Paleo-Lick-It

Progress Report

2011-08-02T09:48:00.001-07:00

So it's been about three weeks since I decided to curb my drinking, and it's been going really well. I haven't gone completely dry, I still drink wine, but I did manage an entire week without any booze at all, and I haven't touched whiskey for close to a month. I can't say I miss it at all. I feel pretty good. I can't say my sleep has changed. When I was up at my parents' house in NY, I stayed up really late painting and/or hanging with my friends almost every night, and my sleep cycle has remained as fucked as it ever was. Baltimore, in case you haven't been paying attention, is suffering from record-breaking heat, and that has certainly made me feel lethargic and sleepy. But I feel good otherwise, and I remember every evening, even fun raucous ones, with great clarity. So far so good.

Meat Heads

2011-07-13T18:00:00.000-07:00

I read a lot of paleo blogs, and I find them all really interesting. However, I've noticed two things 1) most people approach paleo from the fitness and athletics perspective and 2) most paleo bloggers are married, live in the burbs, and often have kids. I don't know a lot of poor artists, metalheads, or long-haired hippies doing paleo, or at least none that are blogging about it. More importantly, I don't know a lot of chefs who are openly paleo.

I came to paleo after a few years of researching nutrition in order to avoid becoming diabetic like my father, but I've never been much of a health nut. I have never been a gym rat, I'm not by any stretch of the imagination an athlete, and my preferred exercise is long walks, lifting amps, and bike rides. I also pride myself on being a really great cook. I respect culinary traditions and the identity and values bound up within a culture's cuisine. My reverence for food is what drives my passion for paleo as much as my belief that it is the healthiest nutritional paradigm.

I will never ever ever be a raw foodist or do the 80/10/10 thing except maybe at some point as an experiment on myself because I love cooking. I think there is a lot to be learned from culinary traditions, and I find cooking to be therapeutic and meditative. I also believe that cooking developed for a good reason, that our ancestors weren't idiots, and that some foods need to be cooked to make their nutrients fully absorbable. Cooking is also like alchemy, it creates such wonderful fragrances and tastes, and I can't possibly give that up.

Aside from the paleo reasons for doing so, I largely eschew grains and legumes because I view them as filler, as nutritionally worthless dry goods that people use to pad out a meal when they're too cheap to eat or serve real food. I avoid sugar, not simply because of the diabetes thing, but also because I think it's a way for a cook to cheat, to disguise certain flavors, to get sweetness without proper caramelization, and to make a food more palatable without putting in the work to bring out the real flavors of the ingredients. I respect a cook who can take ingredients and make them delicious without adding too much to them. A good cook is patient, attentive, and trusts her ingredients. I often don't use any seasonings other than salt and pepper, maybe some lemon juice.

I think this culinary perspective is missing from the paleo movement. I saw Eric Ripert on some show the other night where he made market vegetables over a bed of cauliflower "couscous" - he had made faux couscous out of a head of cauliflower. I did this the other night, and it was incredible, almost like the real thing, except for the (duh) cauliflower flavor. His recipe was almost completely paleo (minus some canola oil which you can easily substitute with olive), fresh, simple, and vegan to boot! I'm not saying I'm going vegan, but it's odd that a celebrity chef accidentally (or not?) has created a mostly paleo dish, and the fact that it excited me, an enthusiastic carnivore, means a lot. It means that no matter your preferences and restrictions - vegan, raw, low-carb, etc - you can and should eat really exciting, fresh, well-made food that also happens to be paleo.

It also means that you don't have to be a power-lifter, a cross-fitter, and endurance athlete, or even go to the gym to enjoy and benefit from paleo. We aren't all meat heads.

Circle the Wagon

2011-07-06T11:33:00.001-07:00

[This picture is an embarrassing reminder of what I'm like at a party]

On Independence Day, I went to the End of the World, the little grassy patch by the canal that separates the Bywater from the 9th Ward. I watched fireworks with a bunch of nice people and some new friends. Overall, it was a pleasant evening. The whole time, however, I was slowly sipping at my usual half-pint of Evan Williams, which I was mixing with water. I was also having some of the champagne that people were offering me. I wasn't aiming to get drunk, I never am, I just enjoy drinking, especially in social situations where I've become dependent on booze to take the edge off social awkwardness. I was on foot, having walked all the way from the Tremé because the bike I was borrowing got a flat. The night became blurrier and blurrier, and a friend suggested we go to get some food and wine at a nearby wine bar. When I got there, I snarfed down a sausage, despite the fact that it was on bread, because I had the drunk munchies (I usually avoid things that have even touched gluten), and I had a glass of wine from the bottle my friend bought.

And that's the last thing I remember before I suddenly found myself alone, walking in a completely unfamiliar part of town. New Orleans is a dangerous city, and it's really not smart to walk around alone at night, especially when you're drunk. Not too long ago, a girl was shot in the face just for wandering into the wrong neighborhood — the very neighborhood I was stumbling around in that night. I was very far from any of the areas I was supposed to be in, and I had no clue how I managed to wander so far off. I have no idea how close I came to death or violence, but with the help of a very special woman on the other end of the phone, I made it back to the house I was staying at safely. I woke up in the morning with the crystal clear knowledge that I had put myself in a completely unsafe and stupid situation that wouldn't have arisen had I been even slightly more sober. The painful fact is that I have gotten myself into similar situations before. I'm a pleasant drunk, I'm friendly and well behaved, I don't puke, and I usually just pass out before I do anything really retarded. I've always assumed that I posed no risk to anyone else. But I realize now that I've been putting myself at risk pretty regularly for a long time now, and it's getting to the point where it's impacting the people around me.

I have a drinking problem. I'll admit, every other aspect of paleo living has been pretty easy for me, and alcohol may not be completely verboten for most paleo folks, but I definitely drink too much. The minute someone I love says "Your drinking hurts me" is when I know I have to stop. I've managed to clean up the rest of my diet and quit smoking, and my drinking has been the elephant in the room considering how much I rant about health. I don't feel the need to be puritanical about drinking, and I don't intend to give it up entirely forever (I still believe moderate alcohol consumption is healthy), but I definitely need to press the reset button. I want to get to the point where I can have one or two glasses of wine with dinner and leave it at that (currently, I can down an entire bottle by myself). I want to be able to go just one night without a drink, which I haven't done since I cooked on the Lady Maryland about a year ago (I was completely sober for 10 days, then, and I didn't miss booze at all, so I know I can do it). I want to not feel anxious when there's no booze around. So tonight, I may have one drink to celebrate my last night in New Orleans, but when I get back to Baltimore, my main goal will be to sober up and make it up to all my loved ones who have had to drag my half-conscious body from a party, stayed on the phone with me while I wandered drunkenly in the streets, or otherwise had to put up with me when I'm wasted.

