Just maybe the perfect meal.

At one of our recent weekend adventures, someone busted out chicken salad. I suddenly remembered how much I love it and have been making it almost daily ever since. Cheap, quick  

 

First off, the pictured salad took 3 minutes to make.

I had a noon meeting and realized I forgot my second (of 5) meal at 11:51 am.

Had it made and consumed by my 12 zoom. 

Here’s the rough recipe:

4 oz Roasted Chicken breast chopped off of a store bought Rotisserie. (36p / 8f) 

8 Grapes (4c)

¼ Red Onion 

½ apple chopped (I hate celery and don’t understand anyone who “likes” it… there is literally nothing to like about it.) (12.5c)

½ TBL light mayo (2f)

Heaping TBL Fage Yogurt (2p) 

Salt and Pepper 

That makes it 38p/17c/10f 

Added a slice of bread for a perfect meal.

 

Beyond the perfect macro breakdown AND quick and easy prep, let’s break down the items in this dish… 

Prebiotics!! 

Prebiotics are food for your gut’s healthy bacteria (probiotics). They’re carbs your BODY can’t digest (fiber) so they go to your lower digestive tract, where they act like food to help the healthy bacteria grow.

By assisting in the healthy growth of probiotics (we'll get there), prebiotics help your body in several ways!

First, they help with micronutrient absorption.

A healthy gut biome also helps reduce inflammation, especially in your intestines, and strengthen the immune system by changing the balance of “good” and “bad” intestinal bacteria.

Having a healthy gut has even been suggested to improve brain function and help with allergy prevention and symptoms of eczema by impacting directly and indirectly on the systems involved in allergic disease development. 

There isn’t an official recommended guideline on how much to eat each day but studies suggest that eating 3 to 5 grams of prebiotics a day can benefit the health of your gut. 

This dish is rich in prebiotics!!! Such as: 

Onions  

Onions are rich in prebiotics, antioxidants, and flavonoids — which are compounds that help prevent cancer and other chronic diseases. Onions contain inulin and FOS, which can strengthen your gut health and help your immune system.

&

Apples

Apples are high in vitamin C, antioxidants, and fiber. The fiber in apples includes pectin, which increases the healthy bacteria in your gut and decreases harmful bacteria. While the flesh of apples has health benefits, apple peels contain many critical nutrients that can benefit your health, so they are an essential part of the apple to eat.

On to the probiotics!! 

Probiotics are a combination of live beneficial bacteria and/or yeasts that naturally live in your body.

You have two kinds of bacteria constantly in and on your body — good bacteria and bad bacteria.

Probiotics are made up of good bacteria that helps keep your body healthy and working well. This good bacteria helps you in many ways, including fighting off bad bacteria when you have too much of it (making you sick). 

Probiotics are part of a larger picture concerning bacteria and your body — your microbiome.

Think of a microbiome as a diverse community of organisms, such as a forest, that work together to keep your body healthy.

This community is made up of things called microbes. You have trillions of microbes on and in your body.

A good source found in this dish is:

Greek Yogurt.

While it’s an excellent source of calcium, which can help improve bone health (prebiotics and probiotics needed to absorb said calcium!), it also contains probiotics. 

Additionally, Red grapes contain high numbers of antioxidants due to the anthocyanins that give them their color and have been suggested to stop cancer cell growth as well. 

Chicken cooked on the bone is a living tissue and rich in vital micronutrients for our bodies.

Bone is full of minerals, mostly calcium and phosphorus, along with sodium, magnesium, and other trace important minerals.

It is these trace minerals that provide the oh-so-popular bone broth with its nutritional highlights, however these same nutrients are accessible in bone-in cuts of meat.

Bones also contain bone marrow, a fatty substance that is extremely nutrient dense and considered one of the original “superfoods”, that is released into the meat during the cooking process, amplifying the meat's nutrient density.

In addition to trace minerals, one of the biggest benefits of animal bones are their high concentration of collagen, gelatin and glycine.

These nutrients are super important for gut health, which is a major factor in the health of our immune system, as well as help to reduce inflammation in the body which brings it all together...

Prebiotics, probiotics and a rich diversity of micronutrients and minerals your body needs and can only absorb effectively with the entire forest working together to create your biome.