A
- Avoid yellow arugula, these are old. If you see a couple yellow leaves in the packaging but the rest are green, don’t buy it.
- If you see any moisture in the packaging, don’t buy it, it may be harboring bacteria. Look for dry, fluffy arugula.
- Discard any weeds you find in your arugula as they may be inedible. Weeds will look different compared to the rest of your arugula.
- Look for apples that have a rougher appearance but are not rotten or bruised.
- Pick “geographic” apples. That means they have markings on them that make the apple look like a map or star constellation.
- Apples with shiny and perfect skin won’t be as sweet and crispy.
- Wash conventional and organic apples in hot water (with a natural soap). Hot water will dissolve any wax on it and make it possible to wash the pesticides trapped below the wax.
- Always wash before using.
- Can be eaten raw or cooked.
- The butt or stem cap of an avocado (where the stem was attached) is a teeth breaker. Remove it before cutting the avocado so it doesn’t accidentally get into your dish. Look out for smaller (hidden) stem caps on some avocados.
- Always wash your avocados (use a natural soap). You want to rid the skin of germs before sending your knife through it.
- After cutting in half, you can squeeze the avocado like a lemon to push the flesh out. You can quickly process avocados this way.
- If you use a knife to remove the pit, avoid using your hands to pull the pit off of the knife. Instead, lay the knife on a cutting board and twist your knife into the board to push the pit off.
- Lime brings out a nutty flavor from the avocado, lemon does not. The fat in avocado reacts differently with lime vs. lemon.
- Buy green avocados. Dark avocados could already be oxidizing and if they fall on the floor they’ll experience more oxidation on the spot where it fell.
- The sweet spot for an avocado is when there is still a tinge of green left on the skin, not when it’s entirely dark.
- Avoid an avocado that’s overly soft or covered with divots, it’s fermenting. If you do use an overripe avocado, don’t eat any of the rotten or dark spots on the flesh.
- Avocados can be used as a replacement for various types of cheeses. Use ripe and firm avocados for firmer cheeses and ripe and soft avocados for softer cheeses
- Mash avocados over blending. Avocados will oxidize rapidly if you blend it. (This is different from blending it with a fluid for the MM breast milk replacement recipe.)
- If you see a Hass avocado with a long neck or pear-like shape, it will be creamier and have an amazing flavor. This is because it is related to the Fuerte avocado.
- Onions come out strong in guacamole so you don’t want to overdo it. Scallions and chives do a lot better.
- Salt sucks moisture out of the avocado and will make your guacamole more watery. It will also blend flavors together so if you want to keep your flavors distinct, don’t add much salt.
- Placing avocado pits into guacamole won’t preserve it. However, after cutting an avocado, if you leave the pit attached to half of the avocado without disturbing or jarring the pit, that half will preserve longer.
- When making crudités, make sure the veggies aren’t too thin and flimsy. If they aren’t firm enough, someone could end up with their fingers in your guacamole.
- If you pick an avocado at any stage off the tree, even if it’s the size of a grape, it will still ripen.
B
- Not all bananas ripen the same way so you can’t always judge their ripeness by appearances. Some varieties can brown and not be overripe.
- If a banana can be easily squeezed, that’s a good sign it’s overripe.
- An under-ripe banana will cause a fuzzy or sticky feeling in your mouth.
- Under-ripe and overripe bananas can give you a belly ache.
- Freeze bananas when they are ripe, not when they under or overripe.
- If you cut your bananas with the skin intact, make sure to wash the skin first. The skin may be harboring bacteria that your knife could be pushing into the banana as you cut through it.
- Anthony peels his bananas before freezing.
- It’s okay to peel the banana from the top or bottom.
- It’s a good idea to give your bananas a wash if you plan to use them right after you buy them.
- Bananas and tomatoes do not digest well together.
- Chewing on a basil stem can knock out the smell of bad breath or garlic.
- You can easily cut the top of the pepper off to grab the seeds out with your hand.
