The key is cooking in batches and freezing one-meal portions.

Adirondack Dining at it’s Best. Here’s what my fruit bowl and my Sailors Daily Oatmeal look like when I eat them outdoors.

After being married for almost thirty years, I have now been a single man for fifteen. And during that time, I have learned the most valuable lesson of my life—what we should be eating to promote our health and sustain our planet.

Concurrently, as an Industrial Engineer, I have learned how to efficiently prepare over 75% of the calories that I consume. And all of those meals that I prepare at home are 4Leaf, with over 80% of their calories from whole, plant-based foods.

The key to maintaining a diet-style at the 4Leaf level is to work on perfecting all of your “routine” meals. Those are the meals that you have at least once a week—every week. For me, that’s pretty easy, because I don’t prepare very many different meals at home. I figure if the Tarahumara in Mexico can thrive on corn, squash and beans—then I can thrive on my go-to breakfast, lunch and dinner meals—with some five to ten highly nutritious ingredients in each of them. Here is my schedule:

A 4Leaf meal derives over 80% of its calories from whole plants; 3Leaf is over 60% and so forth.

0730 First meal of the day. A bowl of fresh fruit. Depending on season, a combination of orange, pear, berries, banana, mango, melon, kiwi, and/or apples

1100 My Sailors Daily Oatmeal. While my whole grain oats are soaking in a mixture of cold water and unsweetened soy, almond, coconut or rice milk—I cut my fruit to load on top. The fruit varies by season, but the most frequent is blueberries, apple and banana. I never get tired of this meal. As a bonus, the “milks” that I use are often fortified with Vitamin D and B12.

2 p.m. My Sailors Super 4Leaf Lunch. Here’s where I do the batch cooking in advance. About once a week, I cook a batch of wild rice/brown rice and a batch of black beans/red beans. I usually soak both batches overnight before cooking my rice in a rice cooker and my beans in a standard saucepan. The cooking takes about an hour for each. After cooling for a few hours, I load seven single-serve portions of beans and rice in little plastic containers that I can freeze. Here’s how I do it—scroll down through these pictures (Notice the captions below the pics):

Here’s where I do the soaking and the cooking. Notice the lighthouse for the “Sailors Super 4Leaf Lunch”

I load the rice mixture into the bottom of the little containers.

Then I load the bean mixture on top.

Here are my seven little containers with lids on top—ready to freeze. As for cost, I figure that each container has about 200 calories and costs about 29 cents each.

Here they are in the freezer.

I usually keep two in the refrigerator section so that they’re ready to cook without having to defrost.

Preparing the lunch or dinner. I empty the contents of one of my single serve containers of rice & beans onto the plate—upside down. So now, my rice is on the top and my beans are on the bottom. I then slice up whatever vegetables I want to cook slightly while I warm up the meal—things like broccoli, mushrooms, celery, squash, eggplant, kale, spinach, cauliflower and/or shelled edamame. I then add my Kirkland non-salt seasoning and Braggs Liquid Aminos (spray) along with lime juice—for great flavor every time.

I generally cook for about two minutes in the microwave (I like my veggies raw or just barely cooked). During those two minutes, I slice up things like avocado, tomato, celery and/or carrots (all raw) that I  load on top of my meal before serving.

As for timing, the batch cooking method doesn’t take much of my time at all.The total amount of my own time for cooking is about two minutes and the loading of containers and clean-up is about five minutes. That is just once a week—adding up to seven minutes for an average of one minute per meal. Then the actual slicing, heating and serving takes me about five minutes from the time that decide that I am ready to eat.

Final product–a 4Leaf meal with well over 80% of calories from whole plants

Check out the bright green edamame on top.

A few more handy links to some of my previous blogs on this topic:

• Are microwave ovens safe? Do they destroy nutrients?
• It also doesn’t cost much to eat this way. The Dollars and “Sense” of Plant-Based Eating
• Sailors Daily 4Leaf Oatmeal, originally created by Jim, it remains one of his favorites.
• Sailors Super 4Leaf Lunch (or dinner) two versions one with bread/hummus, one without
• Earlier blog featuring the Tarahumara. In search of the most perfect diet…

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

• The movie that’s changing the lives of millions: Forks Over Knives DVD 
• Healthy Eating, Healthy World, The “big picture” about food (our book)
• An essential scientific resource: The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell
• Dr. McDougall’s new book, The Starch Solution, with lots of great recipes.

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

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J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

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—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation