[Kevin] (0:00 - 0:01)
This is stupid.

[Michelle] (0:02 - 0:03)
Really? Yeah.

[Kevin] (0:03 - 0:06)
No, that doesn't work. Why don't you introduce this episode?

[Michelle] (0:06 - 0:06)
Okay.

[Kevin] (0:07 - 0:09)
Okay. It's all yours. Take it away.

[Michelle] (0:10 - 0:19)
All right. So why don't you tell them and why don't you start out with the episode saying that I'm going to introduce the episode. There you go.

And then I'll do that.

[Kevin] (0:19 - 0:21)
Michelle, I think you should just introduce this episode.

[Michelle] (0:21 - 0:40)
Okay. Oh, so, um, welcome everyone to Nutrition for Noobs. This is the podcast where we try to give you some easy facts to understand nutrition better.

We are here with our host, Kevin.

[Kevin] (0:41 - 0:49)
Former host, because you're doing a hell of a good job. So I don't even know why I'm here. I'm taking the week off.

Okay, nice talking to everyone. Bye.

[Michelle] (0:49 - 1:03)
Okay, bye. See ya. Um, no.

And I am Michelle. I am. So he's the noob.

And I am the nutritionist that is a nerd. And I'm constantly an inquiring mind. So.

[Kevin] (1:03 - 1:05)
And you're now the host, it seems.

[Michelle] (1:05 - 1:09)
Yeah. I feel so special. I got a promotion.

[Kevin] (1:09 - 1:10)
You've got the power.

[Michelle] (1:13 - 1:57)
What shall I do? No, actually, what I wanted to talk about today was one of the one of the like, really first barriers that I find when I'm working with either a group or with an individual who doesn't already do a lot of things in the kitchen, or they only know how to prepare meat. They really kind of don't know what to do with certain things.

And I always tell them that, you know, all of this chopping and doing things are so much easier, and so much faster if you just have the right tools. So I over time came up with my own list of my favorite food tools.

[Kevin] (1:58 - 1:58)
Excellent.

[Michelle] (1:58 - 2:02)
I would say like, the key to success in anything is to have the right tools, I always say.

[Kevin] (2:02 - 2:02)
You got it.

[Michelle] (2:02 - 2:48)
So and whether it, you know, no matter what it is, whether you're, you know, trying to make a home improvement, or whether you're trying to do healthy eating and preparing more whole foods, the trick is to use easy to clean, you know, easy to use things that will do the job well. Yes. So the very first thing that I find, I found surprisingly, most kitchens don't have, maybe other people find this to be a no brainer.

But I would tell you that even I, when I started to eat this way, I did not have a really excellent quality culinary knife. So getting one, and I think the reason people don't have them is if you go to these stores, they're very expensive.

[Kevin] (2:49 - 2:51)
They are there, but they are worth it.

[Michelle] (2:51 - 3:06)
But it is the one financial investment that if you really want to be dedicated to this is going to make your life so much easier. And you are going to love that knife, and you are going to take care of it.

[Kevin] (3:06 - 3:27)
I have to say there is that I heard this before, I never owned a real knife until a few years ago. And I'd heard this before, but everyone said, Oh, there's nothing like chopping with a nice, sharp blade. And I never understood that, like my knives have got sharp blades, whatever.

It makes such a difference. It really does.

[Michelle] (3:28 - 3:34)
When you think about it, people sharpen their skates, they sharpen other things that have to be, you know what I mean?

[Kevin] (3:34 - 3:34)
Yes.

[Michelle] (3:35 - 4:08)
It's a no brainer. But that was the single thing, like if you do nothing else, do that. Yes.

Okay. But there's a whole lot of small tools that I really, really like. So for people that, you know, it's out of their budget to get a cleaner water system, and you don't have a clean water system for your home, then just go buy a Brita, get a water filter, that's really important.

I have an avocado knife that I love so much. Do you have an avocado knife?

[Kevin] (4:08 - 4:09)
I don't.

[Michelle] (4:09 - 4:17)
So you can do- What is it? You can use an avocado really well without that. But it's like round on the edge instead of sharp.

[Kevin] (4:17 - 4:17)
Okay.

[Michelle] (4:18 - 4:34)
And it sort of tapers. So you can slice your avocado in half with it. And then, you know, you can still do what you do to get the pit out.

But then you can just slide it around the edge of the avocado, and it just pops out without any waste.

[Kevin] (4:34 - 4:35)
Okay, I just used a spoon for that.

