Eating healthy with the Being Biotiful method by Chloé Sucrée

A healthy lifestyle starts with a healthy diet, but it is not always easy to combine this with our frenetic pace of life.

We leave the office late, we have nothing in the fridge, the pantry is a desert, we have very little energy left to start cooking and what's more, what? Buf. It's easy to fall into the trap of precooked food, a no-brainer wrapped in plastic, quick and unhealthy, but there is a solution!

On Instagram we discovered @beingbiotiful and its founder Chloé Sucrée, a source of solutions for planning healthy menus, shopping well, preserving better and enjoying healthy food without superhuman effort and hours spent in the kitchen.

Chloé is half Swiss, half Belgian and has been living in Barcelona for 20 years. She was born prematurely at 7 months due to a listeriosis infection that caused a deterioration of her digestive and autoimmune system. After years of general digestive, physical and emotional discomfort, and not finding any answers, she discovered that changing her diet improved her life on many levels: more mental clarity, more energy, less bloating and pain.

He started sharing some recipes through his blog Being Biotiful and this gradually grew until her Biotiful Plan project and the Batch Cooking method was born, a way to plan and prepare healthy, homemade and easy meals for the whole week in just one afternoon. Recently Grijalbo has published his first book and is now in its third edition.

Here are some of the tips that Chloé shares in her book that will help you change your eating habits to healthier, more sustainable and conscious ones, based on natural foods (unprocessed, without additives or preservatives) and seasonal foods, for your family and for you.

Make your weekly plan

Healthy eating starts with good planning. Knowing in advance what you are going to cook and eat will help you shop smarter and more sustainably. You will eat healthy with different recipes every day, save time, money and avoid wasting food. And all because our fridge and pantry will always be stocked with healthy options.

Based on what you already have in the fridge and pantry, and taking into account what is in season, plan the week's recipes. Think about quick, easy and super-appetizing recipes, without forgetting some meals that you can take to work or snacks for breakfast.

Create your shopping list

Based on your weekly menu plan, make a list of the ingredients needed to prepare the recipes, taking care not to put in ingredients you already have and separating the ingredients by fresh, dry, fridge, cupboard and freezer.

We always talk about fresh and seasonal foodWe focus on real, unprocessed, unrefined, unadulterated and unadulterated food. Remember, we are what we eat!

Try to go shopping once or twice a week, avoiding the shopping spree that will ultimately lead you to buy things you don't need, wasting food and spending more money. Prioritise small producers, local shops and markets.

The pantry

Fill the jars in the pantry with pulses, nuts, seeds, grains and cereals and organise them into families: seeds and nuts, breakfast foods, pulses and cereals. It is important that these foods are kept at room temperature, in cool and completely dry places. Keep in mind that some areas of the pantry are warmer than others and this influences the shelf life of the food.

The oils should be stored in a dark place, in their own container or in another container that closes well to prevent them from oxidising. Bread keeps well for one or two days in a bread bin or cloth bag. You can also store sterilised yoghurts that do not need to be chilled, pickles (spring onions, gherkins, etc.), sauces, jars of jam, some vegetables, eggs, etc. in the pantry. However, once opened, keep them refrigerated.

In the pantry, it is preferable to use new or recycled airtight glass jars.

Healthy pantry staples: whole grains; nuts; seeds; pulses; eggs; vegetable drinks; spices.

Always check the contents of your larder, put new products at the back and old ones at the front and make sure you always have a spare pack unstarted, so you will never be short of cooking staples.

The fridge

Normally the fridge should be at around 5ºC, although in summer it is advisable to lower it by two or three degrees. To maintain the temperature and ensure that the cold is distributed evenly, it is important not to pile up the food too much, keep it well organised and always open the door for a short time.

Cheeses should be placed at the top and in the centre of the fridge. Fruits and vegetables should be stored in the drawers, but they should be stored loosely and wrapped in paper or damp cloths. In general, unless they are delicate fruits or red fruits, it is advisable to store fruit outside the fridge because otherwise it loses its aroma. Butter, dressings, preserves, jams and jellies, and open drinks should be placed in the door.

Organise the food in the fridge according to their expiry date, putting those that expire first at the front of the fridge.