The Simplest Guide to Healthy Eating You’ll Ever Read

And Food in Witch Spirituality

This post was requested by a friend who wants to eat healthily without learning to cook. He provided the post’s great title. I hope the following is useful to him and to anyone who wants to eat healthily but simply.

Though this site focuses on Earth Spirituality, this food guide is for you whatever your spiritual path. My Goddess wants to help someone, regardless of their spiritual leanings. I try to follow suit. The guide is a way I can support health in all individuals.

Before we get into the guide:

Food, Druids, Trees, Magic, and the Yearwheel

If you came to the site because you know I’m a witch, and you’re looking for magic, here’s how this article is relevant.

Before I started eating more healthily 40 years ago, finding my spiritual center or magic was near impossible, by and large. (In those days, some of my eating was quite healthy. My choices about food were in many ways healthier than the majority of Americans’. But a lot my eating habits were dreadful, with awful consequences despite all the good foods I ate.)

Pseudo-foods seemed to fill up every psychic pore in my body so my otherworldly perceptions were greatly diminished.

Pseudo-foods dulled my spirit, so I could barely feel my innate spiritual power and connection to my Gods. A shamanic journey would’ve almost been a waste of time.

I could not find my life goals to any significant degree, let alone follow through on them.

In contrast, now that I eat healthily almost entirely, my life is completely different. I experience harmony with nature. As the seasons turn throughout the year wheel, I’m empowered by each turn and season.

I feel the sacredness of trees and can be filled by their wisdom and love.

As the moon waxes and wanes, the tides within me respond in celebration. In monthly moon rites, lunar power surrounds me with love—a love that could not get through to me when pseudo foods stood in the way by dulling my mind, body, and spirit.

The Sabbats—eight Pagan holidays that mark the annual solar and vegetative cycles—echo in my heart.

And now I have spiritual fortitude to follow through on my goals, instead of being the limp wet noodle I was when eating poorly.

I also have the strength to follow through on my love of Mother Earth, by taking mundane and mystical actions to heal Gaia.

Food is a way we can closely interact with nature and gain its physical and etheric benefits. My Gods live in nature, so food is a sacrament, miraculous in its ability to create a healthy body and spirit.

The humble kitchen is the center of the universe, or at least is one of its centers. Many druids, witches, and other nature lovers—myself included—go to a forest to find themselves and Divinity. I find all that in the kitchen, too.

And with that, let’s talk simple food:

Why I Learned to Eat Simply and Still Often Do

In 1980, I completely overhauled my diet for medical reasons. Such a huge dietary change was near overwhelming, so I kept meals very simple at first. This allowed me to make the shifts needed.

I didn’t want to eat this simply forever. Establishing easy, healthy eating habits laid the groundwork for me to later prepare elaborate, wholesome meals.

I grew up in a family of chefs and excellent cooks, adore food, and was delighted once I was able to start cooking healthy fancyyyyy meals. I learned how to make healthy tortes, truffles, and many other delicious things. But I never would’ve gotten to this point without allowing myself to keep food extremely streamlined for a while.

Sustaining healthy habits is easier if you enjoy them a reasonable amount of the time. Even though I now do a lot of intricate cooking, I still relish all the simple foods I’m going to suggest below. I grab them not only when I have no or little time for food prep, but also because I enjoy them bunches.

The American idea that a meal has to include meat or a glut of unrefined carbs does not support health, though it does help many a doctor pay their mortgage. I’m not one to deprive myself. This post offers substantial, belly-filling meals.

To make eating healthily even easier for you, the guide has links to purchase most of the items I suggest. The two companies to which I link are ethical providers of quality food, and I purchase from them on a regular basis.

Thrive Market, to which many of the links in this post lead, is an ethical alternative to Amazon’s grocery section. Thrive offers membership, which reduces costs. If you’re low income, membership is free. Last I knew, free membership requires only a quick application, instead of jumping through the endless hoops that lower-income individuals usually have to struggle through to get help.

All foods to which I link are organic and items I’ve tried myself unless otherwise noted.

This post covers all the food groups, so you can combine various suggestions to make a full meal.

And with that:

Peanut Butter Is the Non-Chef’s Friend

My mom raised me right: I grew up loving celery sticks filled with peanut butter. Wash off your celery sticks, chop off both ends, spread peanut butter inside the cavity that goes the length of the celery, eat. Simple.

Feeling lazy? Sit down with celery sticks and a jar of peanut butter. Start dipping. Children do it, which proves it’s a nice eating experience. … If you want to be more civilized, plop some peanut butter on a plate before you start dipping. If you want to be posh, it take three minutes to prepare it the way it tastes best, spreading the peanut butter into the celery “trough.”

