What's the best way to do a Whole30 with very little spare time?

April 12, 2014 10:10 PM

I am interested in doing a Whole30 for some health reasons. I've done a bunch of reading about it and have already gotten many of the things from the shopping list. I am looking for advice on how to do it with minimal time investment.

I have a toddler and a full time job that can be overwhelming and doesn't allow for any real 'schedule'. I eat out frequently and eat cereal every morning for breakfast. Anything I eat at work has to be something I can eat in about 5 minutes. I'm thinking the only way to make this happen is to batch cook meals that can be frozen and reheated later, or stored in the fridge at least. Aside from just eating raw fruit and vegetables at these times, what would you recommend as very quick diet compliant meals? Vegetarian options are a plus, although I'm planning to let myself eat some meat (most likely chicken, fish, shrimp). Any advice on how to do this successfully?

posted by treehorn+bunny to Food & Drink (13 answers total)

Best answer: Assuming Whole30 hasn't changed a lot since I was looking at it a couple years ago: Hardboiled eggs are your friends. So is mayonnaise. (I have a friend who is a soy-intolerant vegetarian with type II diabetes, and she sometimes makes a meal of an entire head of broccoli with a half a cup of mayo.) For work, get a bunch of those individual sunbutter squeeze packs (that website also sells almond butter individual packs, but they're more expensive) and keep them anywhere you can; they're shelf-stable, Whole30 friendly, and 200 calories a pop more or less. 2 hardboiled eggs + 1 packet of nut butter = 350 calories!

One thing I do when I'm on track with my diet is to marinate a truly ridiculous quantity of vegetables in balsamic vinaigrette overnight, then roast them. My go-to blend is 2 lbs each bell peppers, baby eggplant, baby summer squash, and cubed winter squash. I make my own vinaigrette, 2 tbsp each red wine and balsamic vinegar, 1/2 cup olive oil, a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon or so of Penzey's Mural of Flavor seasoning, then pour the vinaigrette over the cut up veg in a 2 gallon plastic bag. I roast them in the convection oven in a turkey roasting pan for about 45 minutes on 425 degrees. That results in about 16 cups of roast veg, which I then eat all the time. Breakfast? Plop roast veg on the plate, throw it in the microwave for 2 minutes; while it's microwaving, fry two eggs, drop the eggs on top, and eat. Or top the veg with fully cooked chicken sausage before you even put it in the microwave. For a bigger meal, toss roast veg with salami nuggets and kalamata olives and eat. (Better with goat cheese too, but that's not Whole30 OK.)

Speaking from my own experience, it's really hard to do this effectively without eating a lot of meat. A LOT of meat, like a pound a day. In the absence of dairy, grains, and legumes, it's hard to physically get enough calories to make it through if you aren't consuming a lot of meat, unless you're living off coconut milk and mayo. Others may have better solutions for that, but that's what I've got.
posted by KathrynT at 11:16 PM on April 12, 2014 [12 favorites]

Best answer: Every single time you cook something, make sure you make enough to have leftovers. Spend some time making ingredients available that can be quickly mixed and matched into salads, scrambles, or thrown on a plate: roasted veggies, hard boiled eggs, roasted chicken, ground meat. Sausage is another great choice for quick grab and go food. Mulay's has some varieties that are compliant. There are a couple choices from Trader Joe's also. Just read the labels really carefully. Beef jerky is surprisingly easy to make.

Two quick meals: 1. A can of coconut milk, some curry paste, cubes of chicken, and cut up veggies can be thrown into a pan at cooked into curry in about 15 - 20 minutes. About the same amount of time it takes to make cauliflower rice. Quick dinner, great leftovers. 2. Cracklin' Chicken. While it's cooking, steam some broccoli then toss it with some olive oil or ghee and fresh garlic or garlic powder. Make a salad. I love Trader Joe's for bagged lettuces, microwavable green beans and other veggies.

Stock your pantry with canned tuna, smoked sardines, smoked oysters, good herbs and spices. Mixed with homemade mayo (takes 2 minutes) or an avocado, you'll have a quick snack or topping for a salad.

