Healthy Swaps: Clean Up Your Kitchen and Boost Your Wellness!

What's hiding in your kitchen and in your fridge that might be harming your health?

Today, we're going to dive into that question.

Welcome back to Everyday Vitality.

This is your host, Kristen.

Welcome to Everyday Vitality, the podcast that empowers you to live your healthiest, most vibrant life naturally.

I'm Kristen Fitch, your guide to natural wellness.

Over the years, I've learned the importance of embracing holistic health, from clean living to ancestral practices to help me feel my best and keep me improving my wellness.

In each episode, we'll explore how alternative health nourishing habits and natural therapies can enhance your energy by vitality and health.

Let's dive in and make every day a step towards living well naturally.

Okay, friends, here we go.

We are going to talk about what are some of the products and ingredients that might be hiding in plain sight in your kitchen pantry and your fridge that are causing inflammation throughout your body?

And what are some easy swaps you can make?

All right, friends, it's time.

We are going to talk products, kitchen products.

What foods do we have in our pantries or our fridges?

It might not be our best friends.

So we're going to talk about what's in our food that we might want to get out.

And then are there other alternatives that cost comparable prices that we can replace those with?

So the main things we're going to talk about today are salad dressings or condiments, I should say, and condiments, peanut butter.

And then we're going to talk about our crackers and our breads and pastas.

Okay, so those are kind of the main categories.

And this is a work in progress.

Now, there's some people, right, that might listen to the show that they've already, they have a super clean kitchen, super clean pantry and fridge, and we can just all applaud them.

That, that's amazing.

But there's the rest of us who we're on this health journey and we just, it is a step by step improving process.

Right.

The more we know.

And then as we buy products, we try to make a better choice, especially if it's a choice that we can buy something for a comparable price to replace a.

And get a higher quality product.

And so that's what I want to help you do.

And here's the first thing.

I have three sons.

I'm married and I have three sons.

So there's five of us in the house.

My sons are in high school and college age.

And to be honest with you, they aren't going to eat all the swaps that I try to make.

And so I do still have some of the stuff in the house that I'd really rather not have.

But, you know, we do the best we can, right?

And so that's one thing about the show is we are just trying to do a better job than we did yesterday.

We're trying to become more educated and then as we can make better choices for ourselves.

Even if you're making a better choice 80% of the time and not the other 20% of the time, that might be a lot better than you were doing a year ago or a month ago or yesterday.

And so I applaud all of you and even myself for just continuing to learn and to grow and to try to make better choices as we go to improve our health.

And so first up, salad dressings.

So I used to buy, you know, all different salad dressings.

I still have some in my house because while I would have loved to throw them out, they were full bottles.

And so I'll use them if we're having a big group event where I need different options and things like that.

But I basically started making my own salad dressings because it's really easy.

So I'll just make two at a time, you know, maybe a creamy based one and more of a vinaigrette based one.

And then we'll use those for a bit and then I'll wash those containers out and I'll make another one.

And so I'm not making it every day, obviously, but most of the salad dressings are full of stuff that we really don't want to be eating on a regular basis.

And then two, if it is a healthier salad dressing, some of those have just gotten super expensive that I.

It just isn't justifiable to pay that money for that one thing.

So all the brands that most of us are familiar with, so most.

Ken's Wishbone, even Newman's Own Craft.

So most of their lines have stuff in them that we really don't want.

And I'm not saying they don't have some that are better than others.

I'm going to read you some ingredients.

So for instance, one of the crafts I'm looking at has a blend of vegetable oils, soy, soybean oil and canola oil.

It has sugar in it and then it has.

Sorry, I'm just looking.

It has color in it and then it has potassium sorbate and then calcium to sodium edta.

So it's to protect its flavor protectors or its preservatives.

And it has Other things in here.

Okay.

And then let's see what the next one has.

Ken's has same vegetable oil, soybean, and canola.

We're just reading down.

It has malodextrin, natural flavors, which means it can be a lot of different things that it's just not telling us.

What's in it has preservatives and colorant in it as well.

So the point and flavoring.

So the point is, is once again, that has stuff in it that I really don't want.

And we'll talk about why in a minute.

Wishbone, Same soybean oil and sugar.

And it has the preservatives and color in it as well.

And I know some of the Newmans do, because I've checked their labels before.

So what is a girl to do?

Well, here's the deal.

It's the easiest way to have a clean salad dressing is just to make it yourself.

And shockingly, you can make a salad dressing in probably two to three minutes.

You just grab a recipe online for a dressing that you really like.

