CrossFit South Bend

In this video we talk about the foods I tend to buy on a weekly basis at Costco. My weekly/semi-weekly haul typically consists of the following things that we discuss in more detail in the video.

-Wild Alaskan Salmon
-Organic Turkey Breast
-Organic Green Beans
-Organic Butternut Squash
-Organic Brussels Sprouts
-Organic Celery Hearts
-Organic Spring Mix
-Organic Olive Oil
-Organic Coconut Oil
-Avocado Oil
-Organic Blueberries
-Organic Apples

-Other things I forgot to mention that I’ll sometimes get are Kerry gold butter, macadamia nuts, and dark chocolate.
-Your Costco, in your part of the country, may differ.
-There’s a whole bunch of other healthy stuff you can get at Costco that’s healthy that I just happen not to get on a regular basis

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Transcript

Hey guys, Robby here from CrossFit South Bend. Today, I’m gonna be giving you a tour of my weekly Costco grocery store tour haul, so as of the time of the filming of this video, I’m actually gonna be leading a free-to-the-public Costo paleo grocery store tour on Tuesday, November 13th at 6:30 p.m. That’s available to sign up for for free, even if you’re not a CrossFit South Bend member, and even if you’re not a Costco member on our website, CrossFitSouthBend.com. So, if you’re interested in that, please sign up and we’d be happy to have you there. So, today I’m gonna give you a sense of what I typically buy roughly on a weekly basis, some of the stuff I buy weekly, some of the stuff I buy every few weeks. But, this is just giving you a sense of some of the really healthy stuff that you can get at Costco. Now, before we get started, this is probably about, I don’t know, maybe 10 to 20% of what you can get at Costco that’s really healthy. There’s a lot of healthy stuff. This is just the stuff that I happen to like, there’s a lot of healthy stuff there that, you know, just for whatever reason, just my particular taste, that I don’t end up getting. But, there’s a lot of other healthy stuff besides what I get that you could get there that’s very healthy. So, for those of you who have been listening to any of my other videos, you’ll know that when we talk about creating a healthy meal, we always talk about quality protein, vegetables, healthy fats, and then some fruit, maybe as, like, a dessert or a finisher. So, that’s kinda the way I’ve organized things today to talk about it. So, let’s talk first about the quality protein that I typically get at Costco. So, just to preface this, I typically, my weekly grocery store run, I’ll typically divide it somewhere between Costco and Wholefoods, so I don’t get everything at Costco, I don’t get everything at Wholefoods. But, this is the typical stuff that I will get specifically from Costco. So, first off, wild Alaskan sockeye salmon. So, plenty of you guys who’ve done research on getting good quality fish and seafood, it’s a little bit of a difficult thing to do, and even if you manage to get it from somewhere like Vital Choice, which is a great company, it gets really, really expensive, so I found that Costco is the best intersection of really good quality fish and seafood, but also at a reasonable price. Like, I think for this total, it’s like, 32 dollars and that’s eight salmon filets, so that’s basically about four dollars per six-ounce filet, where if you know anything about wild Alaskan fish and how much it usually costs, that’s a pretty good deal. So, at Costco, they’ve got halibut, mahi-mahi, shrimp, whole bunch of other stuff that’s really good. I get scallops and halibuts sometimes there, but typically, my foundational piece that I’ll get is that salmon there. So, it’s a really good option. Another option that I found not too long ago, I guess, maybe about six to nine months ago, is this Plainville Farms organic turkey breast. So again, turkey breast and deli meat in general is hard to find that has good quality ingredients. You know, usually there’s stabilizers and thickeners and stuff like that in there. I’m just trying to find the ingredient list for you guys here. Here we go. So, ingredients, organic turkey breast, water, and sea salt. No carrageenan, no guar gum, no sugar, none of that stuff. So, that’s a pretty good ingredient list as far as it goes when it comes to deli meat. Other good deli meat brands that you can get from elsewhere, Applegate, Boar’s Head. But, this is a really good one that you can get from Costco for a pretty decent cost. Okay, so that’s the protein that I typically get at Costco. In a separate video, I’ll do probably, you know, the haul that I do at Wholefoods, which is where I get a bit more of my protein, but for now, that’s what I get at Costco. Other stuff I get throughout the week. So, I will get this gigantic bag, as you might imagine, from Costco. They have these gigantic bags of produce. I get this gigantic, two-pound bag of green beans. And typically, what I’ll do is, I’ll put a pound of these on a sheet pan for lunch or dinner, or even breakfast, honestly, mixed in with some coconut oil and roast them at 400 degrees for about a half an hour, and they come out tasting delicious. Two-pound bag of Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts don’t technically need to be organic, they’re part of the cabbage family, which doesn’t technically need to be organic. But, it doesn’t hurt. With these, I’ll typically use the same exact roasting method that I would with the green beans, only I’ll typically put on ghee or olive oil. I find that pairs better with Brussels sprouts, and again, about 400 degrees for 30 minutes, maybe 425 or 450, honestly, ’cause I think the blacker, the better, when it comes