What Kind of Non-Perishable Food Can We Stock up for the Immune System?
15 Dec 2025 · 6 min
Podcast episode (Ask the Health Expert) by JJ Virgin offering guidance on stocking non-perishable and frozen foods to support the immune system during shortages. Covers recommendations for frozen vegetables and fruits (cauliflower/broccoli rice, mushrooms, berries, spinach), pantry staples (wild/brown/white rice, squash, potatoes, canned/jarred tomatoes), protein sources (bone broth, wild fish, pastured meats), storage tips (vacuum sealing, freezing avocado), and cautions about canned acidic foods and BPA linings. Includes sponsor reads for Wayfair, Earth Breeze, Monarch, Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, and Corona, plus brief dialogue with Anne Boeckle demonstrating Meta Glasses voice commands.
Chapters
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Sweet Ray Ban Meta Glasses available at Ray Ban stores and other authorized retailers. What kind of non perishable food can we stock up for the immune system? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert and and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert Maria Francisca asked during my Superimmune Secrets masterclass, how do we deal with low produce stock at the grocery stores? What kind of non perishable food can we stock up for the immune system? Hey, it's J.J. here and what you may not know about me is that I was making the decision when I went off to grad school in biomechanics and exercise fizz. It was either that or go to Culinary Institute of America because I basically catered my way and taught exercise all the way through UCLA.
I catered my way.
I even catered 1984 Olympics. Yes I did. I watched Nadia Comanich eat an entire pate that was meant for like a big party. It was quite something. So I love this question and I'll be right back to answer it.
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All right, so here is my rule of thumb on vegetables. I'm going to talk vegetables. I'm going to talk about some of the other stuff that's not perishable. But basically, let's talk non starchy vegetables first. My favorite is fresh and then frozen. Although think about this. Quite often when they freeze veggies, they're going to freeze them at the height of season, right when they should, where they should be. They don't pick them early and let them try to, you know, ripen in the store. So that's, you know, kind of a shout out for frozen veggies. And then after that, jarred. And you gotta be careful about cans. You don't want to get acidic stuff in cans and you want to make sure the cans are lined and BPA free. So there you go with that. Now I will tell you what I've been doing when I've been in quarantine, what we did. Turns out my husband is quite the prepper. Who knew? And most of the stuff, I was really proud of him. He did kind of, he bought a big box of Spam. I'm like, what the heck is this, honey? But I forgave him for that. So here we go. This is what we did. First of all, in our freezer, we got cauliflower and broccoli rice. So those frozen rices made out of cauliflower and broccoli, especially love the broccoli because the glutathione cauliflower, of course, is super detoxifying. So those are great mushrooms. We also bought frozen mushrooms and mushrooms have beta glucan. Even, even the iceberg lettuce of mushrooms, the white button top mushrooms have beta glucan, which is so good for your immune System super important. Onions and peppers. And we bought these ones that we get from Trader Joe's. They've been already kind of like cooked so they're easy to throw into a stir fry. So onions and peppers and then spinach, chard. And what I do is I buy avocado and then I put it into little chunks and I freeze it so I can throw it into my smoothie. Why do I love avocado here? Because of glutathione and the healthy fats. I love the onions and peppers. Peppers. Red peppers are a great source of vitamin C. You'll are also from red onions and peppers. You'll get some quercetin, which can help your body transport zinc, Very important. And then berries. All those great colors help reduce inflammation. And we also bought some green beans and froze those. So that's all the stuff that we stored in the freezer along with. Because we're talking produce here along with like bone broth and different clean protein. But we're talking just produce. So I'm going to stick pretty much with that. Now what did we do in the pantry? Well, in the pantry we have wild rice, we have brown rice, we have white rice. I personally only really like wild rice. That's what I stick with. We also have, oh, we have frozen butternut squash and butternut squash soup in the pantry we have butternut squash, spaghetti squash, little potatoes, all different colors, sweet potatoes, all sorts of different onions, garlic, shallots. So we got all those in the pantry. And then we also have a septic packed tomatoes and tomato sauces in jars. And then we also got this thing, a vacuum food sealer. So when we went to the store, now it's a lot easier to get everything but the store. We were getting carrots, snap peas, salad greens, broccoli, asparagus, green beans, radishes and fennel. And if we ate, we, we couldn't eat it all, especially the salad greens. And I couldn't believe that we could do this. We put it in this vacuum sealer. It's amazing how well that works. So again here, lots of options. And that's what's super important is stock that freezer up, look at what you can put in the pantry. We've been cooking great stuff while we've been at home following my plate. Which means you always have some clean, lean protein and that's things like wild fish. We bought a bunch from Vital Choice and some pastured pork and chicken that we got from Butcherbox and some lamb and grass fed beef. And then we've been doing a load of non starchy vegetables, a little bit of slow low carbs like those sweet potatoes, root vegetables, wild rice, and then healthy fats. So this makes this very easy to do. And by the way, this is just the way we should be be all the time because it's so much easier when you have everything on hand. We can literally make an awesome dinner. We're doing one tonight for the whole family and we can do it in 15 minutes super easy. All right, there you go. So yeah, shout out for the vacuum sealer and shout out for looking at ways to make this work. And let's keep this going on after we start to get out again. Let's keep this cooking going. We're all healthier for it. This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com.
Hello listeners, this is Anne Boeckle, author, blogger, and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week, I take all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately, and I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment, whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change, or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything. You'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and visit our website what Should I read next podcast.com to find out more.
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