So whether that's honey mustard or a ranch, or it can be just a vinaigrette.

I love a.

In the summer, I make a basil vinaigrette.

It is absolutely to die for.

I will share that in a future episode, but it really doesn't take very long, especially once you find a couple that you like.

Why don't we like the salad dressings that we're pulling from the shelf, at least most of them?

Well, we don't want to be eating vegetable oils because they cause more inflammation in our body.

And so what we're talking about is these are processed oils, so soybean, canola, other vegetable oils.

The process to make them, it basically they have to break them down, and then they have to remove, I think, the color or the smell, and then they add things in.

And so it's very inflammatory for our bodies.

So any product that has those oils in it is not good.

Rapeseed's another one.

Cottonseed, soybean, canola, all of those are not good for us.

And so what we want instead is something like avocado oil or olive oil.

Okay?

So those are healthier for us, and they're not causing the inflammation in our bodies.

And they actually have some benefits as well.

So the first step is find a salad dressing that doesn't have those types of oils and all that, those extra ingredients.

Or if you're willing to just spend a couple minutes making your own dressing, just grab a bottle or a shaker.

Or just an old bottle that you had, you can just shake it up in that.

And most of the recipes I have only have, you know, four to five ingredients in the dressing.

So that's usually a.

If it's a vinaigrette, obviously it's going to be like an oil, some type of vinegar.

There might be an acid as well, additional acid, like a lemon juice or lime juice or something else in it.

It might have some herbs in it, you know, and some other things, maybe Dijon mustard or something.

And then if it's a creamier dressing, it often is going to have mayo.

And we're going to talk about healthy mayo swaps as well, but it's going to have mayo like my honey mustards, honey Dijon mustard.

And then it's mayonnaise and just a couple other things, you know, salt and such, and you just shake it up and it tastes amazing.

All right, so next up is how or what else are we eating that just has stuff in it?

Well, another, I guess, thing that we really don't want to be eating is the corn syrups or corn products.

Yeah, like here.

Sorry, I'm just trying to read this real quick.

Where is it?

Oh, here I have a barbecue sauce that's not a clean one.

And the first ingredient is high fructose corn syrup and also has modified cornstarch in it.

Okay, so we don't want either of those things in our food.

Not usually.

And I'm trying to see what else is in this.

It has sodium benzate.

Zot.

I said that wrong.

In it.

And then corn syrup.

So it has high fructose corn syrup, regular corn syrup, caramel coloring.

It has artificial flavors.

It has preservatives in it, natural flavor, like I said, which can be many different ingredients that they don't have to listen.

And then it has modified cornstarch.

So this is a product that has a lot of stuff in it.

We really don't need this barbecue sauce.

Same thing.

You can make your own or you can buy one that's clean.

It's just that some of the clean ones can be a little more costly sometimes.

So, for instance, Primal Kitchen has some great salad dressings.

I think they have a barbecue sauce, but those are really running quite a bit higher, at least at my local grocery store right now.

So you can make your own.

And like I said, if you don't want to make your own, you just need to search online for what are clean salad dressings or barbecue sauce or whatnot, and they will list for you those options.

There's also online stores like Thrive Market who sell some really clean food products.

And that's another place to check out.

You know, in Whole Foods, they usually have a lot of good products.

It doesn't mean everything that they have doesn't have.

I'm not sure.

I don't think they've switched to only the healthy oils, but they definitely have some good choices.

All right.

Now, ketchup is the same issue.

Most ketchups and even relishes have corn syrup in them or other things like that.

But one example is Kroger's line, the Simple Truth, Organic.

Their tomato ketchup does not have that junk in it.

So it's pretty clean.

And every relish that I searched for had corn syrup or some sort of corn product in it.

And I have a two family members that are celiac, so they have a allergy to gluten.

But one of my family members is also sensitive to corn.

So corn starch, corn syrup.

And so that is one of the reasons why I'm so careful about it, besides it being something we may want to avoid.

But the simple truth, organic sweet relish actually doesn't have the corn syrup in it like most of the other relishes.

So it's a lot better choice.

Just to let you know, okay, what's the next thing sitting in our kitchens that might be a problem for us, that's causing more inflammation for us?

It may be peanut butter.

So if you buy an organic peanut butter, like Kirkland has one, Trader Joe's Whole Foods, lots of other places have really clean peanut butter or nut butters.

They may be organic or not, but that are just peanuts and salt and nothing else.

Okay, so that's the gold star.

That's what you want.

And in those cases, the sugars is going to vary.

But this particular one, the Kirkland one, has only one sugar and has eight grams of protein.

