I’m sure with the very – well, different dietary choices many of us make (cougheatingrealfoodcough) many of our loved ones are left wondering,
What the heck is in their refrigerator?
That was one of my early questions, before adopting a real food (like, REALLY real food – Paleo, Primal, junk-free, conventional-wisdom-busting) diet. I just knew that refrigerators were for cartons of milk, noodle casseroles, low-fat yogurt, Diet Coke, and Lean Cuisines. And freezers were for Creamsicles. Duh.
Thankfully, I realized quickly that a Real Food Fridge wasn’t one filled with vessels of animal blood and bags of arterycloggingsaturatedfat. (To be administered orally or applied directly to the vasculature – because, might as well just shoot it right into your arteries, no?)
You’ll see that I don’t have a bunch of interesting ingredients and gourmet meal-worthy goodies. Right now I stick to a breakfast of eggs, meat and fermented veggies or pico; lunch of sardines and some kind of squash topped with lots of yummy fat (butter, ghee or coconut oil); and dinner of meat, broth, and veggies.
I generally “hide” my organ meats in chili or meatballs. I take my Cod Liver Oil in the morning. When I can make it to the farm market, I’ll go for heirloom tomatoes and cukes for greek salads.
Like the contents of our Junk Drawers, everyone’s Real Food Fridge is different. Here’s what’s in mine – what’s in yours?
(sorry about the text being a bit hard to read. I lost the original image in a blog migration and could only extract a screenshot of the original.)
Yes, I have a Cod Liver Oil shelf. Some people collect buttons; I collect Cod Liver Oil/Butter Oil Blends.
You’ll see that most of my veggies are of the fermented variety at the moment. Not visible: Kraut of various kinds (seaweed, apple, etc), olives and capers.
Meat includes lamb sweetbreads and other goodies from US Wellness, grass-fed beef kidney and steak, liver, braunschweiger, chicken thighs, chicken breast, any & all cuts of beef, venison, bacon, and whatever came in from Philly Cowshare. There’s also raw dog food from Tropical Traditions.
Broth of all kinds: beef broth, chicken broth, and pig’s foot broth. Anything not consumed within a week is frozen.
Atchara is from Tropical Traditions, Kimchi is from Fab Ferments, Fermented Carrots from local company Real Pickles.
9 Responses
Where’s your fruit and veggies, Liz?? I feel like that’s what takes up 1/2 of my fridge…
Danielle, there will be more as the warm season continues and I make it to farm markets. Right now I’m still working through all the fermented veggies I had stockpiled. There are a TON of fermented veggies in there – beets, carrots, kraut, atchara…
I’ve got squash and sweet potato on the counter, as well as some fruit ripening in a paper bag. Stuff that’s brought in from the garden is generally eaten right away, so doesn’t make it to the fridge!
This is just a snapshot – it varies widely, even by the week 🙂
Oh these are my FAVORITE KINDS OF POSTS! I don’t know why. Wait, yes I do. It’s because I never met a medicine cabinet I didn’t *kind of* want to look in. I love seeing how other people live! I did a post about this about a year ago: http://hollywouldifshecould.net/2011/08/whats-in-my-fridge/ and it was fun, although since then our fridge died, we got a new one, and we cleaned up our diet EVEN MORE (a lot thanks to you! We definitely have a ‘fermented’ shelf now 🙂 so maybe it’s time to do another.
I need to make some DIY Barbacoa! Dang, guurl!
Fermented beets- good? easy to make? I have a plethora. FACT: Bears love beets.
Bears, beets, battlestar gallactica.
I’d imagine fermenting would be the same as pickling..like pickled carrots or pickled asparagus? I’m not a fan of beets but love all things pickled so I’d give them a try if fermented in this case is pickling
Pickling and fermenting are different! I’m working on a post differentiating the two 🙂 stay tuned…
You and Boz and myself would likely be great friends 🙂