to Brussels sprouts, in my personal opinion. Another one. And again, you don’t necessarily need to get organic the same way you would need to get maybe spring mix organic or celery organic, is butternut squash. But again, it doesn’t hurt to get it organic. It’s certainly better for you if it’s that way. You know, butternut squash is one of those ones that it’s kind of a pain in the butt to cut up on your own and to prepare on your own ’cause it’s a very odd object to cut, so it’s really nice to just have this ready, and when I prepare most things on a sheet pan, this is the dice size that I’ll typically use to just, you know, open it up, throw it on a sheet pan, oil, salt, high heat for 30 minutes, and it’s good to go. Okay, now two of the more, so, you know, green beans, Brussels sprouts, butternut squash, with these, you know, obviously, you cook them, right? You’re not gonna be eating these raw. Two of the more raw ones that I will typically do on a weekly basis are the organic spring mix. You know, if I haven’t prepared for a particular day for some reason or it’s been a long day at the office and I just don’t wanna cook anything, I’ll take a gigantic heap of this, put it on a plate, olive oil, sea salt, if you’re a salt lover and you haven’t tried sea salt on your salad, try it, it’s delicious. That’s a really good way to get veggies. Another really good way to get veggies that I really like is organic celery hearts. So, I’ll just cut these into little bits and just kind of have them as finger food. I remember Coach Chad at the gym saying that, remarking that celery tastes to him like fishing line. So, some people like it, some people don’t, but what I found is that if you put a little bit of sea salt on this and you mix it with some guacamole, that’s a really good, quick, easy, on-the-go option that you don’t have to cook, and it could be used for trips or snacks for kids, or snacks for you, and that’s just something really easy that you can do without very much in the way of prep. So, that’s the protein, those are the vegetables that I typically get. Now, let’s talk about the healthy fats. So, a lot of this stuff, I’ll get on a weekly basis, but with the healthy fats, of course, they last a lot longer than just a week, typically, so these, I’ll get maybe every few weeks or every couple months. Wholly Guacamole, so this is, I think, 20 mini containers and the price at Costco’s, like, 13 bucks, so less than a dollar for each one of these. Really good source of healthy fat, monounsaturated healthy fat that you get from avocados. This works really well with, you know, baby carrots or celery, or jicama, if you’ve ever had that. It’s a really good, quick option for healthy fat and it’s something you could send with your kids as well. Other healthy fats that I’ll typically get from Costco, avocado oil, really good for roasting and sauteing at high heat, it can go up to 500 degrees without smoking. Olive oil. Olive oil’s one of those things that you have to be careful where you get it from, because sometimes, it’s cut with grape seed oil and cottonseed oil, and lesser oils to make more of a profit. I know for a fact that the Kirkland Signature olive oil is really good and legit olive oil. You know, it’s really up to preference which one of these you use. Olive oil will tend to smoke at much lower heat, whereas avocado oil will go up to much higher heat. So, since I roast at much higher heat, I typically use avocado oil. Coconut oil. I probably bought this, like, a year ago, maybe? So, I’ve used, like, 75% of it. It’s a gigantic jug. I use this typically for the green beans, sometimes for plantains. This is a really good oil to saute or roast in if you like coconut flavor. Okay, so protein, veggies, healthy fats, the three main components of meals. Now, let’s talk a little bit about dessert or fruit, or kind of the finisher to the meal. So, Costco’s a really good place to get organic fruits. So, you can typically get two pounds of organic strawberries, organic raspberries, organic blueberries. Depends on the time of season what kind of price you get, but almost always, it’s better than pretty much any other store. And especially when it comes to fruit that you’re eating the skin of, you definitely wanna try to buy it organic. So, that’s gonna be one of the places where getting it from Costco’s gonna make a big deal ’cause they have organic for really good prices. And then, these organic gala apples I just started buying at Costco. I’d say, typically, my favorite is probably red delicious, which unfortunately, they don’t sell organic ones at Costco. But, gala’s pretty close, and this entire thing for, what is it, two, four, six, eight, 10, 12, 14, 14 apples is 12 bucks. So, for organic apples, so that’s pretty good. That’s really not too bad. So, overall, there’s a lot of really good stuff that you can get at Costco. Yes, Costco does sell some more conventional stuff, which is, you know, fine. There’s nothing wrong with that either, it just depends on what you wanna get. But, for those of you who think that it only sells conventional stuff and you can’t get organic stuff there, they’ve actually upped their game quite a bit in recent years and there’s a lot of good stuff you can get. So, hopefully you got a good sense of some good stuff that you can get at Costco. Again, if you’re watching this at the right time, we are gonna be doing a Costco paleo grocery store tour on Tuesday, November 13th at 6:30 p.m. You can register for that for free online, you don’t need to be a Costco member or a CrossFit South Bend member, and we hope to see you there. Alright guys, thanks so much for tuning in. We’ll see you next time.