Definitely Food

2011-06-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

One of the fundamental attitudes towards food most people have that I want to change is that it's fuel. I remember the movie Barfly, based on the writings of Charles Bukowski, where Mickey Rourke (as Bukowski's literary persona, Henry Chinaski) is rampaging through his run-down tenement building looking for a ham sandwich as he shouts, "I need fuel!" Well, that sickly, hungover, pot-bellied vision of humanity is apt, especially when people think of food as equivalent to gasoline.

But food is not fuel. Food is nourishment. When you put gasoline in a car, does the car integrate the gas into its body? Does the car metabolize and repackage the gas into new compounds that integrate themselves into the makeup of the car itself in order to keep it alive? Does the car grow and generate new tissue based on the gas it ingests? No. Because a car is a machine. The human body is not a machine, it is alive, and the food it eats is alive.

I can rant on and on about how the calories in calories out paradigm of nutritional thinking is flawed, but many other paleo bloggers have done it better already, so I won't bother. The point I'd like to drive home is that not all calories are created equally. If food were merely fuel, you could just eat 2,000 calories of anything at all and be done with it. It wouldn't matter at all what you ate, you could just down glasses of sugar water for sustenance, and stay healthy forever. But what sane person believes that you can do that? Obviously, what you eat - the quality of it, the way it was grown or raised, its freshness, and its compatibility with the human body - is way more important than how much you eat. Think long and hard about this, would it be better or worse to eat 500 calories of steak or 500 calories of high fructose corn syrup? Would it be better or worse to eat 500 calories of fresh vegetables or 500 calories of white flour? Even if you're not paleo, I think you intuitively know which choices are better.

So why are healthy foods better? Is it because of how much starch relative to protein they have? Is it the amount of fat or the lack thereof? Well, here's the other piece of the "what is food?" puzzle that I'd like to address. Nutritionists and even paleo people are way too stuck on the macronutrients we ingest. Macronutrients, for those who don't know, are fat, protein, and carbohydrate, the three main categories of food we eat. A sweet potato is carbohydrate. Table sugar is carbohydrate. Does this mean they're the same when it comes to our bodies? Gluten is a protein. Tuna is protein. Butter is fat. Margarine is fat. Is it all the same? Obviously not. I won't even get into talking about how micronutrients (minerals and vitamins) are more important because there are also those that think we can isolate the micronutrients and take them in pill form. We are only barely even beginning to understand how various nutrients work in concert in whole foods, and we are still discovering new vitamins and nutritive and antioxidant compounds in our food, and many supplements are turning out to either be ineffective or even downright unsafe. Why would you take resveratrol (which hasn't been proven to do anything in isolation) in pill form rather than just having a glass of red wine? Makes no sense.

Let's talk about T. Colin Campbell's book The China Study which contends that animal protein causes cancer. The vast majority of the research that his argument was based on was founded on studies that fed isolated casein (a protein in dairy) to rats, thereby inducing cancer. Forget that mice were never evolved to eat isolated dairy protein and that their casein chow also contained sugar, grains, and other processed food, but whey protein, another dairy protein, has been shown to reduce cancer. Therefore, whole milk seems to have a neutral effect on cancer.

Another example is fish. People make a huge deal about the mercury in fish, but studies have found that the presence of selenium in fish binds to the mercury, thereby making it harmless to humans. Therefore, most commonly available fish is safe for humans with regards to mercury. Fish with lower selenium levels, such as shark and swordfish, are more risky to eat because the mercury in their bodies exists in a much more toxic state. Also, people make a big deal about PCBs and dioxins in fish, but in reality, all other food is more likely to contain those toxins. Eat fish.

My point is that we're too reductive in our thinking about food. We're too focused on what food does and doesn't contain - the pollutants, the additives, the isolated compounds, macronutrients - that we lose sight of what real food actually is. Don't get me wrong, it's important that our food isn't polluted, but it's also important not to be so paranoid about it that you're avoiding real food. Think about it this way: food is sunlight, minerals, and chemicals packaged in such a way that our bodies can absorb and integrate into our cells to help us stay healthy. That's it. Stop worrying about how much red meat you're eating or how much shellfish, or how many naturally nitrate-laden leafy greens. Just eat real food.

Not So Simple

2011-05-25T00:00:00.001-07:00

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.

Food

2011-05-24T06:48:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts. Here's a lamb breast I made with Sichuan peppercorns. It's plated with a salad of radicchio, orange, and a touch of sesame oil and lime juice.

Glutenous Maximus

2011-01-20T23:44:00.000-08:00

So, I won't go into the science of why gluten is bad for people especially those who are sensitive to it, but let me just reiterate that gluten can cause some serious health problems in people. This isn't just some new age, hippie, mumbo jumbo. This is medical fact, and even doctors will tell you so, even if they haven't yet understood that gluten-free diets can be beneficial for many people, even those who don't have celiac or allergies to it.

That said, I'd now like to address those of you who are seriously considering going gluten free: gluten contamination is very serious and real. Removing gluten from your diet is not a matter of discipline or being finicky. You can't order a bowl of chicken noodle soup and just pick out the noodles. You can't order a pizza and just scrape off the cheese. This isn't about you getting fat or not, this isn't a matter of discipline, denial, or moderation. If you have gluten sensitivity, you theoretically can't even have one molecule of gluten. You have to view gluten as a poison, which it is. Once a food (or a knife, or a plate) touches gluten, it is contaminated. This is important to understand in the restaurant setting, where there is a lot of cross-contamination, and it's important to understand when someone serves you a gluten-containing item. You must tell the person that you have a serious allergy to gluten, because that's what it is. Just as people with nut allergies can't have things that have even touched nuts (no other way to phrase that sentence, sorry), people with gluten allergies can't have anything that has touched gluten, and there's no such thing as "just a little bit" of gluten.

It's difficult, I know. Any change in lifestyle is difficult. But this is a matter of life and death. I hate to put it so dramatically, but the lust I see in people's eyes when they think about bread or cupcakes, and the excuses people make to indulge in those things even as they have medical proof that they can't have them, just makes me want to smack them. Unlike most "diets" and conventional nutritional advice, this is not a vanity thing. My advice has nothing to do with making people thinner or more attractive or fit into their swimsuits better. It's about helping people not get sick and die a slow death. It's about not developing painful and crippling autoimmune diseases.

