7. Plate & combinations¶
Portion counts become food. Each slot gets three or four options, and every option in a slot carries that slot's exact portion counts — that is what lets the client choose without the plan moving.
The plate¶
For lunch and dinner, the shape is fixed:
| Half the plate | Vegetables — cooked and raw together, not one or the other |
| A quarter | |
| Protein — plant-based preferred | |
| A quarter | Complex carbohydrate — at dinner, this quarter is absent and the vegetables take it |
Raw and cooked in the same meal, deliberately. They do different things, and a plate of only salad or only cooked vegetables gets half of each.
"Empty" carbohydrate — refined grain, anything from the food-quality lists — does not fill the carbohydrate quarter. There is no version of the plate where it does.
Complete plant protein¶
Plant protein is preferred, and the way to make it complete is to combine legumes and grains at roughly 1:1. Neither carries the full amino-acid profile alone; together they do.
| Combination | Counts as |
|---|---|
| Brown rice + lentils | 2 starch + 1 protein per ½ cup of each |
| Quinoa + chickpeas | 2 starch + 1½ protein per ½ cup of each |
| Quinoa + lentils | 2 starch + 1½ protein per ½ cup of each |
| Buckwheat, on its own | 1 starch + ½ protein per ½ cup |
| Wholemeal pita + hummus | 2 starch + 1 protein + 1 fat |
| Wholemeal bread + tahini | 1 starch + 1 fat |
Buckwheat and quinoa are complete without a partner, which makes them the shortcut when a slot is tight.
Remember that legumes count in two groups — see step 5. Half a cup of lentils fills a starch portion and a protein portion at once, so a rice-and-lentil dish made from ½ cup of each is 2 starch and 1 protein — not 2 starch alone.
Combinations that work¶
These are the pairings the menu builds options from. They are not arbitrary suggestions — each pairs a carbohydrate with fibre, fat or protein so the insulin response is blunted rather than sharp.
Wholemeal bread with tahini · hummus · avocado · peanut butter · pesto · pastrami
One starch, one to two fat, and the fat is what stops the bread acting alone. Bread on its own is not an option in this menu.
Brown rice with vegetables · sweet potato or potato with vegetables · wholemeal pasta with sugar-free tomato sauce · oats with legumes
Check the pasta sauce: most jarred sauces carry added sugar.
Apple — or any fruit — with almonds or walnuts
The default snack shape. Fruit alone is a fast carbohydrate; fruit with nuts is a snack.
Yoghurt or labneh with vegetables · brown rice cakes with a natural spread and vegetables
"Natural spread" means tahini, hummus or nut butter — not anything with an ingredient list.
Baked, never fried, with a fresh fruit salad and a little cinnamon
Legume or fish patties. The cinnamon is not decorative — it is there instead of the sugar the fruit salad would otherwise seem to need.
Writing an option¶
An option is one line naming real food in real quantities, whose portions match the slot's counts exactly.
Lunch slot: 4 starch · 3 protein · 2 fat · 3 vegetable
Rice and lentils: ½ cup cooked brown rice and ½ cup cooked lentils, with 100 g baked chicken breast, a large salad (3 portions) and 2 tsp olive oil.
Counting it back: rice ½ cup = 1 starch. Lentils ½ cup = 1 starch and 1 protein. Chicken 100 g ≈ 3 protein… which is 4 protein against a slot of 3.
That option does not balance. Drop the chicken to 60 g (2 protein) and add a starch — ¾ cup of rice — and it does. This is the ordinary work of this step: write it, count it back, adjust. An option that has not been counted back is not finished.
Four rules for options¶
- Name quantities the client can measure. Cups, slices, tablespoons, grams for meat and fish. Not "a portion of", not "some".
- Vary across the options. Four lunches built on rice are one lunch. Reach across the exchange lists — different grains, different proteins, different vegetables.
- At least one plant-protein option per main slot. Plant protein is the preference; a slot where all four options are animal protein has not applied it.
- Every option passes the food-quality check. No refined grain, no oil from the avoid list, no added sugar, nothing fried.
Fibre, placed rather than hoped for¶
The fibre target is 25–30 g and it comes from where the legumes and wholegrains land. Before moving on, add up a representative day — one option from each slot — and check it.
Under 25 g: the fix is usually one legume portion moved into lunch.
Well over 30 g: expect this. A build that is wholegrain throughout, with seven vegetable portions and a legume option, lands nearer 45 g at a typical energy target — the portion system delivers more fibre than the target asks for, and for an adapted eater that is fine. What it is not fine for is someone arriving from a low-fibre baseline, and it makes the ramp rule the binding constraint rather than the target.
Do not solve an overshoot by cutting portions. Portion counts are fixed by step 5. Solve it inside the counts:
| Instead of | For the first weeks |
|---|---|
| 1 cup cooked legumes | ½ cup, tinned and rinsed |
| Oats | Rice, potato or sweet potato in the same starch count |
| Raw cruciferous | The same vegetables, cooked |
| Wholemeal pita and bread at the same meal | One of them, with a lower-fibre starch beside it |
Then say so in Notes for you, as a first-weeks instruction with a date to revisit — not as a permanent feature of the menu.
Cruciferous and phytoestrogens¶
Where the menopause protocol applies, two things must be placeable every day:
- A cruciferous vegetable in at least two slots' options
- A phytoestrogen source — most easily 2 tbsp of ground flaxseed, which is 2 fat portions and goes into yoghurt, oats or a salad
Neither can be left to chance across four options where the client might pick around them.
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