[Michelle] (4:35 - 4:52)
And it's super quick, and you don't have any waste. And I just love it. And you can, I even sometimes, I kind of score the avocado in the half first.

And then I go around the outside, and then it comes out like perfectly with nice little avocado chunks.

[Kevin] (4:52 - 4:53)
Yes, yes.

[Michelle] (4:53 - 5:39)
Yeah. So, you know, I used to be a fan of the apple slicer, you know, where you can just cut the bottom off to make it, and you just put it on top. I find nowadays, I don't use my apple slicer as much as I did in the beginning.

But I think that's because I was doing more things where I wanted them to look really pretty, like on a platter or something like that. So the apple slicer is still great. I'm still a fan of it.

I still have one. But more often now, I just chop around the core, and then I do my slices the lazy way. Lemon squeezer is a must, must, must, must.

In Michelle's world, a travel tea glass is a small tool that is a necessity.

[Kevin] (5:39 - 5:39)
Of course.

[Michelle] (5:39 - 6:17)
Because you don't want to be drinking pesticide laden, cheap produced, you know, subsistence produced tea product that is going to be, you know, where people aren't paid a fair living wage and also where they're, you know, where it is, you know, lower quality. So just get a travel tea glass and put your loose tea in there, take it with you on the go. A grapefruit spoon I have, it has a serrated edge, and I can use it for a lot of things other than grapefruit, but, oh, saves my life sometimes.

I've got that. An orange peeler.

[Kevin] (6:18 - 6:20)
Do you mean like a zester or?

[Michelle] (6:20 - 6:37)
No, no, it's like a little thing that has a little sharp thing sticking out of it, and you can just score the outside of your lemon peel, and then you can just peel that off like super easy. So you're not sitting there struggling with your thumbnail trying to open your orange.

[Kevin] (6:38 - 6:39)
Oh, okay, okay.

[Michelle] (6:39 - 6:40)
Yeah, yeah.

[Kevin] (6:40 - 6:47)
Because I find something that I found really useful is a microplane for zesting. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michelle] (6:47 - 6:54)
Oh, you know what, add that to the list, add that to the list, because I have that and I.

[Kevin] (6:54 - 6:55)
It's your list, you add it to the list.

[Michelle] (6:55 - 7:00)
Oh, you know what, I think I have it here as, I call it my ginger grater.

[Kevin] (7:01 - 7:10)
Oh, okay, I mean, you can use it for garlic, ginger, zesting, like a microplane is so useful for many, many things.

[Michelle] (7:10 - 7:38)
It's so useful, and you know what, and yeah, lemon zest or citrus zest is perfect because that adds so much nutrition. You know, one of the things we do at the tea lounge is in our avocado everything bagel recipe, and this is a tip from Gordon Ramsay, is when you've got your, you know, your avocado toast the way that you like to prepare your avocado and everything on it, you just put a little bit of lemon zest on top.

[Kevin] (7:38 - 7:43)
Oh, it just makes, it makes all the difference in the world. I can imagine.

[Michelle] (7:44 - 8:02)
Yeah, and then I also really like, this was more of a thing when my kids were smaller and I was making my own potato fries and veggie chips and things, and I was, you know, making them in the like oven in a really healthy prepared way and sweet potato fries, stuff like that. I bought a crinkle chopper.

[Kevin] (8:02 - 8:03)
Okay, okay.

[Michelle] (8:03 - 8:11)
That you put that in, because somehow, I don't know, somehow making your fries and your chips a crinkle shape makes the kids really happy, so.

[Kevin] (8:12 - 8:16)
See, I'll add to sort of along those lines, I like to add an air fryer.

[Michelle] (8:17 - 8:21)
Oh, it's not a small tool, but it's on my list here.

[Kevin] (8:21 - 8:32)
Oh, okay, it's a, because that just in terms, but you were talking about like doing chips in the oven and all that. True. Air fryer has probably changed my life more than just about any other appliance I've ever bought.

[Michelle] (8:33 - 8:33)
I agree, I agree.

[Kevin] (8:33 - 8:34)
I love it so much.

[Michelle] (8:35 - 9:01)
So, so those were the small tools. I'm going to get to the, I'm going to get to the bigger one. So when now we're on medium tools, medium tools, medium tools are a rice cooker with the top tray for steaming vegetables.

Mine was 20 bucks. A popcorn maker that dry pops so that you have some way of making snacks. These are people, remember, that are maybe are starting from nowhere.