I watched my dad eat himself half to death. Every time I tried to prevent him from eating something that even his doctors told him he wasn't supposed to eat, he just said, "Just a little bit." When pressed he would say, "What is life if I can't enjoy it?" But the problem is, these foods were killing him slowly, and we were left having to take care of him. I would have accepted his logic if he were eating honey-flavored arsenic, or if he were sky-diving. As it was, we were left watching him deteriorate and depend more and more on our help. Yes, enjoy life, but you can enjoy life without bread. You can enjoy life without pasta. Hell, they make really good gluten free versions of those things, but more importantly, there are so many other amazing foods out there that you can eat, the vast majority of which you haven't even tried yet! Eliminating gluten isn't about limiting your life, it's like a little obstacle to make you explore even more and love even more food than you previously imagined. Life is also about being there for the people you love and not forcing them to take care of you prematurely. Is having crippling arthritis or Crohn's disease for the last two or three decades of your life worth eating that cupcake? You want to sacrifice your health in order to enjoy Barilla pasta or Annie's mac n' cheese that you bought at the Giant?

Exasperation

2011-01-12T19:47:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I just feel like giving up. It's exhausting trying to defend the way I eat and explain myself to people who are completely ignorant of food. A lot of people come to me with earnest questions, but it seems some things that I am saying, such as that animal fat is good for you and industrial seed oils like canola and soy are bad for you, are blowing people's minds. It's not their fault - our media, our government, and the food companies have all brainwashed us into thinking that our ancestors were idiots and the only thing that will save us is yet another industrial product or a homegrown tomato. In any case, it's not the point that ancient civilizations were founded on grain and that many cultures eat a lot of grain. That doesn't make grain good for us, and it doesn't mean that people aren't getting sick. As it has been said before, paleo is a science-informed framework by which modern man can make healthy food choices - it is not a historical re-enactment.

Anyway, so I haven't posted here in a long long time. I've been cooking. I've been cooking for the whole damn world, it seems like. Cooking for most people is a chore or an occasional hobby. For me, it's just a part of every moment of every day. That's the way it was for our ancestors, our grandmothers, even some of our mothers. I'm not idealizing traditions that kept women enslaved, but I'm saying that you can't get around the fact that good food takes constant attention, time, and commitment. Making it a team effort makes it easier, but right now, the people who would be on my team still need to be taught so much, even things as simple as how to cut up an onion quickly and efficiently.

I have the luxury of working from home, so I can devote most of my time to food. And although I love cooking, sometimes I just wish someone else could be the one boiling bones for broth or searing a fillet of wild salmon, or braising the chicken thighs. I wish someone else would, like me, get up and go straight to the kitchen to make breakfast. This is the unfortunate side of eating well - you must pay a lot of attention, even most of your attention, to the food you eat. It's possible to make delicious meals in not very much time, but in order to continuously eat well, you have to continuously have something going on in the kitchen.

Self-reliance through swimming-pool re-purposing

2010-08-29T15:02:00.000-07:00

...Really!

http://gardenpool.org/

Chickens, container gardens, tilapia ponds, complete with mulching of waste, water reclamation, and bio-filtration.

Photos and a short video tour--more detail on the specifics of the interlocking biosystems would be nice, but achieving self-sufficiency for a family of 4 from the produce of a retro-fitted swimming pool is impressive, indeed.

Tribe of One

2010-08-14T18:27:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sick of cooking meals for myself. Today I made an amazing breakfast of ground pork seasoned with garlic, ginger, white pepper, and gluten-free tamari, sauteed with shitake mushrooms and yellow squash. I dribbled a few drops of sesame oil on it after I plated it. And then I ate it. Alone. As delicious as it was, there was something missing.

Even in an artist warehouse in a wonderful city where I've found the closest thing to a community I've experienced outside of college, I find myself alone 90% of the time. If we're trying to investigate and even emulate the best parts of hunter-gatherer lifestyle, we have to rethink the ways in which we organize and prioritize our social life. It just doesn't feel natural to have to make plans to see your friends. Ideally, you and your friends find each other through the course of a day organically, because you have the same places you like to go within a relatively small land area, and you gather together to share food because it's more efficient to pool all the fruits of your hunting and gathering than to keep what you have to yourself. I left New York specifically because I was tired of having to "schedule" my friends in.

Of course, I realize people have jobs that force them to arrange their days a certain way. We are still ultimately slaves to clocks and gas tanks and bills and paperwork. This is the modern world, and paleo is only an attempt to remind ourselves who we are on a biological level. We can't actually go back to the paleolithic savanna, but I do think there is room to relearn how to be social according to our evolution.

Check out Evolutionary Psychiatry, a blog specifically about what I'm talking about.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to find people to share food with on a daily basis. Our potlucks are great, but I want that every day. I feel most at peace when I'm breaking bread, er, meat with people. I hope that people who work office jobs can still find a way to make each meal a social event. I think this is a vital component to our overall health that many of us in this lonely modern world are missing.

Happy Little Boozer

2010-08-06T12:28:00.001-07:00

On bus up to New York. I feel like shit. I've been pretty off for the past couple of weeks, and I can't figure out why. I hate to admit it's probably the drinking. I love the sauce, what can I say. I love wine and whiskey, and I like to drink it every day. It's genetic. My whole family is like this. We drink regularly, but we don't like getting smashed — it's more of a physiological craving than an emotional crutch. I also love coffee. I've always said that coffee is the one drug I don't think I could ever give up. But I think I've established some sort of metabolic yo-yo thing with the booze/coffee routine. I don't get hungover anymore since I stopped eating/drinking gluten, but I'm definitely not feeling optimal right now. I think I may have adrenal fatigue from my hectic on/off schedule, from all the coffee, and from the low-carb thing I was doing. I think the euphoria of my first few paleo months is wearing off. I'm still committed to ancestral eating because I know my problem isn't that I'm not eating enough bread or hummus. I know I'm getting enough nutrients, but I haven't really fine-tuned anything. I guess before I start trying to micromanage my macronutrient intake, I should probably just try cutting the booze for real. I did it for a week when I first started paleo with no problem, and I also did it when I cooked on the boat recently. I guess it's the aimlessness of a sedentary life. As fun as my life is in general, I get a little bored at night sometimes, and my reflex is to hit the packaged goods store for a half-pint of Evan. I think a small amount of alcohol is healthy, but I easily go through a bottle of wine by myself without even noticing. That can't be good.