Now, if you buy a standard peanut butter that's not just nuts and salt, or, you know, a different type of nut and salt, you're getting more sugar.

But they also put in all those bad oils.

And I'm going to be honest with you, my kids can be a little bit particular, and they don't want to eat the natural peanut butter.

I think it tastes just as good.

They are still eating junk peanut butter, just going to be honest with you.

So let's look at the label of the junk they're eating.

It has roasted peanuts, sugar is the second ingredient.

And then it has hydrogenated vegetable oils, rapeseed, cotton, and Soybean and then salt.

So you're getting the inflammatory oils and you're getting sugar.

So it's a couple more grams of sugar, four grams of sugar for each or for two tablespoons.

Let me see if this is for two.

Yeah, it is.

So the point though is if you're eating this every day, that amount of sugar is going to add up.

Okay?

So just be aware that your peanut butter, if you're not eating a super clean peanut butter or nut butter, may have added sugar, but also the inflammatory oils.

So you just want to be aware of that because even some of the really seemingly good brands of nut butters, they have oils in them that are not really what we want.

All right, next up, what's hiding in our pantry or our fridge?

Sorry.

Mayonnaise.

Most mayonnaise is on the market regardless of brand, other than maybe Primal Kitchen and a couple others.

They are even the ones that say made with olive oil.

Flip it over and read the label.

It has olive oil in it, but it also puts some of the inflammatory oils in it as well.

So it's not clean, just olive oil.

They just really put it, olive oil in there so they can slap it on the label and it seems like a good choice.

You think, oh, I've heard olive oil is good for me.

But the back of the label tells us the real story, which is it's not just olive oil in there.

They have the inflammatory vegetable oils.

Okay.

So if we can, we want to avoid those.

So there's a couple brands that have really clean olive oil.

Chosen is one that has a mayonnaise that has is made with avocado oil and it tastes delicious.

They also have other brands, like I said, I think Primal Kitchen has one and I'm sure there's others.

You can also make your own mayonnaise, which look, if you can buy one like chosen, it's actually a big bottle of or a big container of it.

And it's reasonably priced for the size of the container.

That's the way to go.

But I have made my own mayonnaise before and it's really just eggs and oil.

Avocado oil is really great with it because it's very mild tasting.

Some olive oils, it's a little strong the flavor and it makes the mayonnaise taste stronger.

And then it's like salt and Dijon.

It's super simple.

You just use an emerging immersion blender.

Now, yes, you do have to worry about your eggs.

You know, if you've.

Some people don't worry about that at all.

But if you're worried about if the eggshells can be contaminated.

Right.

With something like E.

Coli, then there is a method to.

You basically quickly put them in water, boiling water, to kind of kill off any possible bacteria before you use the eggs.

Or you can partially cook the eggs and then use those to make mayonnaise.

So those things are online.

You can look them up.

But I just want you to know that a lot of the mayonnaise, even the ones that are acting like they're healthier with olive oil, often are including other oils.

So you have to read the labels.

Right.

I think that today's episode really should have just been called Learn how to read Labels if you're not reading them yet.

All right, so what's the other culprit in our pantries?

Well, for many of us, if we haven't just switched over to, like, mostly clean food, it's your crackers, pastas, and breads.

So while I do buy or make some of those clean, I still have some of the other stuff in the house, as I mentioned, because I do have.

Hello, three young men in the home now.

Okay.

So many crackers, unless they're a cleaner version, includes once again, the unhealthy oils.

So this particular box of crackers has the oleic, I'm sorry, the canola oil and or soybean oil.

And then it has preservatives, sugar, cornstarch, another type of sugar, and see, barley malt extract and then other sodium sulfite.

Okay.

So you, once again, you just have to read your labels.

If you're eating them one time, is it that big of a deal?

No.

But if you're eating those crackers every day or every two days, it might be a big deal.

All right, Pastas.

If you're buying just standard, run of the mill pasta, the two things to know is one, they're using enriched flour, which means they're putting in.

Well, they stripped everything out of the flour, and then they're putting back in some different vitamins.

But many people are actually sensitive to the B vitamins and things they put back into it.

But if you want to get the best pasta that you can get, then you really want to get the pasta coming out of Italy that's just clean.

It says exactly the flour it uses.

It's not enriched flour.

Or ideally, you're getting organic pasta that's coming from a country like Italy where they're not enriching their pastas.

And so that is just healthier and it's cleaner.

You Know, if it's from our country and it's not organic, then any, anything that's a wheat, I'm sorry, anything that comes from wheat, corn or soy is most likely sprayed with pesticides as it's drying.

