made mine with left-over duck wings 🦆

How to:

Start by heating up ghee in a pan, add in the chopped veggies (everything except the leafy greens).

Season with salt, pepper and anything else you’d like. I chose Vindaloo Curry because that’s what I used to season the duck wings. Let that cook for about 10-15 minutes, and move the veggies around once in a while.

When your veggies have the desired texture, add in the leafy greens and the miracle noodles. I like to cook the miracle noodles in ghee in a separate pan to crisp them up a bit but this is optional. They’ll soak in the seasoning and ghee and become very yummy.

Let the greens wilt and then mix everything together, season to taste.

Prepare or heat up the protein of your choice and serve. If you’re using shredded chicken or another precooked meat, you can also cook that together with the noodles (they’ll soak up the flavor 🤩) and add that in with the veggies.

The wings I made separately and just enjoyed on the side but normally I’ll mash in my protein or choice, be it a can or fish, ground meat or shredded beef/chicken.

Lastly I drizzle tahini over it all and mash in avocado 🥑

I love using my favorite tahini (SOCO) to make this yummy side. You can use code cure.eated to save 20% on their site!

Warm Brussels Sprout Salad with Mustard Dressing 🥗

I love Brussels sprouts, even if they are just boiled with nutmeg, salt and plenty of butter 😍 but I also like to get creative and put a spin on things, so today I am making a warm sprout salad with a savory dressing 🙌🏻

Serve with roast beef tenderloin, duck breast, turkey drumsticks or pork Tournedos 🥩

To make this for 2-3 people you need:

1 pound of Brussels sprouts

Ghee

Salt and pepper

3 tablespoons of mustard

1/2 cup coconut milk or heavy cream of you can tolerate dairy protein

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

To make:

Preheat the oven to 400°F

Cut the Brussels sprouts into halves, toss them in ghee and salt/pepper and roast for 10–15 minutes (until crispy). Make sure to place them flat side down.

While they are roasting make the dressing by combining the coconut milk, vinegar and mustard with the spices. You can also add all the dressing ingredients into a mason jar and shake, shake, shake. You can scale it up and enjoy it the next day 😇

When the veggies are ready, toss them in the dressing and enjoy 😉

Nut Butter Swaps 🍫🌰🧈

Many conventional nut butters contain additives like seed oils and sugar that turn these super fat fuels into inflammatory snacks 😒

Nut butter can be enjoyed on grain free breads or can be used as a base for baking and fat bombs 💣

The beauty is that their neutral taste allows them to be enjoyed sweet and savory so creativity is endless 🙌🏻😍

When buying nut butters, always make sure that the only ingredients are raw nuts (not roasted since that means they were roasted in toxic oils) and sea salt or spices like cinnamon or vanilla. There are also chocolate flavored nut butters with cacao which are very tasty 🌰🍫😋

I recommend that you stay away from peanut butter (peanuts are actually legumes) since they oxidize quickly and often contain a lot of mycotoxins which can really damage your gut and other body systems 🚨🥜

Artisana Organics has a line of nut butters without any additives, and they have interesting flavors like macadamia, hazelnut, walnut, cashew in addition to classics like coconut butter and almond butter 🌰🥥

NuttZo has a line of functional nut butter blends which are usually a mix of all kinds of nuts and seeds including almond, coconut, chia, Brazil nuts, flax and pecan! They also have a keto chocolate nut butter which is the all time favorite in our house 🍫🌰 be careful though because some blends contain peanut and coconut sugar (look for keto on the label)!

A bit of information about the individual nuts 🌰

Sprouted nut butters are always the highest quality and should be bought if available. Sprouting helps minimize toxins and lectins in the nuts and makes them easier to absorb. The same goes for seed butters like pumpkin, sesame (tahini) and sunflower seed butters and whole nuts/seeds!

