13 Ingredient Swaps to Make NOW That Saved My Life

[Music] so when i shared that i was able to heal myself after having my esophagus and stomach biopsied for cancer just by switching to different foods and if you haven't watched that video we'll link to it below and you can go and check that out but in sharing that many of you asked what was the list of foods that i swapped out when i was first going down that healing journey so i have got the top 13 that i have switched that i'm going to be sharing with you today so one of the major things that i looked at was first eliminating any highly genetically modified crops and so for me that was swapping out the fats that i was cooking with so i didn't use crisco shortening or canola or vegetable oil like canola oil which is from a lot of it's from rapeseed oil or soy products i made sure that i cut those out so instead of using crisco for shortening i switched out instead to organic coconut oil so this is unrefined cold pressed coconut oil so it does have a very light coconut flavor to it if you don't like the coconut flavor which i actually i don't really maybe my palate's not that discerning to coconut i don't really taste the coconut flavor in most of the baked goods when i'm using this but if you want to use refined coconut oil which is obviously refined it's a little bit more processed then it doesn't have the coconut flavor and you could go that route so this is what i use in place of crisco shortening in any of my recipes now some other options that i will use and i'll kind of depend on what i'm making as well in place of crisco shortening especially in things like pie crust is going to be and i only buy organic real butter so i will use real butter or i'll use lard and like i said it kind of depends on what it is i'm cooking as to which fat i want so for pie crusts actually i like half lard and half butter make the best most delicious flaky flavorful pie crust you've ever had in your life and if you want to get my pie crust recipe i'll have that in the video description link below you can go and snag that recipe but those are some of my favorites to use and then when it comes to baked goods so things like cakes muffins quick breads most of the time i like melted butter but occasionally i'll be doing a cake recipe where you don't want to use butter and that would be where you would use the canola oil and so instead i like to use the avocado oil and so avocado oil has a high smoke point so the smoke point is 500 degrees fahrenheit which means i don't think i've ever baked a cake at that high of a temperature usually cake recipes are like around 350 maybe 375 degrees and so it doesn't have a smoke point and for this brand i get it at costco does not have any flavor to it so i don't detect any type of a flavor which is really key especially when you're doing cakes and then for roasting like vegetables and different things like that sometimes i'll use this but i actually like for vegetables i like the flavor of olive oil and again this i get it costco it's organic extra virgin olive oil and so i'll use that so those are primarily the fats and the oils that i keep on hand and within those fats and oils because i make so much from scratch now those are easy swaps that had a big difference on like i said cutting out hydrogenated oils as well as genetically modified crops and eliminating those in all of my baked goods by just stocking these types of fats and oils now i talked about i make a lot of stuff from scratch now and it used to be i used a lot of boxed mixes so you know 12 15 years ago i used a lot of box mixes and even though i felt like i was making it at home because i was right i was opening a box mix and maybe adding in an egg and some oil and water or whatever the ingredients where it calls for the base ingredients as i said as well as the ingredients in those box mixes had a lot of those things that seemed to trigger me and had those genetically modified organisms or different fats that i wasn't comfortable using so i switched out my flowers and my sugars and by just having those fats and flowers and sugars and yeast and salt just a few basic ingredients i'm now able to make everything and i don't buy boxed mixes for anything anymore so one of the first easy switches that you can do is to buy organic unbleached all-purpose flour now i don't buy everything organic but my rule of thumb is i look at it and i look at the dirty dozen so every year you can look up the dirty dozen and it'll take the top 12 fruits and vegetables that i'll have test for the highest pesticide load and so for those ones if we're not growing it ourselves at home and it's something i would buy from the store then i make sure that that i buy organic or if it's products made from those that i buy organic now wheat which of course is what is made into our flower that is also usually a high pesticide loaded crop and i want to make sure that i'm lowering that that load and i don't want it to be bleached right i want it to be as close to unprocessed as possible yes flour is still processed so an easy switch is if you just buy organic unbleached all-purpose flour i get mine from both costco and azure standard then that is just an easy switch and you don't have to do anything else other than switching