Whole30 is a popular monthly meal plan designed to reboot your body. The basic philosophy is that by eliminating problem foods such as alcohol, sugar, cereals and dairy products, you will rebuild your body. By gradually reintroducing foods, you can learn which ingredients affect your metabolism, digestion, energy levels, mental health and more.

Following the Whole30 meal plan may seem a little restrictive, but variety is the key to sticking to your diet.

Even if you can’t eat dairy, sugar, legumes, grains and soy in the Whole30 plan, there are plenty you can eat-such as meat, fish, poultry, vegetables, fruits, eggs and nuts.

Although the creators of Whole30 don’t consider it a “diet,” you should keep in mind that you can only eat certain foods for 30 days with a list of specific foods that are not allowed.

Unlike a regular diet, one miss means starting over, so it’s best to know what you’re getting before you start. As always, it is important to consult with your doctor before starting any diet.

What You Can’t Eat

These foods are prohibited during the Whole30 meal plan 30 days. Don’t eat them or drink them-even a bite or sip will throw off the whole experiment.

A good general rule of thumb is that if a food product has a long list of ingredients on the label, it probably does not meet the Whole30 standard.

The focus is on eating real whole foods and avoiding convenience foods filled with preservatives. The meal plan also encourages you not to emulate unhealthy foods like pancakes and pizza, even if they are made with Whole30 compatible ingredients. This will help change your attitude toward food after the month is over.

• Alcohol: no beer, wine or liquor, even for cooking.
• Added sugar: eliminate added sugar and artificial sweeteners of any kind, including popular sugar substitutes such as honey, agave, maple syrup and stevia.
• Dairy products: no dairy products from any animal, including cow, goat and sheep. This includes cheese, cream, and butter.
• Grains: every kind of grain out, even if it is gluten-free. This includes oats, wheat, rice, corn, quinoa, buckwheat, rye, barley and more. Note that ingredients made from grains also count as germ, starch and bran.
• Legumes: no beans or peas of any kind, including soybeans and soy products such as tofu, soy sauce and miso. No peanuts or peanut butter.
• MSG, sulfites or carrageenan: Be sure to read all food labels carefully and avoid preservatives and high-performance ingredients.
• Packaged foods: Foods that may technically qualify for Whole30 but are clearly unhealthy, such as baked goods, chips and fries, should be eliminated from your diet.

What You Can Eat

Although some key food groups are excluded from the Whole30 meal plan, there are still many tasty things you can eat.

• Vegetables: All vegetables, including carbohydrate-rich potatoes, are allowed throughout Whole30. A healthy mix of different vegetables, both cooked and raw, is recommended. Sugar snap peas, green beans, and snow peas are allowed.
• Meat and Poultry: All meats, including beef and pork, and poultry such as chicken and turkey are allowed. Watch out for processed meats such as luncheon meats and sausages, as they may sometimes have added ingredients such as sugar.
• Fish: Fresh and canned fish, including salmon and tuna, are great to eat while dieting.
• Eggs: protein-rich eggs are a healthy food.
• Fruit: since added sugar is not allowed, fruit can help curb sweet cravings. However, eat in moderation, since fruit contains many natural sugars. Unsweetened fruit juice is also allowed in small amounts.
• Nuts: All nuts and seeds are allowed, except peanuts. If you plan to consume nut butters or nut milks, check labels carefully to avoid added sugars and preservatives.
• Fats, Oil and Vinegar: Extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, and even animal fats such as lard and Schmaltz are okay. Melted butter also complies with Whole30-which makes it the only dairy product allowed. Vinegar, as long as it’s not malt vinegar, is also good.
• Salt: Use non-iodized salt whenever possible.
• Coffee and Tea: Caffeinated beverages, which many people cannot live without, are allowed on Whole30, but in moderation. Just don’t use any sweeteners or dairy products.

Why Try Whole30?

Following such a strict meal plan with no room for cheating may seem like a daunting task, but it’s only for 30 days. Once you get used to reading labels carefully and asking questions at restaurants, you’ll get up to speed. Some Whole30 participants report better sleep, clearer skin and more energy. And while this is not the focus of the program, some people are losing weight. At the very least, you’ll change the way you think about what you put into your body.

I used to always consider the pork skin left over after cutting meat to be waste. Either I threw it away or took it to the village for the dog.

As it turned out, in vain – it turns out that from it you can make a very tasty thing – chicharron.

These are such crispy, airy chips, very popular in Spain and Latin America.

In different countries, the preparation of chicharron varies: somewhere they fry the skin with lard or even with meat, sometimes they are even just made of meat, and not necessarily pork.

I, on the other hand, will try to make this snack from ordinary pork skin, according to the simplest recipe I found on the web.

Recently, I was making homemade pork stew and there was a skin left over. That’s what I will use.

Step 1

The skin must be thoroughly cleaned of any dirt, if necessary, you can even scrape with a knife, and try to cut off all the fat.

Then rinse under running water and cut into squares of about 2 x 2 cm.

Step 2

Now the pieces of skin need to be dried. To do it, we lay them out on a baking tray, with the lard side down, and send it to the oven heated to 150 degrees for 1,5-2 hours.

The pieces of skin have become hard, it means they are ready. But it is too early to eat them, and it will not work, you can break your teeth on them.

Step 3

Now you have to deep-fry them.

I fried the skin in a regular pan of stainless steel, added a little oil – the level of two centimeters is enough, anyway the skin immediately becomes airy and floats to the surface.

I don’t need to throw a big portion at once, five pieces will be enough, since the chicharron is cooked very quickly, in 15 to 20 seconds.

It turns out really delicious – with mustard and horseradish it goes great.

You can spice them up to your own taste, in my opinion, dried garlic and paprika work great here. You can eat them as ordinary chips, or you can even use them as a beer snack.

As it turned out, the pork skin does not absorb oil in the frying at all, the chips turned out almost dry and very airy.

There are a couple of nuances that I noticed while cooking: first of all, as I wrote earlier, spices must be added to a ready snack, the salt is better before drying.

Tips

1. If you’re looking to make a delicious dish of chicharron, you might be wondering how long it takes to cook this popular dish. The answer, of course, depends on a few factors, but in general, you can expect to spend between 30 and 45 minutes cooking chicharron.
2. One of the most important factors in determining cook time is the size of the chicharron pieces. If you’re using large pieces of chicharron, you’ll need to cook them for longer than if you’re using smaller pieces. Another factor to consider is whether or not you’re pre-cooking the chicharron. If you choose to pre-cook the chicharron, you’ll need to add additional cook time to the overall dish.
3. I made a small mistake – I added the spices right away. After frying in hot oil, I did not taste any spices. At this stage, it is better to simply salt the skin, and add spices to taste to the ready appetizer.
4. I used skin from different parts of the carcass, from the back and stomach. On the back of the skin is thicker and the chips are more airy and larger in size, from the skin off the belly, the chips are not as airy and more solid. It is better to use the skin from the dorsal part.