Nothing is Set in Stone Age

2010-08-04T16:03:00.000-07:00

I am trying to make every single meal I eat for the rest of my life the healthiest meal possible. However, I'm basing what I think is healthy on information that is constantly evolving and changing. Right now, I know this: I will never eat refined sugar, I will never eat processed foods, and I will never eat junk food. Of course, my definition of "processed" includes store-bought bread and pasta, and a lot of other common foods most people consider wholesome, such as pasteurized dairy. If anything, the paleo thing is just an excellent guideline for how to compose most meals - it's flexible and includes most of the foods I love anyway. But as strict as I am adhering to these guidelines, I by no means think that I have it down perfectly, and I by no means think my way is the definitive right way.

I am learning how to listen to my body and change my food to suit what it needs. I seem to not have a problem with corn, but beans really fuck my shit up, even sprouted and soaked beans. I don't have a marked reaction to gluten, but I know that if I reincorporate it into my regular diet, I will have brain fog, fatigue, and bad hangovers. I will also have more pudge. I've recently tried reducing my carb intake, but that seems to not be helpful. I feel tired, and while my brain and attention span seem fine, I just feel lethargic. Eating fruit doesn't help that much, even high-glucose fruit like pineapple and mango. I was blaming it on the heat, which may be a factor, but I didn't feel quite as good as when I was eating sweet potatoes and yams at most meals. I think I need starches that break down slower in the body. Even Girl Gone Primal, who has been doing the zero carb thing, is starting to re-evaluate what she's doing. I'm going to start eating a little white potato and see how that makes me feel. I do love potatoes.

Anyway, I love food, I will always love wine and butter, and when I'm in Italy I will eat the fuck out of some pasta. I don't want to scare people off from good food. I'm just trying to be conscious of how every food impacts my body. This is a constantly evolving process, and I'm always learning. I hope everyone else is doing the same.

Losing My Religion

2010-07-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not stuffing myself with pizza. In fact, it's pretty clear to me now that I will be paleo for the rest of my life. I see and feel very profoundly the benefits of my current diet, and I truly enjoy what I eat. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, and really, I'm exploring new foods that I had barely even considered until now. That said, I am very cautious of having this become a religion. Raw foodists, vegans, and paleo people alike all feel the need to proselytize when they first fully switch over to their way of living. However, what has drawn me to paleo in the first place is the overall lack of ideology. Everything I originally read aimed to be rooted primarily in the latest science rather than some philosophical, ethical debate. There is a weird, disconcerting crossover between primal living and libertarian/Objectivist thought, but I would say that's a small sub-sect of paleo.

Overall, paleo is a pretty diverse and flexible clan - some avoid white potatoes, some don't, some avoid olive oil, some don't, and there is a constant re-tinkering and re-evaluating based on science and anthropology. I do not believe how I eat is morally or ideologically superior to the way anyone else eats. In fact, I think on the most part, veganism is 100% an intellectual choice whereas paleo, at least for me, is 100% a physiological, biological choice.

I try to eat locally and I try to eat well-raised grass-fed animals because I think that's the best way to get the best quality and most dense sources of nutrients possible. I don't deceive myself into thinking I'm saving the world. I don't deceive myself that all those animals march happily into the family-run abattoir and offer up their throats to be cut in return for the farmers' kindness. But I also don't have a moral objection to killing for food. I'm saving myself, pure and simple, and I'm making choices according to my biology. This is not to say that I don't want our food system to be as ethical as possible, I just don't think that denying our biology in favor of subjective ethics is ultimately sustainable. As I progress and learn more, I'm continuing to tinker with my diet to make sure that I stay healthy for as long as possible, and eating meat is a huge part of that process. I am not seeking moral purity. I'm not trying to tell other people how to live. However, if you have questions for me, I can relay information as I come across it.

The indisputable facts for me are that humans are evolved to be omnivores, grains and legumes are relatively new to the human diet evolutionarily speaking, and that sugar and gluten are bad for us. I believe that processed foods, including industrial seed oils such as canola and corn, are unhealthy, especially in the amounts that we consume them. I think there is a lot of wisdom in our ancient traditions, and I try to learn from them. There's really nothing revolutionary or radical about my approach to food. I'm just trying to be healthy, and I would like to help the people I love be healthy.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2010-06-22T01:06:00.000-07:00

BEFORE

AFTER

Ok, I hope this isn't TMI for you folks, but I wanted to show you a before and after of my body since I started eating paleo. The first picture was from around the time I moved to Baltimore. I already wasn't eating grains every day and I was avoiding sugar, but I was drinking beer and eating beans. I was still feeling a lot of brain fog at the time, and I often felt hungover for entire days even after only drinking just a couple of beers.

Recently, I've noticed some weird physiological changes. On tour, I had no choice but to wear the same pair of socks for a few days at a time, yet my feet never got stinky. They started smelling strongly of the rubber my shoes are made of, but not that yeasty smell. I used to be pretty prone to athletes foot, particularly if I didn't change my socks every day. I went all of tour with about 5 pairs of socks, and I never had a problem. Another thing I noticed just today is that I am sweating much less than I usually do despite the heat, even after I've run a couple blocks to catch a bus. My heart rate also doesn't increase too much with a short sprint. It used to be that any sudden movement would make my heart pound.

The heat in Baltimore has gotten me feeling pretty fatigued, but not in the same way I used to feel every day, which is to say no concentration and a desperate desire to dip my brain in bleach because it felt like there was a greasy film covering it. The old fatigue also made me feel like I didn't want to lift a finger, but right now my tiredness just makes me want to take things slightly slower. I feel pretty alert, even when I'm exhausted, and all of tour I felt more energetic than I ever have. I think it's heat and dehydration that is getting to me right now.

Anyway, I'm not sharing this out of a sense of vanity. I've just been experimenting with my body for the past couple of years, and I think these changes are pretty interesting. I think it's noteworthy that I've been able to change my body composition with no concerted effort to establish an exercise routine - I lost fat (keep in mind that I have significantly increased the amount of fat I eat), and while I haven't really gained any muscle, I think I'm somewhat stronger. I wound up lifting a lot of heavy stuff on tour, but that was out of obligation more than anything else, and I only lifted one or two heavy things a day. I did notice that it was remarkably easier to lift my bandmate's keyboard than it was two years ago.

Paleo Breakfast

2010-05-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

Paleo breakfast. Three-egg omelet with spring onions (eggs were from the egg guy at the Waverly farmers market and the spring onions were from the downtown market), apple salad, and sweet potato, served with mustard/cider vinegar dressing, chipotle salsa, and salsa verde with avocado. I used ghee to cook the omelet, and I melted extra butter and a touch of ghee into the sweet potatoes. I didn't put any cheese in the omelet. For those of you still getting acne or gaining weight, or generally still feeling a bit bloated and gross, please try eliminating dairy from your diet for a while. Ghee is ok because the milk solids have been removed, it's just pure fat, which is good for you. It's the casein and the lactose in milk that are particularly growth-inducing. Chill on that shit. The irony of that ashtray in the picture is not lost on me.

