Whole30 Prep Meal plan – Jan. 22-28

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As I mentioned in last week’s meal plan, we’re gearing up for a Whole 30 starting next week.

Ironically, the book, It Starts With Food tells you to start right away, but for starters, I had to go shopping before we could make the switch, and secondly, I felt like it would be too abrupt a change for the kids, so we’re taking this week to transition, and this week’s grocery haul reflects that – it’s mostly vegetables!

Part of me is terrified at how much this is going to cost, but I’m hopeful that cutting out whole food groups – dairy and grain – will help offset some of the expense. *gulp*

Image shows a table covered in groceries for the week, including cans of vegetables, some fresh vegetables, avocados, asparagus, potatoes, ground beef and more.

What was on my grocery list this week

Protein

Despite not wanting to overspend, I went ahead and splurged on lean ground beef today, although to be honest, I already had buyer’s remorse by the time I got to the cash register, and if it hadn’t been so late, I would have run it back to the meat case and picks up a cheaper package instead.

On the bright side, it will be nice not to have a pool of tallow left in the skillet when I fry beef for a while!

Obviously, this isn’t a lot of meat for a Whole30-ish meal plan, even with the tuna and sardines in the picture, but with eggs from our ducks and my mother-in-law’s chickens (she uses some or our duck eggs, we use some of her chicken eggs), plus all the chicken I bought last week – and still haven’t opened – there’ll be plenty.

Almonds

During the Whole 30, I think nut butter snacks – such as apples with almond butter – is going to be key for keeping the kids satisfied. But since there was only one (expensive!) option for no-sugar added almond butter at the store, and I’m having a hard time finding it for a good price online (sources anyone?), I bought large bag of almonds to make my own. We have a Ninja blender that up until now has been a waste of storage space in the cupboard, so I’m hoping it will earn its keep here.

Produce

I’m terrible at buying the same vegetables over and over again. I mean, frozen broccoli is cheap! But I’m working at getting more of a variety in our rotation. Here we have a spinach/baby kale mix, frozen chopped kale (great for smoothies!), Brussels sprouts (one of my kids even likes them!), asparagus, canned tomatoes for cooking, olives (do those even count as produce? probably not. I got them just in case I need them sometime soon), potatoes, avocados, and blackberries.

For me, that’s diversified! Especially considering that we already have carrots and cabbage in the fridge, and broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and spinach in the freezer.

Another thing I did different this week was buy a few large Haas avocados. Even on sale, they were three times the price of smaller avocados, but I wanted to see how they compared – I mean, if the seed is small enough, they may end up being the same price per ounce of edible flesh. Avocados are one of the few green things that both of my kids willingly eat, so they’ll make great, filling snacks (I hope).

Setting a budget

One of the things I have to decide going into this Whole 30 is how much I’m willing to spend.

At first, I was stressing out a little bit because grass fed beef is a minimum of $5 a pound, and I don’t know about your husband, but mine does not know how to restrict his beef intake, and it gets reaaaally expensive.

So I’ve kind of decided to just set a budget limit for the whole 30 days, and get what I can with that – and it may end up being crummy beef, but it is what it is.

Anyhoo, like I said, this week is gearing up for the Whole 30, not on the actual Whole 30 yet, so here we go:

Image shows a chart depicting a meal plan for one week of the Whole30 eating program. It includes Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Snacks for Sunday through Saturday.

My Meal Plan for the week

(Note: I usually only plan for Monday through Friday and eat mostly leftovers and church potluck on the weekends, but since we’re going into the Whole30, I’m going to start doing 7 days a week… for now.)

Breakfast

  • Grits
  • Scrambled eggs and oatmeal
  • Fried eggs and leftover stir-fry
  • Yogurt with oranges and apples
  • Fried eggs, sautéed kale, and blackberries
  • Fried eggs, sliced apples

On Wednesday, we finished up the last of our yogurt, and now, our breakfasts are officially dairy-free!

I’ve found two ways that Garrett will willingly eat eggs – one is scrambled with cheese, and the other is fried, as long as the yolk isn’t runny.

