Nutritionally complete meal?

[elatedsquirrel]

Does anyone have any recipes for "nutritionally complete" meals? i.e. a meal that you could eat 3 times a day, 365 days a year, and be optimally healthy in terms of nutrition.

A big buddha bowl of randomness is totally acceptable.

Ideally, should be:

• Easy to make
• High in fibre
• Low GI
• Filling
• Palatable (but doesn't have to taste amazing)
• Scalable (i.e. easy to just scale the ingredients to make more if you need more or fewer calories)
• Can be vegan, but doesn't have to be - fish, seafood, eggs or dairy are acceptable
• Ingredients that I can get from the supermarket, or order from Holland and Barrett.

I'm not actually going to eat the same thing every day all year, but I'm looking to simplify my life, and having the option to make a great big batch of something a few days a week and just eat that for the rest of the day would be helpful.

Thanks!

Edited August 2, 2020 by elatedsquirrel

[mccoy]

An interesting issue of optimization, although pretty drastic. In theory, it's very easy to design such a plan with cronometer if the big buddha bowl concept is adopted. The following is a sample that meets your requirements with 2100 kCAL, of course any variation is possible. This is a pro-longevity, pro-healthspan design if it can be adhered to. Protein is slightly high but most of it is plant-based.

To be divided in 2 or 3 parts. Note: pretty stoic diet. Little left to taste pleasure. Good to loose weight. Not for anorexics.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 2, 2020 by mccoy

[elatedsquirrel]

Thanks for the recipe! I'm going to scale it down for lunch and give it a go one of these days! The only thing is I'm not sure if you can get collard greens in the UK (or if so, what we call them here). Are "spring greens" the same thing?

(The only downside is a lot of opened barely eaten cans of beans! 😀)

2 hours ago, mccoy said:

Note: pretty stoic diet. Little left to taste pleasure.

You say that, but the other day I couldn't be bothered to cook properly, so I steamed / boiled some spinach, broad beans, asparagus, sugarsnap peas, lentils, and added some walnuts, oats, sunflower seeds and olive oil. I don't know if it was nutritionally complete, as I'm not on chronometer (I'm on MFP, and I'm thinking about making the move but I'm worried about whether cronometer will have everything I need in its database), but I was literally just shooting for "can I steam a bunch of veg I have in the fridge / freezer to get me up to my calorie budget for dinner". And it was genuinely really really nice. I may have odd tastes though 😀

Edited August 2, 2020 by elatedsquirrel

[mccoy]

5 hours ago, elatedsquirrel said:

The only thing is I'm not sure if you can get collard greens in the UK

You can substitute with chicory, swiss chard, or some other green-d vegetables. Spring greens should be just about the same. Frozen is of course time-sparing.

 

5 hours ago, elatedsquirrel said:

The only downside is a lot of opened barely eaten cans of beans

You can open a can of the 4 varieties of legumes listed, eat 200 grams in a day until you're over with that can, then switch to the next legume-item in the list and so on.

Alternatively, you can keep two cans open and eat 100 grams of a kind and 100 grams of the other kind in a day until the two cans are over and you switch to the other two items.

The amounts can be construed as averages across longer timespans than one day. 

[elatedsquirrel]

Good point. Thanks @mccoy.

[elatedsquirrel]

On 8/2/2020 at 1:23 PM, mccoy said:

pretty stoic diet. Little left to taste pleasure.

I was reading Stephan Guyenet recently, and he seems to reckon that high palatability is a big part of the obesity epidemic. So "little taste left to pleasure" could be an advantage!

[mccoy]

3 hours ago, elatedsquirrel said:

I was reading Stephan Guyenet recently, and he seems to reckon that high palatability is a big part of the obesity epidemic. So "little taste left to pleasure" could be an advantage!

For those who wish to lose weight, undoubtedly so. I too read his book 'the hungry brain' on the neurological aspects of hunger and nutrition.

[Barth deRosa]

I have tried to keep it super simple and basic nutritionally complete" meals so that anyone can follow this recipe:  Breakfast: 8 ounces nonfat yoghurt with a cup of papaya and kiwi and 14 walnut halves.                                                                  Lunch: 1 small whole-wheat pita with a green salad including 1 cup of dark green lettuce, a red pepper, 1 cup of tomatoes, ½ cup edamame.      Dinner: 4 ounces broiled wild salmon (about the size of your palm) with a yoghurt sauce.

[cTpa]

Hey guys,

 

one interesting tip (I think) - try:

- Eat nutbread (400g?)

- kale (300g?)

- little of animalproducts/fish (100g all together)or supplements as a vegan/vegetarian.

 

You should get almost everything in cronometer. 

 

Best regards

[manuel5]

This is quite an old thread but... Could someone create a plant-based recipe with 1500 ~ 1800kcal, that includes the entire RDA?

Edited May 24, 2023 by manuel5

[mccoy]

It has been done previously, this is a quickly-designed example, the RDA of micronutrients is satisfied for a male 70 kg heavy, but the caloric intake is probaly about minus  35%. I would not recommend such a diet, more healthy calories should be added according to taste.

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by mccoy

[mccoy]

[mccoy]

[manuel5]

Wow thanks mccoy one more question why don't you recommend following this? After all, it's the goal here, isn't it? Maximum nutrition in the least amount of calories/energy...

[mccoy]

Manuel, I must attach a disclaimer since who knows if some anorexic person is going to follow such a plan and die of malnutrition? Even in CR the total caloric amount is an individual parameter and many authoritative voices (for example Valter Longo) warn about the potential dangers of too low a BMI.

So, if you are a small guy/gal, not physically active, 1500 kcals may constitute a mild CR and not be detrimental, vice-versa you are 6'4" tall, run or exercise assiduously, you are most probably getting into trouble. Plus there is the individual genotype or phenotype, benefitting from CR or the one having issues with it, according to mostly unknown metabolic buildups.

1 hour ago, manuel5 said:

After all, it's the goal here, isn't it? Maximum nutrition in the least amount of calories/energy...

More precisely, I would say that CR is often called CRON, where optimal nutrition refers not only to micronutrients but to calories and BMI as well. CR is not easy since you are walking along the razor edge, reaping benefits only if you are keeping a very careful balance.