They're like, what do I eat?

[Kevin] (9:01 - 9:20)
So can I, so I'd actually like to just one up you on the popcorn, because I don't own a popcorn maker simply because I have limited kitchen space. You know, I have a really small kitchen. Sure.

And that's a one, so I'm against notion like one use appliances, like appliances that you can only use for one thing, like a popcorn popper.

[Michelle] (9:21 - 9:21)
Okay.

[Kevin] (9:22 - 9:30)
Um, so what you can do, so if you just buy regular popping popcorn, like just the jar of popping corn.

[Michelle] (9:30 - 9:30)
Yeah.

[Kevin] (9:31 - 9:35)
Um, and then you buy, um, brown paper lunch bags.

[Michelle] (9:36 - 9:38)
Oh yeah. I used to do that in the old days.

[Kevin] (9:38 - 9:55)
You sit in the old days. Um, and then you simply put a layer of the popping corn in the bag, fold it over two or three times, really crease it well and put it in the microwave. It's the exact same thing as those bags of microwave popcorn.

And it works really, really well.

[Michelle] (9:55 - 10:22)
When the, in the old days, I sprinkled the bag with a little bit of water, um, before I put it in the microwave. I just, you know, I, I don't have any scientific evidence to back this up at this point, but I believe that microwaving degrades it a little bit, but, um, but I don't think it matters when you're talking about your popcorn, right? Like popcorn, most of, most of the calories are used by the kernel when it pops.

So.

[Kevin] (10:23 - 10:27)
Right, exactly. So it shouldn't make a difference. So that's an even, that's an even easier way to, uh, to do without the popcorn cooker.

[Michelle] (10:27 - 10:33)
It is. That's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a low budget, low space way of doing it for sure.

[Kevin] (10:33 - 10:41)
And also we don't eat a ton of, if you have popcorn every day or something, then yeah, that would get a little annoying doing the microwave. I don't do it often.

[Michelle] (10:41 - 11:07)
Some of my other favorite medium tools are, um, my air fryer, my, um, my pressure cooker or instant pot. Um, I still use my crock pot when I want to make stews or, or something and I want to slow cook things. Um, or I want to make two, I want to make two such dishes and I need my pressure cooker for one.

So I use my crock pot for the other.

[Kevin] (11:07 - 11:12)
Oh, see, I've got a combination pressure cooker, crock pots. It's amazing.

[Michelle] (11:13 - 11:32)
Down in my big girl tools, I have another, uh, like a Vitamix, but in my medium size tools, I still use like a, like a bullet or a small, like one of those small, small ninjas, because sometimes I don't want to make a big batch. I just want to make one.

[Kevin] (11:32 - 11:38)
It's good for salad dressing or a small smoothie or like lots of little, little things, a small sauce or something. Yeah.

[Michelle] (11:38 - 12:37)
And then I love, okay, again, Tupperware went out of business, but there's lots of other products that do the same thing, but I love my Tupperware fridge smart containers. Now there's lots of ways of doing this, but basically they're, they're containers that have like ridges on the bottom. And when you get your lettuce, I, I, I'm either picking it from my tower garden or, you know, sometimes there's something I'm not growing on my tower garden rarely.

And I want to go buy one and you can chop the end off and you can rinse it and get it all prepared. But if you put it in your fridge, it's going to oxidize faster once you've done that. Right.

So, um, um, you put it in this fridge smart and it keeps so much longer. Same with any fruit, you wash your blueberries, you, anything radishes, carrots, you, you want to pre-chop and pre-do things. It keeps, it holds the moisture in there, but that moisture doesn't make anything go soggy.

Right.

[Kevin] (12:38 - 12:43)
Ah, okay. Cause it's sitting above the moisture, the food. Ah, okay.

[Michelle] (12:43 - 13:24)
Now the really, the hack though, that you can do, and I used to do this when I was, I, when I'm, I'm doing a juicing thing and I want to juice every single day. And if I've timed my tower garden, I don't have a problem. I just go and I pick, I pick it and I, you know, I, I throw them right in.

But if I need to, um, buy extra, like extra kale or whatever, you can do what I call greenhousing. You can greenhouse your greens and you just get a mason jar, put some water in it and you stick the stalks of kale in it and you put a paper bag on top. And if you have, you have to have the fridge space for this though.

And then you put it in there and your greens will keep twice as long.

[Kevin] (13:25 - 13:26)
Interesting. Yeah.

