The Fullness Foods List

The list, grouped for the store

• Beans, lentils and peasBlack, pinto, kidney and white beans, chickpeas, lentils, split peas, and organic, non-GMO tofu and tempeh. Fiber and protein in the same bite. Canned beans are fine; rinse them.
• Whole grains, kept wholeSteel-cut or rolled oats (not instant), barley, brown rice, quinoa. The less a grain has been milled, the longer it stays with you.
• The onion family, and asparagusOnions, garlic, leeks, asparagus. They carry a fiber your gut bacteria especially love.
• Cook today, eat tomorrowPotatoes, brown rice, beans, overnight oats. Cooling cooked starch turns part of it into a kind that behaves like fiber. Reheating is fine.
• Seeds, and a few nutsGround flaxseed, chia, pumpkin seeds, hemp hearts, walnuts, almonds. Buy flax whole and grind a few days’ worth at a time; once ground, it goes rancid.
• Raw fermented vegetablesRaw sauerkraut, kimchi made without fish sauce, other cultured vegetables. Look in the refrigerated case. Shelf-stable jars have been heated, and the living bacteria are gone.
• Whole fruit, skin onApples, pears, berries, oranges and kiwi, eaten whole. Eat your fruit. Don’t drink it.
• Vegetables of every kindLeafy greens, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, peppers, Brussels sprouts, artichokes, squash. Raw and cooked, and as much as you like. These go first at every meal.

The more a food has been milled, pressed or puffed before it reaches you, the less of it reaches the place that says enough. White flour, fruit juice, chips, crackers and snack bars are the usual suspects.

Eat it in this order

• FirstVegetables. A salad, or a plate of raw or cooked vegetables, before anything else touches the plate.
• ThenBeans and other protein. Lentils, chickpeas, black beans, tofu or tempeh, seeds and nuts.
• LastStarch and fruit. Bread, rice, potatoes, grains, fruit.

Same food, different order. In small studies, saving the starch for last roughly halved the rise in blood sugar after the meal. A large salad has been the center of lunch and dinner in this way of eating for decades. Eating it first is a very small step from there.

Slow down — twenty minutes

Fullness builds over the course of a meal and takes about twenty minutes to climb. If you’re finished in five, you’ve eaten past the point where your body would have said enough.

Put your fork down between bites. Sit at a table, not at the counter or in the car. Chew properly; it’s the one stage of digestion entirely in your hands. Whole food helps on its own here, because nobody eats a big salad or a bowl of lentil stew in five minutes.

A fullness-first day

• MorningBarleyMax or a glass of fresh vegetable juice. Then steel-cut oats with ground flaxseed, walnuts and berries.
• LunchA big salad first: greens, raw vegetables, chickpeas, pumpkin seeds. Then a cup of lentil or split pea soup.
• AfternoonAn apple with almond butter, eaten slowly.
• DinnerVegetables first, raw or steamed. Then black beans with peppers and onions over barley or brown rice cooked earlier and reheated, with a forkful of raw sauerkraut on the side.

A picture of how it fits together, not a meal plan.

Where to start this week

• One serving of beans or lentils a day, wherever it fits.
• Vegetables first at lunch and dinner.
• One refined grain swapped for a whole one.
• Twenty minutes for dinner, sitting down.

Being full was never the problem. It was meant to be part of the gift, and the food we were given helps the body say so.

Blessings,
Paul & Ann

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