It's used as a desiccant, which means that it helps it dry out from going from the field to harvesting it so that they can actually produce it sooner, you know, like use it and put it into product.

So most of our non organic food is filled with glyphosate, which is the herp, the pesticide they're using as a desiccant.

So the more we can eat organic breads, pastas, crackers, the better off we can be.

And I'm not saying go out and eat those all the time.

There's obviously a benefit of limiting some of that stuff.

What I'm saying is if it's organic, it's not going to be enriched and also is going to have a lot less of the pesticides like glyphosate in it.

So super important, our breads.

Sometimes I go through and I make organic flour based sourdough bread.

And of course in that case I know what's in it.

It's only a couple ingredients.

It's organic flour, so that's going to be one of my best choices.

Or buying bread from organic bakery or buying bread that has cleaner ingredients in it, which there's definitely those on the market, but regular old bread, which some of my sons still eat, but I've tried to bake it for them from scratch and they, they like it.

Okay.

But they just have, and I haven't been able to convince them to change over.

But it has, besides the enriched flour in it, which I just talked about, it has vegetable oils, soybean and canola, it has monoglycerides, it has sorbic acid for freshness and then all these other things in it.

Right.

So the more things they're putting in these products, preservatives, natural flavors, these soybean oil or these oils, extra products that you probably can't pronounce, it's just more potential to be allergens in our body.

And so if we can get fresh bread, you know, from a bakery, even if it's not organic, it's going to be better.

Especially if they're buying their flour from somewhere like Italy where even if it's not organic, it's probably not enriched.

And you can ask the baker these questions.

But that's another thing that we can make an easy swap and we can get bread that's a little bit better for us if we're going to have bread or crackers.

And look, if we're going to a holiday party, it's not to say we're not going to partake in a cookie or the crackers or the bread that's probably filled with who knows what.

But you know what?

As far as I'm concerned, that's okay.

It's the holidays.

Part of that experience is the community and the connection with people and enjoying the delicious food that people made.

Right.

With love.

And so that's okay.

Right?

The idea of this podcast is not to be perfect.

The idea is to be educated and to keep improving on our health journeys.

And so I share all of this stuff about what's in our pantries, what's in our fridges, because the more we know, the better choices we can make.

And I should say that some of the, in most cases, when I buy, if I happen to be at Kroger and I'm at I buy the Simple Truth organic line, everything of theirs in that line is perfect.

But a lot of it is so much better than the alternatives.

It is actually less expensive, that organic line than the competitor's brand name line that's not organic.

And so you just have to look because there are affordable choices in a lot of cases.

Aldi obviously has some organics in their store that are very reasonably priced.

Kirkland does a great job with some of the lines that they carry.

They were carrying.

I think they still are chosen.

That's avocado oil based products.

So they have chosen avocado oil, they have chosen mayo.

They have a chosen cooking spray that's based just avocado oil and it doesn't have propellants in it like extra chemicals.

So there's a lot of choices that are pretty reasonably priced.

We just have to start knowing what swaps we should make so that we are introducing less inflammation in our bodies that we're trying to minimize some of those things.

Right.

We still want to enjoy the food we're eating, but if we can do it with a little bit of a better choice, then we're going to be healthier, especially over time, cumulatively.

And so today is all about just making those easy swaps, knowing what's hiding in our kitchen.

And we start doing that by reading labels and then by comparing one label or brand to another.

And there are so many articles online about this.

So if you just want to dive in and say, you know what, I just want to maybe start with my salad dressings that's makes so much sense.

Like just pick one thing that you eat a lot of.

So if you happen to eat a lot of salads, or maybe if it's, if you're in the summer and you eat more salads, then maybe that's a time to make the switch to healthier salad dressings.

Maybe in the winter for you, you're eating, I don't know, a lot of soups.

Well, can you make your own or can you buy some that doesn't have some of those ingredients versus picking up maybe a canned soup that's not as clean?

So you know, once again it's just starting to take a couple extra minutes while you're in the grocery or ordering food online and making better choices.

So that's what today's episode is about.

I hope you took something away from it.

And like I said, if you have topics you'd like me to cover, you have questions you want covered, you have a guest suggestion for me, I'd love to hear from you.

Just reach out to me over@kristin fitch.com everyday vitality.

Also, if you have, if you are somebody you know would like to be a sponsor with the show or partner with me also reach out.

I would love to hear from you.

Until next week.

I hope you have a great week and I hope that you are blessed with health and happiness.

Thanks again for listening to Everyday Vitality.

This is your host, Kristen.

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