[Michelle] (13:26 - 13:28)
It's called greenhousing your greens.

[Kevin] (13:28 - 13:33)
I've only ever done that for asparagus.

[Michelle] (13:34 - 13:34)
Right.

[Kevin] (13:35 - 13:40)
I've done that for asparagus to keep it fresh, but that makes sense. Okay. I've never, I should try it for other things as well.

[Michelle] (13:40 - 13:52)
And all of your vegetables, when you, whether you're using a fridge smart container or you have another method of, of like greenhousing them, um, they, they don't lose their integrity. You know what I mean?

[Kevin] (13:52 - 13:53)
Right. Right.

[Michelle] (13:53 - 13:53)
Yeah.

[Kevin] (13:53 - 13:54)
Interesting. Yeah.

[Michelle] (13:54 - 14:09)
So it's, it's a, it's a really smart tip. Um, uh, a really good colander is a, is a must if you're going to be doing lots of fresh greens. Um, uh, I like my salad spinner.

Sometimes I'm lazy and I shake them out, but then I splatter water on everything.

[Kevin] (14:10 - 14:12)
Um, we all do that.

[Michelle] (14:13 - 15:12)
So, uh, a small chopper for onions, um, and, and, and garlic and things like that. And you just put them in there and you just chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop, chop. And it just makes it like in seconds.

Um, a small citrus juicer is something that I use all the time. Um, and I, I have these, I have this like bougie, um, set that I, I bought for julienning and slicing. But for people like on a, on a budget, the easiest thing to do is just, um, get a, get a, get a, get a good mandolin.

And then that can make plant-based eating or healthier eating a lot more fun because you can do more creative things with your veggies. And my big girl tools are, um, you've already mentioned one, um, but, uh, I have, um, a Vitamix. That's the, that's the, you know, the, the, the gold standard of the, of the big girl tool.

[Kevin] (15:13 - 15:15)
You can do anything in that. It's wonderful.

[Michelle] (15:16 - 15:51)
And, and you know what? I think there is a high-speed ninja, um, but, but the two, the two like forefront brands for high-speed blending, um, is Vitamix and Blendtec. Um, so, so I think Blendtec, I don't know this for a fact, but I think Blendtec tends to be a little bit less expensive than Vitamix.

And the other thing I would say about my experience with Vitamix is their customer service department is so amazing. Yeah. So I'm thinking I'm making this not short, but that's, um, that's the end.

Yeah. So yeah, I'm sure there's more, but those would be kind of my essentials.

[Kevin] (15:51 - 15:58)
The essentials. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I've got some good ideas for that.

I'm gonna have to check out the avocado knife. That's, that's what stuck with me.

[Michelle] (15:59 - 16:09)
And if any, any, any listeners have their favorite tool, like write us and let us know. And, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll add it as an anecdote maybe to an episode sometime.

[Kevin] (16:09 - 16:19)
Tell us about your favorite tool. Now that's wide open. Okay.

On that note, let's jump to the joke. Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. It's the joke.

[Michelle] (16:20 - 16:20)
Okay.

[Kevin] (16:21 - 16:25)
Michelle, what do you call a broken clock?

[Michelle] (16:25 - 16:27)
What do you call a broken clock?

[Kevin] (16:28 - 16:29)
A waste of time.

[Michelle] (16:34 - 16:35)
Oh my gosh.

[Kevin] (16:36 - 16:45)
Okay. Well, thank you for sharing this, Michelle. And since we're trading places, it seems, should we trade ending lines as well?

[Michelle] (16:45 - 16:55)
Sure, sure. So, so we're wrapping up this episode of Nutrition for Noobs. Thanks for joining us.

I'm Michelle. And I'm going to remind you today to eat your greens.

[Kevin] (16:56 - 17:04)
And I'm Kevin. And be real, everyone. Oh, that's good.

[Michelle] (17:04 - 17:04)
That felt weird.

[Kevin] (17:05 - 17:48)
No, it did. It did. This has been Nutrition for Noobs.

We hope you're a bit more enlightened about how your fantastic and complicated body works with the food you put into it. If you have a question or a topic you'd like Michelle to discuss, drop us a line at n4noobs at gmail.com. That's the letter N, the number 4, N-O-O-B-S at gmail.com.

If you haven't already, you can subscribe to the podcast on whatever your favorite platform might be. Also, please consider leaving a review or telling your friends. That's the best way to spread the word.

We'll see you next time with another interesting topic.