One of the foundations of health is a nutrient dense, whole food, properly prepared diet. This provides the fuel and essential building blocks the body needs to maintain overall health and balance. What is nutrient density? It means getting the biggest “bang for your buck” with your nutritional choices. It includes eating a diverse range of local, seasonal, and organic foods. True Food Missoula is committed to providing you with a nutrient dense, whole food, properly prepared diet every week. Meals will be crafted from single whole food ingredients with the intention of maximizing both flavor and nutrition.
Properly prepared food isn’t simply cooking something to the perfect texture or readiness. It is understanding the inherent properties of foods and the traditional preparations that maximize the digestibility and bioavailability of their nutrition. You’ve all heard the saying you are what you eat, but really, you are what you absorb. All grains, nuts/seeds, and legumes in the True Food Missoula menu will be soaked/sprouted to enhance nutrient availability, breakdown anti-nutrient components in these foods, and promote better digestion.
Nutrient-dense spotlights from this week’s menu:
Thai Coconut Curry
Oyster mushrooms are packed with antioxidants, micronutrients, and powerful anti-inflammatory properties. Fun fact: Oyster mushrooms are one of the few mushrooms that are considered carnivorous!
Carrots get their orange color from antioxidants called carotenoids. One of the carotenoids is beta-carotene, a precursor to active Vitamin A. Beta-carotene is crucial for improving immunity, protecting skin and eye health, and fighting free radical damage. Vitamin A, a fat-soluble vitamin, needs dietary fat in order to be properly absorbed and used by the body. Coconut milk provides a healthy, easy to digest, plant-based source of saturated fat to encourage absorption and utilization of Vitamin A.
Bonus nutrition: A fun and easy way to give your meals a nutrient-dense boost is to add a garnish! This week’s garnish is claytonia, also known as Miner’s lettuce. This small and mighty succulent green contains up to 1/3 of your daily requirement of Vitamin C, 22% of Vitamin A, and 10% of your daily iron! Adding claytonia as a garnish preserves the inherent Vitamin C as Vitamin C is reduced or eliminated when cooked.
Thank you Missoula Grain & Vegetable for providing us with locally sourced carrots and claytonia!
Braised Lamb Stew
Grass-fed lamb is a great source of Omega 3 fatty acids. Affectionately known as “land salmon”, grass-fed lamb is higher in Omega 3’s due to eating a pasture-based diet also rich in this fatty acid. Grass-fed lamb is a great and delicious way for us Montanans to get a fresh and local source of Omega 3’s in our diet.
Garbanzo beans (chickpeas) are an excellent source of insoluble fiber, phytonutrients, antioxidants, and minerals. Have trouble digesting beans? True Food Missoula has soaked the garbanzo beans, reducing the bean’s hard to digest sugars and the potential for digestive upset.
Kale Goodness Salad
Sunflower seeds are an excellent source of Vitamin E, a fat-soluble vitamin that functions as a potent antioxidant and offers protection against damage to our cellular membranes. Vitamin E is best obtained in raw foods, such as in sunflower seeds, as it is degraded by cooking.
Kale deserves its long-standing title of a superfood. Kale contains over 45 different flavonoids. Flavonoids are a diverse group of phytonutrients (plant chemicals) responsible for the color of fruit and vegetables as well as for providing powerful antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immune system benefits. Kale is also a great source of vitamins K, A, and C. Lemon tahini dressing is not only a good plant-based source of calcium from the sesame seeds but also provides the fatty acids necessary to absorb the vitamins K and A in the kale.
Please note: This information is intended for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.