I hear a lot of paleo people saying that it's really quite simple to eat paleo, you just eat what's natural. I want to agree, and I've found it pretty intuitive to decide that meat, fat from animals, and vegetables are the things we were evolved to primarily eat, it's really not that simple for others, especially when they're getting over fat-phobia and the inability to cook.
Most people in America, even paleos, are only just barely starting to learn what real food is and learning how to cook it at the same time. It's huge. I know plenty of devoted and disciplined paleo people (who are eating this way out of medical necessity) who approach every meal like a battle, because they're only now learning how to cook, how to shop, how to budget, how to taste, how to plan meals, and how each food makes them feel. To do it all at once is not simple.
I had the benefit of always being in love with food and cooking, so when I started eliminating grains, sugars, and legumes, I already knew how to cook meat and veggies. I already knew how different fats behaved when heated. I already knew how to season, how to pare flavors, how to cook well, what it meant to sear a piece of meat and what cuts needed to be braised or roasted. In a way, paleo was just a welcome culinary challenge for me. How do you thicken a sauce without a roux? How do you render lard? How do you make something tasty besides noodles to soak up your bolognese? How do you make a dessert without any sweeteners, artificial or otherwise?
When you're learning it all at once - the nutrition, the techniques, the tastes, and also how the food makes you feel - it can be totally overwhelming. I think this is a huge reason why people give up and just go back to pasta and sandwiches. Knowing how to cook was crucial to my being able to adhere to paleo. It has never been a big deal to me. I never worried about what snacks were ok, what packaged foods were good and which weren't, what new foods I had to get used to. I never had to suddenly confront the fact that I had to prepare pretty much every meal for myself from scratch because I was already doing that. I cook the way I've always cooked, I just don't make a pot of rice or pasta anymore, and I cook a greater quantity of veggies and meat.
The last few months I was eating pasta and bread, I was making and baking my own - I knew I was about to give it all up, so I figured I should learn the traditions and techniques behind them so I could appreciate them, and understand more about what I was changing in my habits. I even brewed my own beer. I'm a freak who has the luxury of time, space, and motivation. Most people don't have this luxury. Most people I hear who decide to eat paleo are married, have children and full-time jobs, hectic schedules that pretty much ensure they eat food they didn't prepare themselves at least once a day. They come to paleo as a last resort to address chronic and urgent health problems. I came to this out of a love of food and a desire to not become diabetic like my dad. I had no pressing health concerns I was trying to address, I wasn't overweight, and I'm not a gym rat who just wants to be ripped. I just wanted to eat the best food possible, and be as healthy as possible.
Even plastic and arsenic come from the earth. That's why the food industry is able to apply "natural" to so many things. Heroin is natural. Some common mushrooms will kill you if you eat them. You really cannot understate the minefield we face when it comes to the food most commonly available to us in the modern world, and you can't overlook the implications of several generations of people who have slowly lost the ability to cook and taste, and who have been raised to believe processed food is as right as rain and enticingly cheap to boot.