- Slice peppers across the bottom to make them stand straight. You can put anything in there and roast them like that.
- Cut off any brown spots on the broccoli, those parts are fermenting and will change the flavor of your dish. Yellow spots are still good but getting older.
- Cut off tougher parts of the broccoli stem to expose the more tender flesh.
- Remove leaves that are yellowing as they can ruin the flavor of your whole dish.
- Steam them for 20-25 minutes before roasting so they will be soft instead of tough and chewy.
- If you’re not roasting them after steaming, steam them longer.
- Hard to digest raw.
C
- Chop off the carrot top when roasting. There is an alkaloid that builds in the top of the carrot which makes it hard to digest. It’s a defense mechanism of the carrot against animals.
- You don’t have to peel it when roasting.
- Cut along the stem of each floret (length-wise) and they will pull apart easier. It also wont make as big of a mess as cutting through the florets.
- When making cauliflower rice in a food processor, pulse the cauliflower so it doesn’t turn into a cauliflower smoothie.
- Use hard cherry tomatoes. Don’t use soft or crinkly cherry tomatoes. It means they are going bad.
- The closer you are to the stem, the more bitter it gets.
- Cut off the bottom of the cucumber (opposite side of stem) if it’s going soft.
D
- Remove the butt or stem cap (hard part located where the stem was attached).
- Remove any date pits from your cutting board so they don’t accidentally get into your dish.
- Wash dates that are exposed in the store (bulk section). People may have touched them with their hands even if tongs are available to use.
- Dates that come in a sealed case or box haven’t been touched by hands not wearing gloves.
G
- If you are going to slam your garlic with a knife, make sure the sharp end of the blade is pointing away from you (not towards you) and at a downward angle.
- Keep fresh garlic handy. They keep for a long time which makes it a great emergency storage food.
H
- You can eat herbs in high quantities like a leafy green. This is a great way to heal. For example, you can eat a large plate of cilantro and parsley like a salad.
J
- Look for jams without citric acid, vinegar and artificial preservatives.
- Anthony recommends the St. Dalfour brand. Great to put on banana nice cream to add different flavors.
L
- Lime is ripe when it turns yellow like a lemon, however, you can use them unripe.
- An unripe lime will be more bitter and sour.
- A ripe lime is sweeter and juicier.
M
- Each syrup has a unique flavor and sweetness.
- Make sure to buy 100% pure maple syrup and not one made with corn syrup.
- Maple sugar is a great alternative to processed GMO sugar like high fructose corn syrup.
- Maple cream can be used as a healthy icing.
- Mint tea aids in the digestion of fat which makes it a great drink after a rich meal.
- Wash mushrooms with hot water (not scalding hot) before using to get rid of bacteria. Cold water won’t be enough.
- Mushrooms with slime on them are okay, just wash it off.
- Don’t use mushrooms that are pitted, have divots or discolored. They’re oxidizing and beginning to create a toxin.
- If the bottom of the mushroom looks bad, toss them. You can tell how fresh a mushroom is by looking at the bottom of it.
- If you see any green on the bottom of the stem, throw away the whole box.
- It is okay to freeze mushrooms.
O
- The sweetest part of the onion is the top of the onion, not the side where the roots were.
- If the onion is brown at all in the center, throw out the whole onion, it’s rotting. There’s a high probability (about 85%) the rest of the onion will be sour with one rotten layer.
- Onions will start to get bitter around the halfway mark as you near the root end. You may not want to use the bitter part for a salad but it’s fine to use the whole onion in a stew.
- Pick the hardest oranges. Soft ones can be okay, but eat them as soon as possible. If an orange has a super soft spot or you can pierce the skin with your finger, throw it out, it’s bad.
- An orange has to turn fully orange to be ripe. It won’t have any green left on the skin.
- Orange Zest: Take a little bit off the orange skin but avoid the white pith.
P
- When cooking multiple pasta boxes at once, make sure you put them into the pot at the same time so that pasta from one box doesn’t cook quicker than the other.
