15min meal: mustard-ginger crusted pork salad with butternut squash
What we’re eating: 4oz of pork chops with 1oz goat cheese, 20g of LOW-SUGAR dried cranberries, and 150g of roasted butternut squash, on top of your favorite greens.
Why we’re eating it: There’s 34g of protein on this plate - you need 0.34-0.55g of protein/lb body weight a day, so this flavorful salad is packing a nutritional punch. You also want 25g of fiber/day, and there’s 10g of fiber (aka “prebiotics”, necessary for a healthy gut!) on this plate. The dried cranberries, butternut squash, and greens also give ~60% of your vitamin C (immune function, proper healing) and about 20% potassium (important for nerve and muscle function).
When we’re eating it: This is a great meal for any time of the day, really. It’s quick, filling, and delicious. There are 35g of simple carbs from the cranberries and the butternut squash, but they won’t lead to large blood glucose spikes since you’re eating them with a lot of protein and fiber.
What if you’re not moving around? Can you still have those simple carbs? If you’re maintaining a strictly ketogenic diet for whatever reason, you may want to reduce the carbs you have in your other meals, or skip the dried cranberries and replace them with nuts or whole flax seeds to get the fiber but reduce some of the simple carbs. This meal could definitely be part of a ketogenic diet, especially if you ate it before/after working out, but you would want to be aware of how it was fitting into the rest of your nutritional day. Add 5-15min of movement after eating to help your muscles get take glucose out of your bloodstream, stabilize your blood glucose levels, and keep those insulin levels low.