Here are two salt-free peanut butters you can purchase online. The first is creamy, the second crunchy. I haven’t tried these myself, so let me know what you think:

https://thrivemarket.com/p/thrive-market-organic-peanut-butter-creamy

https://thrivemarket.com/p/thrive-market-organic-peanut-butter-crunchy

I prefer salted peanut butter, but I did not see an online link for it. Nothing wrong with salt if you don’t overdo it, and your doctor allows it.

Purchase peanut butter that does not have hydrogenated oil. It keeps the peanut oil from rising to the top of the butter but is not good for you physically. You will need to stir your peanut butter after purchase, so the oil is folded back into the body of the peanut butter. Also choose peanut butter that’s sugar-free. I promise you: sugar-free peanut butter without hydrogenated oil is extra yummy. Back to celery and peanut butter:

I’m not saying celery and peanut butter constitutes a full meal. To round out the meal, you might add some cheese on wholegrain bread, spread with organic butter. The cheese combines with the nuts to increase the protein value in both. Butter is a healthy food, despite opinions to the contrary. If the butter is organic, you’re good to go. I prefer unsalted butter, which tends to be much fresher.

Whole grain bread—or rice cakes—spread with butter can be paired with many food suggestions here, to create a full meal.

Want more vegetables in the meal along with the celery? Scroll down to the section Veggies are Gods.

Speaking of children and peanut butter, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are the bomb, if ingredients are wholesome. Three yummy, organic sugar-free jams:

Apricot: https://thrivemarket.com/p/thrive-market-organic-fruit-spread-apricot

Blueberry: https://thrivemarket.com/p/thrive-market-organic-fruit-spread-blueberry

Strawberry: https://thrivemarket.com/p/thrive-market-organic-fruit-spread-strawberry

Adding a glass of milk to the P&B sandwich once again rounds out the protein, for a nice meal that reminds me of my youth, eating and daydreaming at the kitchen table after school, before Mom and Dad got home.

Oh, and dates! I grew up loving dates filled with peanut butter.

And a banana dipped in peanut butter? Heaven!

Whole Grains

Organic wholegrain bread is easily available unless you’re in a food desert. Since I bake my own organic wholegrain bread, I do not know online sources for it. If you have one, please let me know so I can include it in this post.

Organic wholegrain crackers are available online. So are wholegrain rice cakes.

Styrofoam—that’s what most rice cakes taste like, and they seem 90% air. I found rice cakes that taste great and are substantive. Plus, instead of the junk some rice cakes have, they’re simple yet yummy. They’re in the photo to the right.

Nuts Are Nutritious

Nuts are a mainstay in my kitchen. Their quick protein helps keep me going when I’m in the middle of a deadline.

Raw organic shelled nuts prevail in my kitchen. I buy them at my local co-op. Brazil nuts, cashews, almonds, hazelnuts.

I adore peanuts. Enter delicious, organic peanuts, dry roasted so that I’m not dealing with extra fat: https://thrivemarket.com/p/thrive-market-organic-dry-roasted-peanuts

I love fruits and nuts combined. … There’s some joke I could make about my love for eccentrics, but it’s beyond me right now.

A few ounces of nuts and two pieces of fruit works for me fine as breakfast.

Fruits Are Divine

Fruits are divine—wholesome and tasty. And I can just grab one and start munching. Organic bananas, apples, berries, oranges, and other fresh fruit are satisfying.

A few pieces of fruit and a handful of nuts, and I’m good to go. It’s nice to have quick meal options during my busy day.

My kitchen is always stocked with plenty of dried fruits. A few handfuls of organic nuts and raisins, yum!

Today’s lunch, once I add a salad, is almonds, pecans, raisins, and dried figs. Look at the natural sugar the figs exuded to make a sweet glaze:

After lunch, I’ll have a nice cup of enchanted herbal tea. Herbal teas, their medicinal benefits, and the magic they add to life are a lovely addition to any meal. How to Enchant Your Cup of Tea to Add Magical Healing to Medicinal Herbs : https://stardrenched.com/2017/03/29/how-to-enchant-your-cup-of-tea/

Yummy dried fruits:

Dried pineapple: https://thrivemarket.com/p/mavuno-harvest-organic-dried-pineapple

Dried cranberries: https://thrivemarket.com/p/patience-dried-cranberries

Organic Dried Apple Rings: https://thrivemarket.com/p/thrive-market-organic-dried-apple-rings

Lightly Salted Plantain Chips are a fruit and yummy substitute for potato chips. Not organic but are non-GMO: https://thrivemarket.com/p/thrive-market-plantain-chips-lightly-salted

Veggies are Gods

These four vegetables help round out any meal.