- Make sure no cardboard pieces from the box make it into the pot.
- Stir the pasta around once it’s in the pot so it doesn’t stick to the bottom.
- It’s not necessary to rinse the starch off of the pasta after straining it. You will lose flavor and it may taste like sink water.
- Don’t eat potatoes that are green or starting to sprout.
- After steaming potatoes you can use a fork to scratch the skin off.
- You can cut potatoes in half so they steam quicker and more evenly.
- Anthony steams larger potatoes for about an hour.
- Potato waffles: Use steamed potatoes that are still warm.
- French fries: Use steamed potatoes that still are cold from the fridge, they’ll be easier to cut into fries. A dense potato with less moisture (such as russets) will make for better fries.
R
- Peel the outer leaves, they are touched a lot.
- Cut the core out, it’s bitter.
- The top part is the sweetest.
- Don’t soak white rice paper too long. Brown rice paper is thicker and can be soaked longer.
- Can be used to make raw or air fried spring roll. Using 2 layers of rice paper is a good idea if you’re air frying.
- Try steamed cabbage leaf if you want a grain-free wrap.
S
- When you cut squash, make sure there’s nothing else on the cutting board and that the board is dry. You don’t want the squash slipping on you when you’re trying to run your knife through it.
- Cut off any hard parts on the top and bottom. Otherwise, someone could end up biting it in your dish and hurting a tooth.
- You can throw the seeds in a pan to toast and they’ll pop like popcorn. The inside of the seed is edible.
- Gashes on a squash may have been created by equipment that was covered in grease. Carve out any sizable hole or mark that looks suspicious.
- When scooping the seeds out, also scoop out the fur. It’s bitter and will lessen the taste experience. (The fur is the stringy material that can be left behind after you scoop out the seeds.)
- Cut the hard ends off so no one at the dinner table is picking chewy sweet potato skin out of their mouth.
- Don’t eat a sweet potato if it has a lot of rotten spots.
T
- The top part of the core is tough. You can use a paring knife to cut it out.
- You should cut around holes on the tomato if eating it raw. You don’t know what was poked into the tomato.
- Avoid tomatoes with cracks that have split open.
- Wash tomatoes with warm or hot water (with a natural soap) and rinse well. You want to wash off the wax they apply on the tomatoes because it may contain MSG.
- Tomatoes and bananas do not digest well together.
- Soak dried tomatoes in warm or hot water (make sure they’re completely submerged in the water).
- It’s rare to find dried tomatoes that aren’t intensely pre-salted. Anthony recommends Bella Viva Orchards Organic Dried Tomatoes.
- Don’t buy a jar of tomato sauce if the lid has popped or had its seal broken.
V
- Choose alcohol-free vanilla extract.
- When looking at ingredients containing vanilla, make sure it says vanilla extract and not vanilla flavor / flavoring. Vanilla flavoring is MSG.
Z
- Smaller zucchinis are sweeter. Larger ones are more bitter.
- Cut off the little divots on a zucchini made by people’s fingernails. You don’t want to ingest the bacteria and viruses from under someone’s fingernail, especially if eating the zucchini raw.
- Cut off the butt end of the zucchini where the flower was. It tends to be hard and can hurt someone’s tooth by biting into it.
- When roasting zucchini, scoop the seeds out to help the zucchini not become so moist when roasting.
Kitchen Tools
- An air fryer is a great tool for cooking yummy foods without oil or with less oil.
- Anthony recommends the West Bend air fryer.
- Clean your cutting board often and keep it dry.
- Don’t cut meat on a wooden board.
- Use moist towels while cooking. They make it easier to clean hands and surfaces.
- Recommended towels can be found in the Cleaning Supplies section of the MM Amazon Store.
- Anthony uses Seventh Generation Free & Clear dish soap to wash his produce. Only a drop is needed in most cases.
Special thanks to the MM Community Support Group Discord, My Notes From Spirit of Compassion Facebook group, and @healwithcamron for providing reference material used in compiling this list.
– MMFriendly
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