How I Make Healthy Meals That Don’t Suck

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This video is about what our perception of healthy food is and how I think it’s flawed. This is how I make nutritious meals that don’t suck.

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Does this look like a healthy meal to you what about this one well what if I told you these are basically the same meal but approach from two very different perspectives so let me show you how I make healthy meals that don’t suck before we start I want to issue a

Trigger warning because I will talk about my personal experiences with diet culture and uh I’m going to touch on things like eating disorders negative self-image so if any of that makes you uncomfortable maybe it’s best to just watch another video let’s get into it eating healthy is confusing the whole

Fitness industry is confusing at least to me it feels like everyone has different opinions everyone is trying to sell you a product a magical powder that’s going to fix all your issues yeah and especially with the New Year resolutions thing you notice this wave of people desperately looking for

Solutions and this industry loves selling you the idea of who you can be because who you are now is fundamentally not enough Apparently for a long time I used to be and partially still am immersed in that culture to be honest I was obsessive about perfecting every single aspect of my diet specifically to lose weight and that resulted in some success but it was always immediately followed by a big

Fall back I didn’t understand it at the time but I was developing the most [ __ ] up relationship with food and my Body these past years I’ve been trying to deconstruct that but it’s been hard and right now at this point in time I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been uh even heavier than your mom so much so that my first thought when I look at myself in the mirror is uh filled with negativity and

That just ends up feeding my insecurity even more and I don’t want to make this video and pretend like I have any answers because I don’t but as cringy and cliche as it sounds what works for me is to be kind uh kind towards myself and kind towards other people who are

Going through this and part of being kind to myself is to not overly restrict myself and only eat these like bodybuilder meals Jesus guys I’m so excited to eat this Bland boiled chicken with boiled mushy broccoli and plain rice I love my life and call me a bad naughty boy but I

Want to have some fun and add some zero calorie barbecue sauce I’m so bad this looks like poo poo chicken this is boiled chicken it’s boiled chicken what does this create for me it’s health healthy if this is what health is I want to just got a little candle going romantic

Vibes little selflove in here got a half an avocado on top of this guy yeah hot sauce some flaky salt so check it out this is a thing I’ve been doing fill a glass with frozen mango and you top it with Coke Zero first you need to try this and then

Leave your little comment about how this is not good you may think this is weird but in my world I end up with mango flavored Coke and at the end I get to eat mango that’s been infused with Coke Zero which good it’s just a little dessert so because I’m not looking to

Make 100% of my abdominal veins visibly pop out I’m merely trying to develop a better relationship with the food that I eat and the body that I inhabit I think the best approach is to make my meals enjoyable and beautiful filled with layers of taste and texture and a

Celebration of nutritious food and a celebration of my own culinary identity and that sounded very dramatic let’s get into it I kind of hate when food influencers give out overly specific formulas for food because it kind of takes the enjoyment away but I guess I’m

About to do that so well not a formula but a strategy so first I like to think of the format of food that I want to eat and almost nothing is off the table do I want pasta a stew a rice bowl tacos a wrap a sandwich a burger and notice I’m

Not saying salad because I don’t really like salads unless it’s a pasta salad then I [ __ ] love it for me psychologically that makes the biggest difference like if I’m eating things like pizza or pasta I’m going to be happy no matter what you know what I mean let’s say I

Want to eat pasta because pasta makes everyone happy sure makes me happy and now you do have to make some decisions but I have a pretty easy system first I like to pick a protein which is always kind of the main attraction because especially if you work out protein is

Going to be your friend in this case I went with ground chicken and please don’t shy away from Flavor you can and should spice up the protein itself but you can add in other flavorful things such as garlic some Chili’s in there too I’m also going to add some lemon later

The second step is to add vegetables now I’m not a nutritionist but I think vegetables are good for you call me crazy I know it’s not very Primal of me but I love vegetables they’re very nutritious full of fiber and vitamins and cooking them actually makes these nutrients more bioavail available to the

Human body bioavailable damn I’m not the guy to say that word so I don’t know if you realize but we already have a delicious meal here that is very nutritious it’s lacking some carbs at this point so this is where our beloved pasta comes In by the way I stole this idea from this video by Ethan schabowski he cooks this pasta kind of like a rizoto where he lets this starchy pasta cooking water uh cook down to like a sauce that’s almost going to emulsify everything together and look we have a pasta here

That is transformed it’s full of Vegetables and protein and some nice satisfying carbs so Al pasta does make me very happy sometimes my happiness is impeded by unexplained existential dread and anxiet about the nature of reality itself and in those moments today’s sponsor better help can help our mental

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Description that’s going to give you a 10% discount and you’re also helping me in the process so thank you all right let’s get back back to that video and now it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room fat and I’m not talking about your mother I’m talking about fat

The macronutrient I hate to get into numbers and [ __ ] but one gram of fat is uh worth about nine calories when it’s metabolized compared to the four calories associated with a gram of protein or a gram of carbs so as a result most calories from really delicious food comes from fat come from