Cherry tomatoes and pre-washed baby carrots are both easy snacking.

I wash off a green pepper and eat it out of hand, the same way I would an apple.

Roasted seaweed is a nutritious and delicious veggie. If you like the combination of greasy and salty, you’ll love this: https://thrivemarket.com/p/thrive-market-sea-salt-seaweed-snacks

Preparing this plate of tomatoes with mozzarella cheese, drizzled with olive oil is a tiny bit of work but not challenging.

* Slice a medium or large tomato into slices about 1/ third of an inch thick. Don’t worry too much about how thick they are. It’s all good.
* Spread the slices across a plate.
* Lay thin slices of mozzarella cheese over it, or grated mozzarella.
* Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle on some salt, if you want. Voila, fahncy salad, get a knife and fork, dig in. Years back, this was a trendy posh dish.

Procuring the large amount of vegetables I need to eat to maintain my health is difficult. But it is possible.

My area doesn’t always have the best produce. I suspect some distributors send us their lesser quality foods. Some of the veggies are downright rotten.

My area does have organic vegetables, shipped in from around the country. Again, it’s not always worth buying, but some of it is fine. During summer, local farmers offer produce.

Using my freezer, which is built into my refrigerator but larger than most refrigerator freezers, is part of how I manage to eat enough veggies.

Many chain grocery stores now offer frozen organic vegetables.

When Covid hit, it was winter here, when there are no local vegetables. I was concerned that vegetables might not be shipped in anymore. I went online and started exploring canned organic vegetables and stocked up on them. Not my ideal, but an option. There are canned veggies at Thrive.

I also stocked up on frozen organics more than usual.

Meat is a Sacrament

I’m not a vegetarian, though I support those who are. I believe some body types need meat. Two acupuncturists told me my particular body needs meat.

It’s not in my diet in the typical American way; I don’t consume huge quantities of it, eating it at every meal, but I do need some almost every week.

I consider meat a sacrament. An animal gave its life that I might thrive.

There was a time when, if a poor person was ill, one of their family members would go to someone wealthy and ask for beef. Beef was considered medicine.

It makes me sad that something holy and medicinal has been turned into a food addiction that’s destroying our planet. Meat consumption and production can be done in a balanced way.

Enter Grassland Beef, an ethical company with awesome products (and excellent customer service. Thrive too has excellent customer service.)

Their meat is not officially organic but is organic in fact. The high cost of certification keeps many farmers from being certified.

Try their sugar-free salami: https://grasslandbeef.com/salami

Including organ meats in your diet, instead of only muscle meats, is not only better for our health but better for the planet. Consuming more parts of an animal is common sense. And organ meats are incredibly good for you.

Purchase only organic organ meats. Otherwise, they can be especially toxic.

An easy, delicious, and traditional old-world way to get organ meats into your diet is this sugar-free beef liverwurst: https://grasslandbeef.com/grass-fed-beef-liverwurst

This beef head cheese is another yummy, sugar-free way to enjoy organ meats: https://grasslandbeef.com/grassfed-beef-head-cheese

Eggs Are Perfect Protein

Eggs are a higher quality protein than even meat.

Chain grocery stores often carry organic eggs.

I’m including one recipe here that requires cooking: hard boiled eggs.

Boiling up a half a dozen eggs is easy, and then I have quick protein ready when I’m hungry:
* Put a half dozen eggs in a pot.
* Cover with water.
* Bring the water to a boil over high heat.
* Lower the heat to simmer, and let the water simmer for two minutes. What is simmer? Simmer is when the bubbles barely break the water’s surface. It’s not the furious bubbling of boiling water but much more gentle.
* Turn off the heat and let eggs stand in the hot water for 10 minutes, during which time they will continue to cook.
* Drain off the water, and you have hard-boiled eggs.
* Store them in the fridge in their shells.

Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth

While I sometimes satisfy my sweet tooth with fresh or dried fruit, or jam, there is also the Larabar. Though not organic, LaraBars have helped sustain me through many a deadline. A couple of Larabars, a glass of milk, and then munching on some vegetables while I continue to plow ahead on a deadline is a pleasure.

Apple Pie Bars: https://thrivemarket.com/p/larabar-apple-pie-bars

Cashew Cookie Bars: https://thrivemarket.com/p/larabar-cashew-cookie-bars

You now have a good beginning. Try a few of these ideas, keep an eye out for similar options as you browse the grocery store, and soon you’ll have a substantial repertoire.

If you want more suggestions for easy to prepare healthy meals and snacks, let me know.

Also, I need cooked food for my overall diet to be healthy. If you want to try a bit of cooking, I can give you the simplest recipes for healthy cooking you’ll ever read. Let me know if you’d like that.

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