the flower there's no altering your recipes it's just a one for one swap out along the same lines is i don't use regular white sugar anymore so instead i buy organic sugar so it's a not quite as fine it's a sugar so i'll kind of just show you here it's a little bit grittier it's not really the right word because it totally dissolves into and i use it one for one but you can see it's not white so it's not bleached it is still pretty fine but it's a little bit larger crystals than what you're used to if you're just buying like regular sugar from the store and this has a little hint of molasses still in there so yes this is still a processed um organic evaporated cane juice it still is a processed form of sugar but it's not as processed and sugar can come from sugar beets or it can come from cane and if it comes from sugar beets there's a high chance that it's genetically modified and so i want to make sure that my sugar does not come from genetically modified sugar beets that it's not um bleached and i like that it still has a little bit of the molasses in there it doesn't change the flavor so it's not like you're cooking with brown sugar but i feel like it gives a great depth and is a really easy swap to make out so by making those swaps then pretty much everything i'm making from scratch is from those base ingredients that i want now those are just easy swaps to make that are just one for one but i have to say the further down this rabbit hole that i went and looking at nutrition and health i do actually grind my own flour so over here i have my spelt wheat berries and my hard white wheat berries and this is where i keep the wheat berries that i use the most the predominantly and the most and i will grind those into fresh flour to use obviously in my baked goods so it's kind of you get your absolute best nutrition from fresh ground flour and if you're curious about what grinding your own flower looks like and entails you can check out that video i'll have a link here in one of the cards or down below and you can look at that but of course it's the investment of having a grain mill it really doesn't take very much time though honestly i can grind a couple cups of flour in like a minute it's really fast but it is another step but one you definitely want to consider which naturally leads to having all of those ingredients with the flour to bread so a lot of the store-bought bread now i have to say now it's been 11 years since i started to make these transitions and was able to heal myself by the food there are a lot more options available on the market now that do have good ingredients that you could buy already done from the store than where there were then back then to find a loaf of bread that didn't have hydrogenated oils and that wasn't or that was organic and had all the things that were my stipulations i didn't want any caramel coloring food dye high fructose corn syrup all of those things it was really hard to find bread that met that criteria that i could actually afford so making my own bread has been a huge part of that and this is a loaf of sourdough so this is a hundred percent sourdough i've got my sourdough starter here and i really got into cultured foods and fermented foods which a fully cultured sourdough loaf is considered a cultured food the flour has been fermented before baking but there's lots of different recipes you can watch my video on how to make a sourdough starter and start doing sourdough which is great but there's also some really great recipes the first one i used was my five ingredient five minute of hands-on time no need bread and that is a super easy bread recipe to use i've got a video here on youtube you can grab that recipe and see how fast it goes and that's what i started with because it was just with those basic very basic ingredients of flour water sugar salt no excuse me not even sugar flour water salt and yeast and then i add apple cider vinegar to mine because it improves the flavor as well as the longevity of the bread and the texture so that can be another way to go is with your bread that was a big one for us then i had to look at what we were drinking and especially what i was drinking so as i shared in that previous video i was a huge diet coke girl i drink a lot of diet coke and hardly any water which is a whole nother problem all on its own so when i cut out i cut out all soda pop one most of your soda there is some you can get now that is just made with sugar but almost all of it has food dye in it which was another thing i wanted to make sure i was staying away from the carbonation actually did also bother my stomach but then as well as the high fructose corn syrup or if you're drinking diet it didn't have high fructose corn syrup in it but it did have aspartame which also is a huge sugar and can be really damaging to your health so cold turkey i cut out the soda pop and i drank just water but after a while i did get tired of drinking just water and i did kind of miss having some of that flavor a little bit of the sweetness and a little bit of the bubbliness as well so a great thing as i went on my gut healing journey was kombucha so this is my jar of kombucha which i just have fresh brewed here i'm actually getting ready to go ahead and strain this i'll start a new