Foods to Eat, Foods to Avoid: My Brand Recommendations for the "Average" Foods

We made it through the Extraordinary Food list! Yeah! Now we're on to the Average category, which is significantly shorter than the extraordinary foods.

In the Great Physicians RX for Health & Wellness, Jordan Rubin recommends that foods in the average category should make up less than 50 percent of your daily diet, and that if you are struggling with your health, it is best to limit your intake of "average" foods to less than 25% of your daily diet.

Here are the "Average" foods, and my brand recommendations, for the categories of Dairy, Fats & Oils, Canned Vegetables, Nuts, Seeds and Beans.

(The Average Food List is taken from page 61 of the Great Physicians RX for Health & Wellness, by Jordan Rubin) The brand recommendations come from me! :)


Dairy (Organic)

Cheese (cow, goat, or sheep) Organic Valley makes my favorite organic, raw cheese. We love their raw Wisconsin Jack, and their raw cheddar. Redwood Hill Dairy makes excellent goat cheeses.

Cow's milk cottage cheese We get our cottage cheese from our raw dairy farmer, but Organic Valley makes a great one too.

Cow's milk plain sour cream, full fat Again, we love Organic Valley's full fat sour cream! Yum!
Cream cheese My husband LOVES Organic Valley's cream cheese!

Heavy cream We get our raw, heavy cream from our local raw dairy farmer. That is definitely the best way to get heavy cream- most of the store bought versions, even the organic ones, are ultra pasteurized. If you must buy it at the store, at least buy an organic, non ultra pasteurized version, like Strauss.

Amazake Does anyone know what amazake is?! :)

Fats and Oils (Organic & Expeller/Cold Pressed)

Sunflower oil Rapunzel Organic makes a great cold pressed sunflower oil.

Soy oil I have never bought soy oil!

Safflower oil Or safflower oil! :) Just look for the bottle to say organic, unrefined, expeller pressed.

Vegetables, Canned (Organic)

Hmmm...canned vegetables, I honestly don't know if I've ever bought any. If you need to buy them, look for organic vegetables without any preservatives, additions, sugar, or bizarre liquids besides purified water!

Nuts, Seeds, Beans, and Legumes (Organic)

Peanuts (Dry roasted) See a great recipe for soaked, dried peanuts in Nourishing Traditions!

Peanut butter (roasted) My absolute favorite peanut butter is Maranatha Organic Peanut Butter, which is made with Valencia peanuts. Valencia peanuts from New Mexico do not contain aflatoxins. Arrowhead Mills Organic is also a great brand!

Cashews (Raw or Dry roasted) See Nourishing Traditions for a delicious recipe for making these yourself, I do it all the time!

Cashew butter (Raw or roasted, in small quantities) I have never bought cashew butter, let me know if you have any good organic brand recommendations!