We’ll design our meal plan and recipes
for a common but challenging situation:
a busy family that, on weekdays, can
spare at most 30 minutes for cooking.
We’ll arrange meals as follows:
• The only cooked meal on
weekdays will be an early
evening dinner.
• Every other meal will be
prepared from leftovers using
only a microwave.
• We’ll allow extra time for
cooking on one weekend day.
That provides an opportunity to
prepare batch foods that require
long cooking, but can be eaten
throughout the week.
In order to achieve balanced nutrition, it
is desirable to eat a diversity of entrées
during the week:
• Beef, lamb, and non-oily fish –
all low in polyunsaturated fats –
should be eaten at least two days
per week.
• Oily cold-water marine fish,
such as salmon, sardines,
herring, or arctic char, should be
eaten once per week for omega-3
fats.
• Shellfish – mollusks such as
oysters, clams, or mussels, and
crustaceans such as shrimp, crab,
or lobster – should be eaten once
per week.
• Liver and other organ meats
should be eaten once per week.
Only ¼ pound of liver need be
eaten per person per week, and
PHD meals call for ¾ pound of
meat per person per day, so if
liver is a part of a meal, it should
constitute about one-third of that
day’s meat. This is fortunate,
because mixing liver with other
meats helps to conceal its taste
from those who dislike liver.
• Poultry – pastured organic
chickens, duck, geese, and other
wild or naturally-raised birds –
are good to eat once per week.
• Pork and vegetarian dishes – or,
for that matter, any of the above
foods except the oily marine fish
and the liver, which should not
be eaten to excess can fill the
remaining day per week.
However, avoid pork liver, pork
blood, or pork intestines, as
these often carry infectious
pathogens; and avoid ham. We
most often choose pork bellies,
pork ribs, or pork chops.
A good rule of thumb is that the amount
of food purchased per person for each
cooked meal should equal roughly ¾
pound of meat or fish, 3 eggs, 1 pound of
safe starch, and typically 2 pounds of
other plant foods. This will provide
sufficient food for a full day of meals –
that evening’s dinner plus leftovers for
the next day’s breakfast and lunch.
