Kelly Stevenson-Lal

What does JERF mean?

Just eat real food.

Simple.

Simplifying your ‘diet’ by choosing to eat real food.

When I say diet I don’t mean some fad, I mean what you eat on the daily – your lifestyle.

Real foods are unprocessed, whole foods, close to how nature created them. They don’t usually come in a packet.

What should I include?

Vegetables, vegetables, vegetables – lots of greens. Fresh in season veges. Snap frozen veges can also be a great option. Green juice powders are an easy option to get your greens in one glass, I obvs love Deep green.

You can try growing your own vegetables & herbs.

I’m an average gardener & currently in the garden we have –

Spinach, strawberries, lettuce, spring onions, we have harvested our garlic, have pumpkins starting out, tomatoes 🍅 starting to ripen, an Indian green vegetable cooked up like spinach.

Fruit – berries are best they are low in natural sugars & packed with antioxidants.  Fruits low in natural sugars are the better option.

Meat, chicken, fish & eggs – (if you eat them) as whole as possible – eg watch for highly processed sausages, nuggets etc. You can get cheaper cuts of meat which can be slow cooked & will be just as tasty. Canned fish 🐟 is also an option just watch those ingredients, best is the type of fish + olive oil/spring water. Eggs so many ways to eat them – essential in our house. Making bone broths from your meat/fish or chicken bones is really beneficial for you & it tastes so good. Some benefits of broth here

Full fat dairy – (if you eat it) butter, cream, whole milk, cheese 🧀, Yogurt Plain unsweetened. Forget the lite additive filled c#*p, when it comes to anything.  I love the quote low fat = chemical sh*t storm, remember this!

Nuts & seeds – raw nuts, walnuts, almonds, pine nuts (actually seeds), hazelnuts etc. Pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, chia seeds, sesame seeds, hemp seeds etc. Cacao – the beans, raw cacao powder. Eat them as snacks add them to yogurt for breakfast, add to salads, nut or seed butters, Tahini.

Coconut – yes it deserves its own category, it is known in the pacific as the tree of life after all. Coconut milk, cream, coconut butter, oil, young coconuts – fresh water & meat, shredded coconut, fresh grated coconut. Full of good fats.

Fats – choose good quality cold pressed olive oil -organic is even better as olives are a highly sprayed crop. Ghee, butter, coconut oil, rendered fats, lard. 

Try to avoid cheap processed vegetable oils. They contain lots of Polyunsaturated fat which is highly unstable. Polyunsaturated fats go rancid &  oxidize easily.  It’s these oxidized fats that cause inflammation in cells. Oxidation is linked to all sorts of issues from cancer, heart disease, endrometriosis, PCOS, etc. Cheap oil crops are oftened sprayed with a load of pesticides & many are GMO. Vegetable oils also have a high ratio of Omega 6, an imbalance of omega 3 & 6 also leads to disease. 

Then when you really get into this lifestyle there are a whole bunch of superfoods – Maca root, ashwahganda, lucuma & a whole bunch of crazy good stuff. (I’ll do a post on amazing superfoods soon) 

What should I be looking for when I shop?

If you are picking up your food in packets.

When you check the ingredients you want to see

A. Things you recognise, no big wordy lists, no/few additive numbers.

To find out  what the numbers on the packets stand for, check out the chemical maze book or app. Or leave me a message in the comments with your additive number & I’ll check it out for you. I have the app & book.

B. Less than 5 ingredients is ideal a la Michael Pollan.  Unless its listing whole foods, as may be in a packet of frozen vegetables.

C. No hydrogenated vegetable oils

An average meal for me would have

+ Fish/meat/chicken/egg with salad and or vegetables. Some good fats from butter, olive oil or avocado. A fresh chutney which is like a tomato salsa made fresh, guacamole, kiwifruit chutney etc or Indian pickle (achar) – mango/lemon/Apple.

We do have at least two vegetarian days a week ( for religious reasons) this excludes eating egg also.  So these days would be vege curry/stir fry, sometimes salad as well. Good fats again. Sometimes with brown rice or basmati. Chutney as above or Indian pickle (achar).

I did a post on meals I eat on the regular here

I take my vitality trio daily as well this give some me my probiotics , antioxidant goodness of berries & cacao, and my green juice fix. 

Above all be mindful when buying, cooking & eating your food.

Enjoy it – with company is always better 😊

Much love