I grew up thinking a food being a staple, like bread, pasta, potatoes, and rice, meant you were supposed to make them the foundations of your meals. Like pasta was the main part of your meal and you’d put sauce on it. When I ate meat I’d put meat in the sauce. Bread was the foundation for a sandwich. Rice was the foundation for meals it was in.

That’s what I thought, anyway.

The more I cook with vegetables, fruits, and legumes, the more I realize staples don’t make for great foundations for meals. Vegetables do. So do legumes like lentils and beans. Wheat, rice, potatoes, and things like that stretch your meal into more mass but not more nutrition, especially when they take the fiber out. I mean, sometimes I like bread, especially the bread I’m making these days from wheat berries that I grind into flour myself, but here’s what I like about vegetables and legumes: I can eat until I’m stuffed, every bite is delicious, I feel as full of energy all day as ever, and I’m getting more definition on my abs than ever.

In other words, I eat more, lose fat, and gain muscle eating delicious foods. And I don’t have much fat to lose.

What I thought of as staples weren’t what I normally think of as staples. They’re really more like filler.

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