From fat struggle with English sometimes sometimes I struggle generally with everything now one way to be smart about it is to limit the amount of oil we use when cooking which indeed sucks uh as I said fat makes things tastes excellent but thankfully there are ways to go

Around that a lot of the issues with um cooking with less fat is that a lot of the times you get stuff that is just dry or the texture sucks but as I’m about to demonstrate straight there are other ways to make food juicy and uh flavorful

I suck at peeling things I don’t think this how you peel a carrot what is this peeler I’ve never seen this in my life did I buy this so uh soups and stews are are a very good way to do this because you can just throw in a bunch of

Vegetables some protein and just cook that in like a saucy soupy thing in this case it’s going to be a tomato based sauce measuring your oil is also not a bad idea just to kind of be aware of how much you’re using and potentially try to

Reduce it cuz maybe you put like 8 tablespoons of oil and that’s that’s like over 1,000 calories I’m pretty sure so what I’m making here is a stew inspired by Hungarian guash or goulash because I have that [ __ ] running through my veins bro also very important use

Salt salt makes things taste good so use it generously and if you can eat salt for whatever reason and I’m really [ __ ] sorry for you that that that sucks look at all those colors look at that that right there is life just a bunch of colors

And and steam I wish I was smart enough to make like good Analogies okay so now that the veget vegetables are hot what okay so now that the vegetables are soft not of course they’re hot they’ve been cooking we’re going to add in some flavor smoked paprika maybe the most important one a bunch of it and just a little

Extra Touch of oil just now this is the base of our taste it’s the taste based the T the B The Taste oh my God it smells so good adding in my potatoes keep in mind this is just vegetables and spices and a little oil ah

[ __ ] some black pepper I also forgot my garlic very important okay and now we’re going to make it juicy by adding in a generous can of crushed tomatoes I’m also going to rinse this with water let’s add it here and now we just got to wait for these potatoes to cook to be

Honest I also replaced the meat with tofu just because we need some vegan representation here as well okay I know a lot of people are going to be upset at this decision but if you want you you don’t have to think of this as a guash

It’s it’s just a tofu stew then and this stew is healthy as [ __ ] it’s packed with veggies and protein it’s hearty and filling and warm and satisfying and I love these types of dishes you can transform a stew into anything you want to be honest I also realized that a good

Way to think about food in a healthier way is to stop thinking in restrictions and start thinking in additions sometimes I want to eat Cheerios Cheerios not that good for me to be honest but I’ll construct a nutritious meal around them by adding yogurt blueberries hem seeds and just topping

That with a handful of Cheerios to finish it off I end up eating less of the sugary and empty but undeniably fun cereal and suddenly I have a pretty healthy breakfast here another example is a burger sometimes you crave a burger and in my opinion instead of denying yourself the

Burger and labeling it as a bad food maybe we can rethink it a little bit I’ll just use a leaner meat and smash that thing Flat add some mustard on top for flavor but also to keep it moist some onions and I’m going to deposit that on

A toasted bun that’s been smeared with a Chipotle yogurt sauce I made by mixing Chipotle and yogurt this guy also has tomatoes lettuce and pickles honestly my favorite additions to a burger just keep it classic and now for the full experience I can add a side my first

Thought of course fries delicious but maybe I can think of a less calorie dense alternative lately I’ve been really into roasted root vegetables specifically parsnip but I forgot to buy it so here I have carrots oil them up just a little little bit and roast them

In the oven for about 20 30 minutes and the result barely any calories and a lot of delicious nutritious fibrous volume look this may not be a Five Guys bacon cheeseburger with Five Guys cajun fries but it’s still quite nice guys okay but maybe at this point you’re thinking oh

This seems like a lot of effort I’d rather stick to the basics I want that chicken and rice treatment well then let’s rethink that broccoli chicken and rice to make it more enjoyable able and potentially even more nutritious my first thought is let’s turn all this

Mess into a fried rice dish I had some leftover rice so why the hell not and at this point I have to say you don’t have to use chicken breast all the time chicken thigh is significantly more delicious and easier to cook the difference in fat is not really that

Crazy I seasoned it with a bunch of stuff including a touch of corn starch that makes it more tender just throw that in a walk and cook it until it’s Cooked and now let’s throw some vegetables in I got some broccoli stem that’s right I I do use the stem for stir fries some carrots bell pepper broccolini just stir fry that for a couple minutes then push it to the the side add your leftover rice stir fry that thing for a couple

Minutes and now let’s flavor it add some soy some ketchup cacha splash of any sort of vinegar you may have around oh and I almost forgot about the chicken of course add that in and this is a super basic upgraded chicken and rice and it maybe took 15 minutes to make so

Hopefully you got something out of this I’m not saying this method is the best one this is just what I do right now and it just let me to feel a bit better overall so let me know what you think and also please give this video a like

Or share it or really anything that’s going to get it more views it feeds my undying addiction to see the numbers go up and allows me to make more videos okay see you soon