Also, another note, when doing scrambled eggs or omelets, scramble the eggs in a bowl before you cook them - really whisk them to get them to froth up a little. Once you pour it into a hot pan, turn the heat down and stir very gently once every 30 seconds or so just to get them to cook evenly. Don't scramble in the pan. You need to be gentle with eggs when you cook them, otherwise they stick to the pan or become mealy and gross.

Lamb Stew

2010-05-10T16:35:00.001-07:00

I made lamb stew.

Ingredients:
Chunks of bone-in lamb (the bone is important if you don't have stock on hand because that's where the flavor comes from)
Onions
Carrots
Bay leaf
Water
Tomato (optional)
Garlic
Salt
Pepper
Cumin
Lemon zest

I rubbed the chunks of meat with salt, pepper, and cumin. I then heated some ghee (I'm trying to use more saturated fats to cook, and ghee has a very high smoking point and tastes awesome) and browned the meat in it. The important thing here is to use a heavy pan (I used a cast-iron pot) and use pretty high heat. You want to get a nice sear on it, which should be a rusty copper color. Too many people are afraid to use high heat, so they wind up with grey, unappetizing meat. Ok, so once the meat was seared, I added chopped up onions, bay leaf, a little more salt, and gave it a stir. When the onions were transluscent, I added carrots and a tomato. I let that cook down a little, then I added a few cloves of garlic, a little lemon zest, and enough water to just barely cover everything. I covered the pot, and put the whole thing in the oven (sort of like with my Fuck You Texas Chili, except covered this time). I intended to leave it in there for at least 2 hours, but when I checked on it after a little over an hour and a half, it was already done. I then chopped up some parsley I got at the farmers market and threw it in. I ate the stew with roasted sweet potatoes, sauteed zucchini, and sauteed turnip greens. Again, I used ghee for everything. There was no vegetable oil at all in this dish.

Fuck You Texas Chili

2010-05-03T19:28:00.001-07:00

Tonight, I got bored and went up to Waverly to wander around. Of course I had to stop at Punjab. I got a pound of ground beef. I can't afford grass-fed most of the time, and at least Punjab is halal and they grind the meat for you in front of you, so you can be reasonably sure there's minimal weird crap in it. Also, the fatty acid profile of ruminants is less adversely affected by grain feeding than poultry is, plus the beef at Punjab is very lean, so the fatty acid thing is pretty much a non-issue.

I went home and made chili. I decided I needed to put veggies in it, which is very un-Texan, which is why this is my Fuck You Texas Chili. Chili purists forbid the use of all veggies except garlic and onions (the red color should come from the chili and spices, not tomato). Beans are verboten as well, and the proper thickening agent is corn meal. Since I'm doing a paleo chili, I didn't even intend to use beans or cornmeal, but I definitely felt the need to eat some vegetable matter. Even though they're not seasonal, I used zucchini because that's what they had at Punjab, and they go rather well in chili.

Ingredients:

Ground beef
Onion
Bay leaves
As many cloves of garlic as you can handle
Chili powder
Cumin
Chopped tomatoes (fuck you Texas! Also, anyone allergic to nightshades can omit these.)
Lemon zest/some juice
Salt
Pepper
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Zucchini
Stock (beef, chicken, veggie, whatever)

Ok, so I didn't list these in the ingredients because most of you probably won't have these on hand, but I used rendered duck fat (you can use bacon fat or light olive oil) and duck stock despite my previous warning about fatty acid profiles of poultry. Duck is delicious, and the fatty acid ratio is better than that of chicken, so whatever. I first heated the duck fat in a dutch oven, then I threw the spices in to let them "open" to use Indian terminology to mean that they become fragrant. I browned the meat in the spice/oil mixture, letting all the exuding liquid evaporate. Then I threw in the chopped onions and tomatoes, stirred it, let the veggies exude their liquid, then I squeezed some lemon juice into it and zested the peel into it as well, threw in a couple bay leaves, a dash of cinnamon and nuteg, a couple cloves of garlic, and enough stock to cover the rest of the stuff by about half an inch. I then put the whole pot, uncovered, into a 350-degree oven for about an hour. Then I chopped up some zucchini and threw them in the pot, and let the whole thing cook for another 20 minutes or so. And that's my Fuck You Texas Chili.

Eating Solo

2010-05-03T18:08:00.001-07:00

One thing I've been thinking about a lot during the course of doing the paleo thing is how culture can reflect something evolutionary. Sharing food seems so natural to me that I have to believe it's built in somehow to our genetic code. Indeed bonobos, who we often look to for insight into human behavior, have very complex systems of gathering, hunting, and sharing food. This is why I feel the modern habit of each person getting his or her own plate of food, restaurant style, is not only wasteful and inefficient, it also flies in the face of our intense need to connect to each other via the meals that we prepare and eat together. For the same reason, I also abhor convenience food and food designed to eat on the go. I much prefer cooking and eating family style.

Recent changes in my daily routine have resulted in me cooking mainly for myself most days. This is very awkward for me. Beyond affecting my cooking times and quantities, by the nature in which fresh produce is sold, it's hard for me to use everything fast enough. I also really hate putting so much effort into cooking when no one else is around to appreciate it. I do indeed enjoy cooking, and it's a meditative process for me, but it's just a little less rewarding when I can't share the fruits of my labor with people I care about.

I think sharing food helps us prepare healthier food. We feel free to buy produce and meat and good ingredients when we feel that we are doing so to take care of the people we love. When we're solitary in our eating and cooking habits, it's too easy to slip into convenience foods. Sandwiches, ramen, and microwave dinners are for lonely eating. Real food is to be eaten and shared with your tribe. What I mean is that I miss you guys on nights when I'm eating alone.

I Scream!

2010-04-05T11:54:00.000-07:00

It's warm and sunny out, which means the ice cream and icey stands are opening! But alas, if you are sticking with the paleo diet you will have a hard time finding an icey treat to eat out there that's not packed with tons of sugar.

Look no further.

Make your own one-ingredient ice cream at home. It's literally BANANAS. Apparently this is a recipe that is very popular with the vegans but I'm just now discovering it. I found it here. All you need to do is freeze chopped up bananas for a couple of hours. Then put them in a blender or food processor until you've made a creamy consistency. You can add whatever you like (peanut butter, vanilla, honey, cocoa powder, etc.) I put a spoon full of almond butter, vanilla extract, and walnuts in mine and it was so delicious. The picture above (not mine) is the result of re-freezing the blended frozen bananas and then taking a scooper to it to make it look even more like ice cream. This is something that you should enjoy fast because if you let it melt it will just become gooey bananas, which is delicious but no longer ice creamy.