batch and then strain it and put it into bottles to have in the fridge but this has been great because it does have the scoby in there which is this symbiotic colony of good bacteria and yeast so it has a lot of great things for your gut flora and flona and health and you can flavor it however you want with just using different fruits i like to do blueberry raspberry cherry cherry lime is really good so i can flavor this or i can have it just is right now with just the black tea but this has been a great way and my daughter even really loves this so this has been a great alternative for us to have something kind of special if you just get bored of water that can still be really great for your health now speaking of drinks one of my other favorite things that really bothered my stomach that i've shared with you guys before is coffee so when i first started doing this healing i did quit coffee completely for about six months straight and i used to we used to i think it was just folgers honestly is what we used to drink and it would really bother my stomach but after six months of not drinking any coffee and swapping out all of these things and really focusing on on trying to heal myself and paying attention to how i responded to different foods i decided to try coffee again because i really missed it and i found that by drinking and organic and yes coffee can be a highly pesticide crop and not just organic but also shade grown so shade grown coffee has less acid in it naturally than coffee that's not shade grown and this is also a fair trade brand so i have tried just organic coffee that was not shade grown and that does still bother my stomach this is one of the very few coffees that i've had i can drink day in and day out and do it as actually we have an espresso machine now um and i can brew it hotly instead of doing toddy which is with cold water and you let it sit and this is the cameo camano island coffee roasters which i have a link to this that does give you a discount if you want to try their coffee beneath the video and you can check that out but that was one of the major changes that i made that has made a big difference as well as what i put into my coffee so gosh you guys i'm doing a lot of confessing i used to drink diet coke i'm like don't take away my homesteader card okay but i used to drink diet coke and i used to drink like the coffee mate creamers and i know if some of you love them like you know and i did really like them one of my favorites was the peppermint mocha which they used to only come out at christmas time i have no idea because i haven't bought in so many years now if that's still a thing or if they only have it certain times of the year but i had to find something else to put in my coffee so right now what my favorite thing is and i kind of go go back and forth but instead of using that is i really like and i also found this has been great for my gut healing yes you're seeing some of my vitamins in here but that is collagen protein and right now i love chocolate so instead of putting cocoa powder in there and a separate collagen powder which i've used some other brands in the past and they've been fine but they weren't flavored is this is the bulletproof chocolate collagen protein and so it tastes really great i'm getting my collagen as well as getting that chocolate flavor and this one does not have sugar in it it uses stevia leaf extract and i think it has is it or erythritol in it a small amount of earth's tall now some people have very strong opinions on whether or not to use a sugar alcohol i'm fine with using a sugar alcohol if you're not then don't use it now a few of the other switches that i made again this is like really for the base ingredients because i can use it in so many things so i don't buy any type of condensed soup anymore and haven't for years now if you're looking for replacements for like your condensed cream of chicken cream of mushroom cream of celery you know any of the cream soups i have a video you guys you can make homemade condensed cream of anything soup and i have all the different variations on my website and i have a video on how to do it if you want the written recipe i'm not kidding you it is less than four minutes i have had readers time it because they were in a hurry to get out the door for work and they made it through it in the crock pot and left and it literally is less than four minutes to make it's super fast and it holds up to i've used it in the instant pot i've used it in the slow cooker i've used in the oven of course just on the stovetop like truly it is life changing so make sure you grab that recipe but along those lines because i don't buy the condensed cream of anything soup i don't buy condensed tomato soup anymore either and so i do grow my own tomatoes and preserve all of my own tomato sauce and salsa products i grow a san marzano lungo which is a paste tomato is the variety that i grow and i make usually i just do up tomato sauce because that's pretty fast and easy and then i'll take this tomato sauce and i'll make my pasta sauce i make my pizza sauce marinara like whatever i need it for as well as i will can it in pints and that is what i use for my condensed tomato soup so i'll use that like when you're making shepherd's pie or