Melissa Joulwan's book "Well Fed", her blog, The Clothes Make the Girl, and Nom Nom Paleo were really helpful to me during my Whole30. Approach it as an adventure and embrace the good food you'll be eating. Get some good tea to enjoy. Good luck!
posted by ms_rasclark at 11:24 PM on April 12, 2014 [7 favorites]

Whole30 was one of the best things I ever did for my health, but it was SUCH a pain in the ass I can't tell you.

The thing that really saved me was planning and preparation. My usual breakfasts were scrambled eggs with vegetables, and on the weekend I'd slice up a bunch of veggies and keep them in zip loc bags in the fridge. I'd keep nitrate free sliced meat, olives and vegetables (typically cucumbers, carrots and broccoli that I'd quickly steam in the office microwave) in my office for afternoon snacks. My usual move was to cook enough dinner to bring leftovers into the office. I also kept a stash of nut butters and avocados on hand at home and in the office for when hanger strikes. Tinned fish and smoked fish also helped - I went through a real smoked mackerel and sauerkraut phase, much to my partner's horror.

For me the hardest part was not snacking. You really aren't meant to snack much, so I eventually weaned myself down to a Whole30 approved (protein + vegetable + fat) snack in the afternoon.

Unfortunately, as KathrynT said, you are going to eat a LOT of meat in Whole30. There's just no other way around it. This actually lead me to become vegan after I was done with it, but that is an entirely different story. Have fun with it - it really reset my habits in the best possible way. Ironically, one of the best habits I picked up was ruthlessly planning my meals and always having a stash of food on hand, so have fun with that!

Best of luck!
posted by nerdfish at 12:04 AM on April 13, 2014 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I managed to do a Whole 30 without significantly changing my lazy/minimal cooking ways. To be clear, I had a little spare money but not much spare time, so I paid for prep whenever possible (e.g. bagged pre-washed salad greens, bags of shredded carrots, pre-cut crudite, etc). What I ate/prepared each day was basically as follows:

- Breakfast: Fry four strips of bacon; scramble or fry two eggs
- Eat the eggs and two strips of bacon, reserve the other two strips of bacon

- Before leaving for work, crumble the extra strips of bacon over the salad I prepared the night before (see below). Optional extra AM salad mix-ins (for days when I have time/energy): slice half an avocado, dice a green apple, peel and supreme a citrus fruit.

- Lunch time: salad.

- Snack time: Some combination of almonds, almond butter, a piece of fruit, carrot, bell pepper, or celery sticks (prepared on Sunday and left in the office fridge throughout the week).

- Dinner: Roast veggies in the oven while preparing two pieces of chicken or steak on the stovetop. Eat the roast veggies and half of the protein.

- Post-dinner prep: Dump some greens into a big tupperware. Add shredded carrots, sliced onion, and whatever other raw or blanched veggies I was into that week (e.g. bell pepper, celery, blanched broccoli and cauliflower, cucumber, etc). Sprinkle on some sliced almonds or walnuts. Dice the now cool dinner protein and add it to the salad. Pour olive oil and vinegar into a mini tupperware, add some garlic, salt, and pepper, and shake it up.

- Post-dinner snack: Banana and almond butter.

Repeat ad infiniteum. This was Whole 30 "spring" when I was very content to eat cold lunch (salad) every day. During the winter, I spent Sunday afternoon making a big batch of no-bean chili which I reheated for lunch throughout the week. Something like this:

Garlic
Onions
Bell peppers
Carrots
Celery
Canned whole or diced tomatoes
Ground beef and/or pork and/or turkey, browned in a skillet
Seasonings to taste (salt, pepper, paprika, cumin, chili powder, a little vinegar, etc)

Without going into too much detail all of the above goes in a giant pot and you simmer it until you're bored of simmering it, and then you have chili.
posted by telegraph at 6:16 AM on April 13, 2014 [20 favorites]

I just read this article that might be helpful. Definitely seeing a theme in these answers.
posted by ms_rasclark at 7:21 AM on April 13, 2014

Best answer: Minimizing meat is going to be very tough -- you don't want to lean too heavily on nuts for protein due to their high omega-6 levels. Eggs will be a good protein source (hardboiled, fried quickly, egg casserole/"crustless quiche" things, etc), as will canned fish of all kinds.

