You may have found Good Life Menus through a posting on a forum or a search for various dietary needs, whether your concern is diabetes, leptin resistance, autism, celiac disease, allergies, or the need for a low-carb way of eating.
Good Life Menus do not use grain of any kind. Nor are there any foods high on the glycemic index. Recipes only rarely call for any processed ingredients or canned food–only things like mustards, or vinegars, or canned items like olives. So there are only going to be additives, food dyes, etc. if you choose to use a brand that contains them. Food tastes better when it’s real food. Rule of thumb: if the list of ingredients on the label reads more like a chemistry experiment than a shopping list, put it back on the shelf.
If you have special dietary needs, you probably already have alternate sources for things like condiments. If not, check the Links section for links to gluten-free, low-carb, diabetic-safe and natural/organic foods. There is a lot of overlap in these groups. Many of the recipes will use things like soy sauce, various vinegars, mustards, etc. in flavoring. If you have a Trader Joe’s near you, their products tend to be made of real ingredients. I also have recipes for basic things like ketchup you may be needing for recipes.
In season, your own garden is your best source of vegetables. Some cities have services where homeowners allow others to plant and maintain a garden for them, with the produce split between the owner and the gardener. Most areas now have farmer’s markets and/or community gardens for at least 6 months out of the year.
If you can, plant an herb garden. You can do this in containers if space is a consideration. Even a windowsill herb garden will save you some money. Good Life Menus uses a lot of fresh herbs in season.
Another good option to obtain fresh, locally-raised food is to find a food buying club or co-op. In the buying club I belong to, I can get locally-raised free-range/pasture-raised eggs, chickens, meat of several kinds; milk, butter and cheeses; wild-caught fish; and just about every item you’d ever find at a health food store, for much less than the retail price. Many food-buying clubs will do “produce shares” or have some kind of setup during the non-garden season.
For sweetening, which is mostly only in desserts, recipes mostly use various kinds of stevia. Stevia can be grown in your garden, where you can use it to sweeten things like iced tea in the summer and fall. But for cooking, use Trader Joe’s bulk store brand (which uses maltodextrin–gluten-free), or NuStevia, or Sweetleaf, or Truvia/Purevia (which use erythritol). All have slightly different conversions to sugar. You may find other brands as well.
For thickening, recipes use guar gum, xanthen gum, or Xpert Foods’ Thick n’ Thin Notstarch (the most expensive option). It’s easiest to keep these in a unique salt shaker so others in the family don’t accidentally use it to try to “salt” something. Using a shaker makes it easy to sprinkle into the thing needing thickening, without having it lump up.
In some instances recipes use coconut flour, but these are not usually everyday recipes. Coconut flour is delectable and great for desserts; however you’ll have to add several eggs for each cup, or make the kinds of adjustments you usually make for gluten-free cooking.
Finally, for people needing to keep track of carbs, these menus come out to no more than 10 grams of carbs. This amount makes it possible for people just starting into a low-carb way of eating to use the menus from the start, in most cases. As your system heals and you can eat more, it’s easy to climb the carbohydrate ladder in your other daily meals.
Please email me if you have questions about the ingredients.