hamburger casserole or you just want tomato soup i'll mix that tomato soup with the next item that i also make from home and from scratch and that is bone broth bone broth is so easy to make at home you get the benefits of the collagen and the gelatin it's really easy and so i will mix a jar of broth with a jar of the tomato sauce simmer that on the stove add a little bit of salt some garlic and onion powder and you will not know the difference it tastes just like it's wonderful tomato soup and it's super fast to make your own homemade bone broth i also have a video on that so you can see the method that i use to do that very easy as well as if you want to can it so you've got it shelf stable if you don't have a pressure canner and you don't want to can it you can throw it in the fridge for up to five days and then you can also freeze it but with the base of these i can make any type of condensed cream soup that i want or if i want it to be cream i can actually use milk but if you're dairy free then you can also just use the bone broth and so this allows me to do the base of so much of the things that i'm cooking and again no food dye no high fructose corn syrup none of the hydrogenated oils it's in glass and i don't know if it's just the absence of all of those but tomato sauce does not bother me at all so i can make any of the tomato products and consume them even chilies and it doesn't bother or trigger my acid at all okay so up next we gotta talk mayonnaise and you're gonna see a jar best foods mayonnaise here because i'm keeping it real with you i do not use the best foods mayonnaise i do if i do it is very very sparingly and not very often but if you are the person in your family who is making the swaps and the changes and really has the drive for healthier ingredients you need to be prepared and to know that not all members of your family will necessarily be on board with you or with all ingredients so with all the rest of the ingredients my family's been pretty good but you wanna know what my husband is not giving up his best foods mayonnaise and i am okay with that so we do have best foods mayonnaise in our refrigerator and that is what my husband goes for the reason i don't like best foods mayonnaise is because of the soybean oil soybean is highly genetically modified and there's varying studies that suggest that soybean can mess with estrogen levels so for those reasons i try not to use best foods sorry best foods okay so i use avocado oil-based mayonnaise so yes we have two jars of mayonnaise in our fridge um this is the chosen foods brand i really like this brand um and this i get at costco so you can check it out i do have how to make your own homemade mayonnaise if you have my book handmade there is a tutorial and recipe in there for how to make your own homemade mayonnaise which i do sometimes but i kind of you know it depends on what season i am in life and how busy we are and so if you're not at the point where you want to make your homemade mayonnaise and it doesn't take very long but honestly sometimes i'm just like i don't have time to make mayonnaise right now this is what i buy so avocado oil mayonnaise i like it better than the olive oil mayonnaise because i feel like the avocado oil doesn't have as strong of a taste coming through and it's still nice and creamy so get yourself some of this now i know i've talked a lot about like i'm growing it myself i'm making it myself i'm canon it i'm grinding my own flower so for those of you who are like okay that sounds awesome but i'm not sure i'm ready to make all those steps trust me you will be soon i'll meet you there when you're ready but this is going to make some of you probably very happy yes this is box mac and cheese and yes i can make mac and cheese from scratch which is actually my favorite way especially if you use like some smoked gouda because sorry guys smoked gouda makes everything better and then a really sharp cheddar i really like cheese and i'm actually making myself quite hungry right now but i do still buy some convenience foods for my kids that they can make without me or if i don't feel like making it all from scratch and again the organic i choose the organic mac and cheese it's the annie's brand i can get it in bulk from costco and i'm happy with the ingredients in there so there you go and the other great thing is not only am i happy with the ingredients my kids actually like the way that this one tastes they're not always crazy we don't buy cold cereal hardly ever like a couple times a year but my kids do not like the healthy version of cold cereal that they get on occasion but they are very happy about this swap out so there you go that is my top 13 healthier ingredient options that i started with when we started making over our kitchen and our heating habits

Channel: Melissa K. Norris - Modern Homesteading

Views: 72,674

Rating: 4.9569407 out of 5

Keywords: ingredient swap, healthy food swaps, healthy food, ingredient swaps for healthier recipes, healthy food ideas, healthy food vs junk food, healthy foods to eat, healthy food swaps eat this not that, 10 healthy food swaps, 20 healthy food swaps, easy healthy food swaps

Id: uZlceOZeryY

Length: 21min 30sec (1290 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 03 2021