Yes, batch cooking is an absolute must for success. Try to carve out time on the weekend to cook a bunch of proteins and prep veggies (Well Fed, the cookbook by Melissa Joulwan, has a great overview of her strategy for weekly prep).

Quick meals:
-Brown 1lb. protein in pan, remove. Saute veggies (bell pepper, broccoli, onions, etc) in pan, add curry paste, add 1 can coconut milk. Add meat, simmer to combine.
-Dump 1-2 cans of fish (tuna, salmon, etc) into bowl, mash with avocado, add lime juice, salt, and cilantro if you have/like it. Eat with plantain chips (you can buy these, just check ingredients).
-Bake a bunch of sweet potatoes on the weekend. When hungry, re-heat and top with anything (curry, chili, fajita meat and veggies, etc).
-Applegate farms hotdogs and cold cuts are great. When pressed for time, just remember that a meal doesn't have to be cohesive, it just needs to have protein+fat+veggie/fruit. Sometimes that means stack of clean cold cuts+handful of almonds+banana.
-Keep longer-lasting veggies (prepped!) in the fridge so that you always have a veggie side. I like hashed raw cabbage or brussels sprouts, broccoli that is already cut into pieces, and hearty greens that I cut off the stem and store in a plastic bag. Then when I need veggies I just throw something in a pan and steam-saute it.
posted by Bebo at 8:47 AM on April 13, 2014 [4 favorites]

2nd leftovers if taste and texture matter to you - when I was stricter about a high-protein, high-veg diet, I tried batch-cooking meats and grew to hate the grilled chicken breasts sitting in my fridge. (I'd bought the tupperware, etc. - didn't help that much. Might have been psychological; might have been a failure of the marinades I made, YMMV.)

Green beans, asparagus and broccoli are easily nuked inside of 5 minutes, in a bit of water.

Jamie Eason's turkey muffins and similar meatball-type recipes were handy, though - easy to grab and go. I think you could probably ditch the oats and be fine. (I found these less offensive after a couple of days than the chicken breasts, for whatever reason.)

(Oh also, 2nd nitrate-free turkey slices for a snack, nothing easier than grabbing a hunk of that stuff with some pre-cut peppers.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:49 AM on April 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

N-thing Trader Joe's - hopefully you have one near you, because they seem to have a MUCH wider array of pre-prepped bagged veggies than other stores (Wegman's is probably a distant runner-up here). For me, at least, I am WAY more likely to eat a vegetable if I can prepare it as quickly as, say, a frozen burrito... so paying a little extra to have TJ's do the dirty work of washing/slicing/bagging is definitely worth it in the long run.

Also: if you're not high-roasting food yet, look into it! I have made many, many perfectly-tasty meals in MINUTES simply by hacking up some meats and veggies, tossing with oil and spices, then roasting on a foil-lined baking sheet until everything is nice and crispy and brown.
posted by julthumbscrew at 10:19 AM on April 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

I eat a ton of dried fruit, nuts, and beef jerky for lunches (but really as a series of snacks throughout the day), and I think those work for whole30, as long as you check labels to avoid added sugar. You can either keep a bunch at work or bring some little containers around with you all day and eat them whenever. They're all pretty high calorie though so be careful with portions. Fresh chopped veggies and fruit are good for this too.
posted by randomnity at 12:08 PM on April 13, 2014

I would be looking at tuna in a bag and salmon jerky as shelf-stable proteins on the run.
posted by crazycanuck at 1:42 PM on April 13, 2014

Forgot - I don't know if this is Whole30-safe, but in terms of desperate eating-out options for most high-protein diets, soups (hold the noodles, beansprouts & veg only) and grilled dishes from Korean (bulgogi, kimchi, yum), Thai and Japanese places can work - forget the rice and load up on veggies on the side.
posted by cotton dress sock at 1:44 PM on April 13, 2014

A LOT of Asian restaurant sauces are loaded with sugar -- bulgogi, teriyaki, etc. Kimchi has added sugar too. It's everywhere!
posted by KathrynT at 3:37 PM on April 13, 2014

Response by poster: Thank you, all the excellent answers are appreciated.

I'd be happy for more ideas as well - particularly the ones that require near-zero prep, like berries with coconut flakes, jerky, sun butter squeeze packages etc.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 9:18 PM on April 13, 2014