The five components
Protein: 30 grams. Fish, chicken, eggs, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, tofu, tempeh, beans, lentils.
Fiber: a legume, a whole grain, or a generous volume of vegetables. Aim for eight to ten grams per meal.
Healthy fat: olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds, oily fish. Fat carries flavour and fat-soluble vitamins, and it keeps you full.
Colour: at least one deeply coloured plant. The pigments are the polyphenols; this is not decoration.
Flavour: acid, herbs, spice, salt, crunch. This is the component people skip, and it is why healthy eating fails.
Component cooking beats meal prep
Prepping five identical containers of Monday's dinner works for about three days before rebellion sets in. Prepping components does not.
On one afternoon: roast two trays of vegetables, cook a pot of grains, cook a protein, make one sauce, wash and dry greens. That is fifteen different meals, not five identical ones.
The sauce is the leverage point. One good herb yogurt, tahini lemon, or chimichurri makes the same three ingredients taste like three different dinners.
Reading a recipe like a cook
Once you see the template, recipes become suggestions. Missing the chickpeas? Any legume. No salmon? Any fish, or eggs, or tofu. The structure holds even when the ingredients change.
That is the actual skill we are teaching. Not 25 recipes, one method that generates a thousand.
