5 INGREDIENT MEALS
The 5 Ingredient meal is a concept that I introduced to my audience and program participants in 2019. It is a concept I’ve worked with for years but only started to articulate when I released a program called the GUT CHECK CHALLENGE. It was an approach I promoted that was designed to simplify meals and help the participants to better understand how food interacted with their bodies. By having fewer variables on the plate (only 5 ingredients maximum), it becomes much easier to figure out how foods make you feel and the impact they have on your health, performance, and aesthetics.
As much as they are indulgent and delicious, I’ve always found buffet style meals challenging. I pile my plate high with 20+ different things and afterwards would feel terrible, never knowing what on the plate made me feel bad.
To follow the FUNCTIONAL vs PLEASURABLE concept that I introduced, I think it is important to also draw the connection between the 5 ingredient meal and function. Functional eating is synonymous with simplicity. One of the easiest ways to get simple with your meals is to strip them way down. If you are new to a FUNCTIONAL eating approach, then following the 5 ingredient rule is a great way to get started.
How to follow the 5 ingredient rule? Your meals can only consist of 5 ingredients or less. That means 5 whole foods can be on your plate and no more. Dry spices and herbs, as well as vinegars and mustards (so long as they don’t have added ingredients in them) don’t count towards your total. I generally recommend following this build a plate formula.
Ingredients
- Protein – examples – chicken breast, flank steak, pork loin (pick one – don’t mix them, just one)
- Vegetable – examples – broccoli, asparagus, bell pepper (pick one or two – not a salad with 8 ingredients)
- Fat – examples – olive oil, butter, avocado, coconut oil (pick one or two)
- Fruit – example – apple, orange, banana, grapes (pick one or skip it)
- Starch – example – potato, rice, quinoa (pick one or skip it)
You don’t have to have all 5 ingredients. Choosing only one of each category gets you a fairly balanced plate without doing much measuring. With that said, it is still worthwhile to measure your food and know how much of each category you need to build a good plate. Eating salads is great, don’t get me wrong. However, if you are really just starting out and trying to learn to appreciate food for simplicity and function, then I encourage you to just choose simple 1-2 vegetable ingredients. Over time, after you learn about FUNCTION vs PLEASURE, and you have a foundation of choosing great quality in the right quantities, you cans start to expand your meals to more ingredients. It can make things more flavorful, pleasurable, but also introduces complexity which can be harder to stay accountable and measured with.
Still to this day, when I need to have a reset with my nutrition after a period of getting a little too pleasurable with my food, I almost always retreat to 5-ingredient meals for about a week at a time and I find it immensely helpful – and it gets me back on track quickly.