Nutrition Nerd CiCi

Healthified ramen.

Red Dye 3 is finally banned—yay! But before we break out the confetti, let’s not ignore the fact that a lot of frankenfoods are still lurking on shelves, packed with other questionable ingredients. This is a great baby step, but there’s a LONG way to go!

In the meantime, here’s what to watch for (and avoid) on food labels:

1️⃣ Added sugars – If it ends in ‘-ose’ (like fructose or glucose), it’s sugar in disguise.

2️⃣ Inflammatory seed oils – Beware of the ‘Hateful 8’: canola, corn, cottonseed, soybean, sunflower, safflower, grapeseed, and rice bran oil.

3️⃣ Low-fat products – ‘Low-fat’ almost always means ‘loaded with sugar.’

Or, ya know, maybe just opt for foods in their whole form. As in, no ingredients label needed. 🤔🤷🏻‍♀️

Pulled pork nachos for a quick and high-protein dinner. The healthy fats and protein in this meal are SO important for optimal hormone function in your follicular phase (first half of your cycle)—even if you’re not trying to conceive. When you feed your hormones what they need (and when), you’ll sleep better, have more energy, notice improved digestion and less bloat, and enjoy glowing skin.

Mindful portion of corn tortilla chips
pulled pork sautéed in ACV
Mindful portion of shredded cheddar
Full-fat Greek yogurt
Half an avocado
Diced tomatoes
Banana peppers

Anyone else read cookbooks for fun/to relax? No? Just me? Cool, cool, totally normal. This one’s like part culinary adventure, part life lessons, and honestly, I’m here for it.

High-protein (which means blood-sugar-balancing!), make-ahead brekkie sammie:

English muffin
fried egg
deli turkey


OMG YUM.

52g of protein in this scrumptious adult lunchable!

Half a cucumber dipped in ranch
Sliced raw milk cheddar
vanilla yogurt
Five slices turkey with mustard
1 cup grapes
Grapefruit

15-minute healthy smashburger bowl. Michael says, “This is fantastic!” 😆

Per plate:
1/2 cup roasted potatoes
6 oz ground beef seasoned with salt, garlic powder, chili powder
Big handful of greens
Cherry tomatoes
1 tbsp shredded cheddar
1 tsp crispy onion topping

And omg the sauce:
2 tbsp each ketchup and mayo
1 tbsp mustard
Cayenne to taste
Pickle juice to thin

This is a lovely dinner for getting over illness. I’ve had an upper respiratory infection for a full month now and am finally on the upswing. So I made this cozy dinner for one tonight to give me a massive immune boost.

It’s so simple—

1/2 cup cooked quinoa for low-GI protein

1 1/2 cup mixed roasted veg for healing polyphenols (I used green pepper, tomato, shiitake mushrooms and red onion)

1/4 cup roasted chickpeas for fiber (finishing up some antibiotics and my gut is straight-up gnarly rn)

1 cup loosely packed, roughly chopped herbs to fight inflammation (I used dill, cilantro and parsley — did you know that using multiple herbs together magnifies each of their anti-inflammatory super powers?)

Dress with EVOO, lemon juice, S&P. Toss in some feta if you’re feeling crazy.

Minimal meal prep today, focusing on easy, high-protein lunches that I can dump and eat quickly between meetings this week. I’m in my follicular phase so these are also loaded with mindful portions of healthy fats to help my follicles grow and boost egg quality.

🧂 INGREDIENTS 🧂
2 tbsp full-fat Greek yogurt + 1 tbsp each EVOO and ACV + 1 tsp each oregano, garlic powder, S & P
1/4 cup rough-chop cucumbers
1/4 cup diced bell pepper
1/4 cup chopped cherry tomatoes
10 kalamata olives
Forkful banana peppers
1/4 cup cooked shrimp (seasoned with S&P, garlic powder, red pepper flakes)
1/2 avocado, chopped
Romaine lettuce
2 tsp feta crumbles

This is for one large mason jar; I made four jars (about 1 pound of shrimp for all four).

Save this and LMK if you try it!

Long overdue but the food in Barbados is to die for, friends. We were nervous about staying at a resort with just one restaurant, but they change the menu daily based on what they catch that morning. This means we enjoy: variety, sea-to-table freshness, and novel chef creations. Not to mention, everything was incredibly healthy. It was so nice to be on vacation and truly not worry about a single meal “sabotaging” any progress on my wellness and fertility journey.

In Switzerland, it felt so good to just… EAT. To not worry about ingredients, blood sugar, endocrine disruptors, etc. Because the food standards outside the US are higher. They are designed to optimize health vs. make us sick so we become dependent on medical intervention.

Even the few processed foods we ate had no more than six ingredients and we could pronounce all of them (once we translated from German, that is! 😂).

We ate a lot and we walked a lot — about 16,000 steps per day on average.

The Swiss got it right.