Apparently this process also works with fruits like mamey and mango. I bet it would also work with avocado too. The key is the fat content in these fruits that make it that creamy consistency. To make it local, maybe you could use paw paw from the forest!

Try this. You will like it.

Browned-Butter Sour-Cherry Almond Torte

2010-03-24T11:14:00.000-07:00

This is the recipe for the sour-cherry almond torte,
now paleo-friendly!

Start with:

1 stick unsalted butter
vanilla extract
6 egg whites
1/2 tspn salt
cardamom (to taste)
cinnamon (to taste)
nutmeg (to taste)
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
1 cup almond flour
1/3 cup sliced almonds
3 1/2 cups pitted sour cherries
arrowroot powder
1 pint heavy whipping cream

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Butter and flour/coconut a 8-10" cake pan
Mix the salt, spices, flours, and coconut together.
Melt the butter in a sauce pan, and cook it until it begins to brown (not burn).
Remove it from the heat, allow it to cool, and then add ~ 1 taplespoon of vanilla extract to the butter.
Beat the egg whites to the stiff peak stage (egg beater FTW).
Gently fold in the dry ingredient mixture, then the molasses, then the melted butter.
Transfer batter to the prepared cake pan. Cover the top of torte with sliced almonds.
Bake torte at 375 F for 45 minutes, or until fork comes out clean. Remove pan from oven and cool on rack for 15 minutes. De-pan the torte (carefully!) onto a rack and allow it to continue cooling for an additional 20-40 minutes before serving.

Prepare the sour cherry topping by heating the sour cherries with their juices in a sauce pan. Arrowroot powder may be added to thicken the juices, if desired. Cinnamon / cardamom / nutmeg may also be added if desired. Once the cherries are cooked, remove from heat and add vanilla extract to taste.

Prepare the whipped cream topping by adding cardamom / nutmeg / cinnamon and vanilla extract to taste to 1 pint of heavy cream. Beat the cream to the stiff peak stage (egg beater, yet again), and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Enjoy!

Eat the Universe

2010-03-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

I've been trying during the course of this experiment to figure out a way to communicate all the things I've learned about food in as simple a way as possible. I've been trying to offer rules of thumb, and lists of foods to avoid as well as lists of foods to eat. It's tempting to look for a quick fix, or a blanket statement to make food choices less harrowing. This is why people choose veganism or vegetarianism as a lifestyle. This is why people go on diets or develop rules about eating via religion or culture - they want to narrow their choices in an environment where it's almost impossible to know what a good choice is. People hope that they can find staple foods that they can feel good physically and morally about eating for every meal, so that they don't have to confront those decisions every single time they sit down to eat.

Unfortunately, I think it's this impulse that leads to our warped sense of food. Animals don't have to make complicated food choices because they eat what tastes good to them in their environment. Same with humans. However, our environment no longer consists merely of the landscape and the plants and animals that live on it. Our environment now consists of complex systems of economy and technology through which our food must pass in order to get from the farm to our plates. This is why our instincts are now at odds with our health - our instincts should tell us what is good to eat based on what tastes good. With industrialized food designed to trick our instincts, what tastes good these days is often very bad for us. The food available to us at any given moment has nothing to do with the land and everything to do with economics.

It used to be the seasons and the environment dictated what we had available to eat. Our choices were based on the life cycles of the animals and plants that were around us either by nature or by domestication. Even with people supplanting hunter-gatherer lifestyles with a sedentary agrarian way of living, the vast majority of people were still responsible for raising, growing, hunting, and foraging their own food. However, as more people became alienated from food production, as industrialization took people off the farms and put them into factories, we began to lose our understanding of the animals and plants that nourished us. Farming has slowly become a profession rather than a necessity for most people, and we have relegated food production to an ever smaller portion of the population so that the rest of us can work to support the other parts of the increasingly massive machine we call civilization. This separation may have occurred in old civilizations in China, India, and the Middle East, which is why there have been so many doctrines with strict dietary guidelines that originate from those places. When people no longer have nature to tell them what to eat, they need God or a philosophy. But the alienation from food that occurred just in the 20th century is unique in human history.

This is all just a long-winded way for me to say that we have to really start thinking about food again. Whether or not you think it's important for yourself to avoid grains permanently, I hope that this process of focusing on meat and vegetables has made you a better cook and forced you to think harder about each thing you eat. It's important that we cook as many of our own meals as possible, talk to farmers, plant seeds, and meditate over every single meal we eat. People have decried the elevation of food to the status of a religion, and indeed many people use food to underpin a certain neurotic view of the world. But food is the primary connection that all living things have to each other, and it therefore makes sense that our understanding of our health and ourselves begins with our relationship to the organisms that we need to put into our bodies in order to live. I can talk to you about macronutrient proportions and omega-3 fatty acids, we can talk about the politics and the ethics of our food choices, but until we can all stand back and have a more holistic view of how what we eat literally connects our bodies to the earth and the sun, then all we are doing is perpetuating our ignorance.

So I guess, at the end of the day, my rule of thumb would be: eat the way you have sex, the way you admire a star-filled sky, the way you sing a song, and the way you breath fresh air.

How does your garden grow?

2010-03-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are interested in gardening, there are two community gardening opportunities coming up (probably more around town, too).

In Hampden, there is a community garden and park near the 3500 block of Ash Street (near Baldwin Street). The group there is working on clearing a few city-owned lots and converting them to community gardens. Donations and assistance welcome; contact William at 410-900-7779.

Near where I live, there is a community garden, and I'm planning to rent a plot this year (it's CHEAP!). Anyone from our paleo group who would like to garden with me on my plot is welcome to, as I think (hope) the plot will yield more than I'll be able to use myself. E-mail me or contact me offline if you're interested. We're having a garden clean-up day next Saturday 3/27/10 from 10 to 12 noon.

For those of you interested in learning more about container gardens, you can get more information from the Home and Garden Information Center (http://hgic.umd.edu/) (which I think is affiliated with the Maryland Master Gardeners program). They've held workshops on container gardening in the past. In addition, they have a live chat option and other ways of seeking gardening advice. I believe the Maryland Master Gardeners usually attend the Sunday farmer's market under the JFX (May thru December) and are on hand there to answer questions about gardening.

Fat Head

2010-03-20T07:40:00.000-07:00

Clip from the documentary Fat Head

This clip explains how we get fat in a very easy to understand way:

Did we lick it?

2010-03-18T16:46:00.001-07:00

....the sugar habit, that is?