Lunch

  • Turkey sausage, thyme roasted sweet potatoes, green beans
  • Spaghetti with ground beef, broccoli and cauliflower
  • Tuna wraps (using these fabulous coconut flour wraps – I just can’t say enough good things about them!), asparagus, carrot sticks
  • Chicken nuggets with fried potatoes and brussels sprouts
  • Roasted chicken Caesar salad

We used coconut flour to make the chicken nuggets paleo/whole30 approved, which was okay, but next time we’ll try almond flour, but my favorite recipe experiment was the coconut flour wraps! They tasted a little bit coconut-y when they got cold, but they were awesome warm!

Dinner

  • Baked Italian Chicken, Spaghetti, Cabbage, kale, and carrot Stir-fry
  • Hamburgers, (homemade) french fries, salad
  • Chicken with spiralized yellow squash, sautéed with olive oil, garlic, basil, avocado
  • Kale and hamburger stir fry with steamed broccoli
  • Steak, sweet potato hash browns, broccoli

Gabriel’s parents gifted us with a few beef steaks. Yum! The yellow squash came from a box of produce the grocery store was throwing out, and it was yummy! At least, I thought so. Too bad I was the only one. The kids weren’t impressed at all.

Snacks

  • Apples with Almond Butter
  • Cheese sticks
  • Oranges
  • Sweet potato chips

I tried making almond butter for the first time this week, and it was kind of a fail – more pasty than buttery – though I have to admit it was yummy to eat with a spoon. I read that it blends faster when they’re roasted, so I may try that next time, I also ordered some cashews to try making cashew butter with.

One of the tenants of the Whole30 is that you don’t make healthy replacements for junk food – like homemade sweet potato chips to replace packaged potato chips, but I feel like, for the kids’ sake, I may need to anyway to keep them satisfied, because let’s face it, they’re young and growing, so meat and broccoli probably aren’t going to cut it for them. They need more carbs!

Next week’s menu plan will be 100% Whole30!

Okay, so this week’s printable packet won’t include a shopping list, because what with getting ready to move our new house out to the farm this week, I ran out of time!

But you can get the printable menu plan and the plans + shopping lists from previous weeks by entering your email address below.

Happy cooking!

Image shows a collage of Whole30 meals for the week, including a plate with an omelet for breakfast, baked chicken, asparagus and more. Text overlay reads "Our Whole30 Menu Plan"

Image shows a collage of meals for week 2 of the Whole30, including a breakfast bowl, homemade potato chips, and sauted Brussels sprouts.

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2 Comments

  1. Lol- Love your post. I think the big thing about all this is not to stress about variety, and I ‘bury certain foods so my family doesn’t know what they are eating (spaghetti sauce with added carrots, kale, squash- cooked, then I puree the sauce with my blender wand (amazing tool!)…. and our veggies every night just may be brocolli, zucchini, asparagus- or even sliced tomatoes- it all depends what’s on special that week at the grocery store.

    My husband is probably the pickiest eater in our family- I used a lot of ground meat- and I’ll mix ground turkey with the beef to satisfy him- and as for only organic meats- I try and catch on sale, but I feel that if I keep the rest of the meal fairly clean I don’t feel as guilty about non-organic.

    I have been gluten free for over 5 yrs now- mo allergies or disorders, but I do notice a difference not eating it. I don’t stress when I eat it (I used to) but I am able to stay clear of wheat 90% of the time. I’ve done all the flour mixes, home made and store bought, and my favorite and most forgiving flours of use are coconut and almond. I also used Oat flour for certain recipes (you can make your own in the food processor). I don’t know if I can mention the mixes I like so I won’t- there are a couple great ones out there…. and if you would like the name of GREAT gluten free bread I can pass it along (I have tried them all)

    Anyway, I look forward seeing how you do with the Whole30 diet. You’re awesome.

    1. Thank you Patti! I *am* trying not to stress about it LOL! I’m with you on the organic meat. Where we live, I’m either going to have to drive to Fort Worth to buy it, or buy half a cow. So we’re just going to do the best we can locally for now, and hopefully raise our own cow later this year.

      I’m glad to hear you like coconut flour – we love it! Almond is nice too, but SO expensive, plus I’ve found that if I use to much, well, it doent’ agree with me. 😛

      Thanks for stopping by!

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