I recently discovered SOCO tahini which tastes super yummy, especially the pesto flavor tastes awesome on veggies such as roasted cauliflower or on my egg pancake 😍👩🏻‍🍳

To try this super yummy tahini, you can go to the SOCO website and use code cure.eated at checkout to save 20% 🙌🏻

Pumpkin seed butter is a good swap for those who are trying to get a bit more protein in their diet, but overall, nut/seed butters should not be your main protein source, and should be seen as a nourishing fat fuel to enjoy with other protein sources!

I do want to point out that it’s better to limit the consumption of nut and seed butters (apart from coconut) since they contain a higher amount of omega 6 fatty acids and the key to optimal health is a balanced omega fatty acid profile (read more here)!

Check out the nutrient profiles!

To really get the freshest nut/seed butter, you can always make your own, which helps lowering the risk of a rancid fat. To do that, but fresh and raw nuts (store them in the fridge or freezer until use) and grind them into a spread using a food processor. If the paste isn’t spreadable enough, you can always add a healthy ancestral fat into the mix like a splash of avocado oil (neutral tasting) or coconut oil.

Nutiva also makes a super yummy coconut manna (butter) which I also like to bake with as an alternative to grass-fed ghee (both are heat stable)!

Tomato Meatball Riced Cauliflower with Fresh Greens 🍅

This is another simple spring time lunch that utilizes these are homemade chicken meatballs and super handy riced cauliflower 😍

We give it an upgrade with fresh tomatoes, arugula, spices and lemon infused olive oil 🍋🍅

To learn more about where I get my chicken, read my guide here!

To make one portion you need:

4-5 medium meatballs- recipe is here

Handful of cherry tomatoes 🍅

1.5 cups riced cauliflower 🍚

Diced onion or green onion 🧅

Garlic butter 🧈

Salt, pepper and Garlic and herb seasoning 🧂

Handful of fresh arugula 🥬

Lemon infused extra virgin olive oil 🍋

Tomato sauce 🥫- we like Raos Marinara or check out this homemade recipe

How to make:

Heat up garlic butter in a pan, and dice the onions. Add those in and sauté, then add in the riced cauliflower, tomatoes and spices and lit it simmer a bit.

When the veggies have the desired consistency, add in the chicken meatballs (with the sauce if you’re making that) or your favorite vegetable oil free tomato sauce. We use Raos Marinara! Let it simmer and bit and then stir in the arugula.

Serve with more garlic butter or fresh avocado slices 🥑

Egg Frittata 🍳

This is another one of my favorite to-go breakfasts since it travels very well! I love to top this off with avocado which I simply take in my purse…I know it sounds weird but avocados are very travel friendly 🥑

This is an upgrade to my egg pancake, which I typically eat for breakfast with a side of ghee sautéed breakfast veggies 😉

Of course, like everything, this tastes a lot better fresh so it also makes a great at-home breakfast or easy lunch!

One good hack is to make a double portion since it stores well in the fridge!

If you don’t have smoked salmon but want a protein boost, left over shredded chicken, bacon or ground meat works well too!

To make two portions you need:

4-6 eggs 🥚

1 finely chopped zucchini 🥒

Handful of spinach 🥬

1 chopped baby bok choy 🥬

A handful of chopped cauliflower or broccoli florets 🥦

Salt and pepper 🧂

Fresh basil and chives 🌿

Ghee for frying 🧈

Optional: a dash of coconut milk (2 tablespoons), curry powder, smoked salmon 🍣

How to:

Heat up ghee in a pan. Finely chop the veggies and herbs and begin to sauté them in the ghee. Season with salt and pepper and curry powder. Finely chop up the smoked salmon and add it to the veggies.

Combine the eggs, some salt and optimally the coconut milk. Whisk the eggs and pour the batter over the veggies. Fry in ghee for 3-5 minutes until the bottom is set and then place on the lid and let the whole thing set. This takes about another 5 minutes!

Serve with avocado, tahini pepper dip, and lots of butter 🥰