Now that we're nearly done with Week 4 of our paleo challenge, I'd be interested in hearing how people are doing in relation to cutting out or reducing sugar and refined carbohydrates in their diet.

Since we started the challenge, my one very non-paleo food has been chocolate. I've tried to stick with very dark chocolate (90% dark, but sometimes in the 74%-88% range instead). Sometimes, though, I've had slightly less dark chocolate with a lot of sugar in it. I haven't had any grains since we started and have not had juice either.

As the weeks have gone on, I've noticed two things: I get less hungry between meals (a good thing, and I assume because I'm eating veg and protein that's keeping me fuller longer and with fewer dips in blood sugar), but I also have been eating a LOT more chocolate than when I started (not necessarily a great thing, given the quantities).

Are We Not Hipsters?

2010-03-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

Most of you probably know this already, but an article written about Sarah Magida and me has caused quite the stir around the interwebs in the past 24 hours. I didn't expect to enter the public food debate in this fashion, but I guess I blew up my own spot by agreeing to the interview in the first place. In any case, they've posted a response from me, and I've written another response for the blog I work for. There have been some really great and supportive comments, despite the usual trolls and malcontents.

I just want to say to all of you that I really love having dinner with you every Sunday. I love that you're in my life, and that we get to share food and hang out so much. The really hateful things people are saying out there have made me really appreciate all of you that much more. Thank you so much for indulging me in this experiment. At the end of the day, I hope we're all healthy and happy and full of great food.

Despite the article painting a picture of me as some spoiled brat who can't give up my high-society tastes, here's what I've had for lunch for the past three days: soup made from the broth in which I boiled the bison tongue on Sunday. I add vegetables (carrots, celery, turnip greens) and I break and egg into it before turning the heat off and stirring. Delicious, satisfying, full of minerals and protein, full of vegetables. That $9 tongue has turned into at least five or six meals. Cheap as cheap can be, and I didn't even eat any meat. You can do the same thing with any stock that you make.

Cooking tips for busy folk

2010-03-16T19:05:00.001-07:00

One thing that has pleasantly surprised me about paleo is that despite my very busy schedule, I've managed to cook for myself on many nights, or at least have enough leftovers to assemble a tasty, veggie-heavy plate of food.

I usually prepare for the week by doing some batched cooking on Saturday or Sunday. Often I cook more than one thing in the oven at the same time--baking fish in one dish and then doing a few sweet potatoes, or doing sweet potatoes at the same time as a spaghetti squash. Then I have portions that I can mix and match for a number of dinners and lunches. (And, sometimes, breakfast.)

The other thing that surprised me was my misperception that vegetables take a long time to prepare and cook. Tonight, I peeled, sliced, and steamed some turnips for dinner in less time than it takes to make macaroni and cheese.

Paleo-baking and sugar exchanges

2010-03-15T07:56:00.001-07:00

As Gerry mentioned in his 4th-dinner recap post, I am attempting a paleo-conversion of one of my more elaborate (but so, so worth it) dessert recipes: the (in)famous sour-cherry almond torte. The original recipe has 1/2 cup flour (easy to adapt with nut/tapioca flour) and 1 cup of sugar to eliminate--everything else is mostly paleo-friendly (or at least as paleofriendly as almonds can be).

Sugar, for better or worse, has distinctive properties beyond simple sweetness: it is dry, it browns with baking, and yet more or less retains its character under high temperatures. Most other sweet things do not have this combination of characteristics. Many artificial sweeteners and some natural sweeteners (honey) are not stable under baking conditions. Other natural sweeteners may be heat-stable, but have different physical properties (wetness, for example) that will alter the characteristics of the final baked good. Most often, adaptation of baking recipes to no refined-sugar versions involves replacing the sugar with some exchange volume of apple sauce, molasses, agave, maple syrup, etc., and reducing the volume of liquid ingredients in the recipe to compensate for the added moisture from the sweetener.

Unfortunately, the almond-torte recipe brings with it a significant challenge, as the torte portion has very few wet ingredients (6 egg whites, which provide the leavening for the torte), and yet has a cup of sugar that must be eliminated. I've got some ideas, and I'm open to suggestions (a tip of the hat to Gerry re: the virtues of molasses and tapioca flour). Needless to say, I'll be running at least one test version before Sunday to see what comes out. And if anyone is making mayonnaise this week, I can probably help you out with some egg yolks...

Bleeding Gums Grimmak

2010-03-15T00:34:00.000-07:00

One thing I've had since I can remember is bleeding gums. No dentist has ever told me I have gingivitis, and my gums are not receding, they just bleed every time I brush my teeth. I've tried everything - Listerine (which I heard can actually make things worse), flossing more regularly, using toothpastes for sensitive gums - to no avail.* I read a passage, though, in Gary Taubes' book (Good Calories, Bad Calories, which I showed y'all at the first paleo dinner) that describes a doctor who eliminated all carbs from his diet for a year to see if there were any ill effects - he found none, and he also strangely found that his gingivitis went away. This got me thinking. The more I research this, the more I am suspecting that the problem isn't in my mouth, it's somewhere else in my body. When your gums bleed, it means they're inflamed. If one tissue in your body is inflamed, it could indicate that tissues in other parts of your body are inflamed. Realizing this, I have been trying to pay close attention to my gums and how they change with the things I eat. I have found that when I eat generally low-carb, and I haven't been drinking that much, I bleed much less than when I've been eating things that irritate me and drinking more heavily. I also have found that when I eat sugar, and when I have high acidity in my body, the bleeding gets particularly bad. I am going to strive especially hard to not eat sugar, limit booze, and get my acid-base balance in order. Proper sleeping may also help, but I'm really not good at sleeping. Some people view eating as just something they have to do to stay alive, and if food came in pill form they'd eat it that way. I sort of feel that way about sleep. I do it because I need to, not because I love to. This is a problem, and may be wreaking havoc in my body.

*I think the common dental explanation for gum disease - that it is caused by plaque - is completely ludicrous. My bleeding gums persisted despite regular cleanings when I was still under my parents' insurance. I also don't brush very hard, and I generally use medium or soft toothbrushes.

Fourth Dinner

2010-03-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight/last night was a great meal, as usual. A lot of good topics raised after we ate. I was particularly interested in Gina's comments on aerobic vs. anaerobic exercise. Exercise is important, but I don't think killing yourself at the gym is useful, and can even be highly damaging - as Gina pointed out, many people are doing way too much cardio, causing a stress response in the body, leading to some of the same issues we're trying to avoid by cutting out stress-inducing dietary things like sugar and gluten. Also, you can't work out to make up for a bad meal. Really, at the end of the day, you have to do what makes you feel good. Exercise can't be a chore, and it can't be a form of self-punishment for eating the wrong things. It has to be a pleasure, and I think healing the body through diet can help to make working out less laborious.

On another note, I found tonight's meal to be rather acidifying. After the meal I felt a bit of off, not necessarily tired, but my lips were tingling and my tongue felt very mildly sore around where it rubbed up against my teeth. My mother used to say this feeling was caused by hot qi, which I've found lines up nicely with western findings about acidity vs. alkalinity in the body. This meal actually had way more sugar than our usual fare. Dates, though unrefined, are very high glycemic (they spike the blood sugar very rapidly), and I put raisins and apples in the tongue salad. And though Victoria's smoothie was delicious and might have been great on its own between meals, when food is pureed, it increases its glycemic index (the sugars in it enter the bloodstream faster). There was also quite a bit of fruit in this meal, which could have been a problem. The tahini in the Katey's soup is also acidifying. Did anyone else feel anything?

Of course, this is not to say that the meal wasn't delicious. Thanks everyone!

For the next meal, I'd like to have more veggies, minimize the fruit and dairy, and basically have no sugar. If Edward's torts are successfully paleo friendly, this would be even more reason to minimize sugars in the rest of the meal, so that we can more fully appreciate his hard work. Meat. Veggies. That's the moral of the story.

Acid-Base Balance

2010-03-11T15:20:00.000-08:00

Another reason to remove grains, legumes, and sugar from the diet is that that they are highly acid forming. Meat and protein are also acid-forming, but eliminating meat is not as effective as eliminating grains and legumes for lowering acidity because of the nature of how most people eat them - meat, for the average person, still represents a relatively small percentage of the food mass he or she intakes compared to how the average person eats grain. Additionally, meat is vital to nutrition in other ways - we need protein, we need the good fats from animals, and we need the minerals. Meat also doesn't contain anti-nutrients the way that grains do. That said, paleo really isn't a meat-based diet. Paleo recognizes the importance of meat, but it's really a vegetable-based diet. Most vegetables are alkalizing, meaning they lower acidity. So, if you eat a lot of vegetables and a little meat, you get a net alkaline effect on the body. This will alleviate such symptoms as yeast infections, cold sores, acne, fatigue, and susceptibility to colds.

So, to recap, if you are looking to reduce the acidity in your body:

EAT LOTS OF VEGETABLES

and greatly reduce your intake of GRAINS, LEGUMES, SUGAR, COFFEE, and BOOZE.

Things like apple cider vinegar and lemon juice actually LOWER your acidity.

For me, the coffee and the booze will be a bit difficult, but again, I don't eat sugar or grains, which I think are much bigger factors for acidity. I did recently have a mild cold sore, but it quickly went away when I ate a lot of sweet potatoes, which are alkalizing.

Here is a great list of foods and their affect on the acidity in your body.

Broken Record

2010-03-11T14:10:00.000-08:00

So, I'm getting the sense that the paleo approach to eating is still somewhat confusing for some people, so let me try again to restate things as simply as I can:

1: The basic idea behind paleo is that you should found your diet on quality meats and vegetables, with the veggies being the bulk of your food intake. I don't think this is a very controversial notion.

2: The secondary notion behind paleo is that grains and many legumes (beans, peas, lentils, and peanuts) are nutritionally inferior and in many cases anti-nutritive for humans. We are the only animal besides birds that eats the seeds of grasses, which is what grains are. Not even cows eat grain unless we force them to (and boy do we force them, which is why their meat is unhealthy for us - meat is not inherently unhealthy). Whether or not grains should be demonized isn't the point - the point is that they don't provide anything that meat, vegetables, fruits, and nuts can't provide better. We should also avoid the oils derived from grains and legumes.

3: Wheat and wheat-related grains such as rye and barley are particularly bad because of the protein found in them called gluten. Gluten is ONLY found in wheat and wheat-related grains. Gluten is an irritant much like poison ivy. The more exposure people have to it, the more they have a reaction to it. It literally causes a poison ivy-like rash in your digestive system. This leads to all kinds of awful things in the body. We are more exposed to gluten than ever before because of the types of high-gluten industrial wheat being developed and also because it's added into processed foods as wheat-derived chemicals and food additives. It's in almost everything that comes from a factory, not just bread and pasta.

4: Sugar is bad. It's highly addictive and causes diabetes, acidity in the body, feeds tumors, and makes you crazy. High fructose corn syrup is even worse, and it makes you fat. Agave nectar is as bad as HFCS. Don't eat sugar. Eat a tiny amount of honey or maple syrup like once a week, but not every day. Please. Pretty please? I'm really serious about this. I don't want to see you die.

5: I know I said dairy is ok, but dairy has to be eaten very moderately. It has a lot of sugar in it (lactose) and the primary protein in it, casein, can have bad effects on the body. We're the only animal that eats the milk of another animal, and we are the only animal that eats milk past infancy. Please limit dairy, or even eliminate it if you feel you might have a problem with it.

6: The idea behind all this is to try to approximate what cavemen were eating, because our genetic makeup, which dictates what we're best adapted to eat, was formed in the millions of years before we developed agriculture. We have not had time to adapt to our rapidly changing industrial food system, which is why we are all sick. I mean that literally. Every single one of us is sick because of our food. Pie might be tasty, but it absolutely is killing you slowly. Sandwiches sound simple, but they're not, and even if you assemble one yourself, you're still eating highly processed food.

7: If you can't abide 100% by paleo, just try your best to avoid sugar and gluten, and don't make grain the central part of your meal.

8: Ok, fine, I'll demonize grains - they're horrible for the environment, horrible for your health, kill more animals than the entire meat industry because of the habitats they destroy, they're heavily subsidized by the government, and they're more vulnerable than any other crop to the tampering of agribusiness and chemical companies.

9: EAT YOUR VEGGIES

Recipes using anchovies or sardines

2010-03-08T17:48:00.000-08:00

Please post your anchovy or sardine recipes! Now that I have anchovies, I've got to figure out what to make with them. Thanks, paleo pplz!

Shopping Finds

2010-03-06T23:43:00.000-08:00

The grocery store I shop at (Shoppers @ Mondawmin) carries Tulip brand salmon (on sale this week) and wild-caught anchovies:

They also have red bell peppers on sale this week for $1 per pound. (Not local, but inexpensive.)

Grain of Salt

2010-03-04T13:58:00.000-08:00

OK, here's a little debate on MetaFilter about the veracity of the anti-nutrient claims made by Sally Fallon (via Weston Price) and paleo advocates. My contention is still that whether or not phytic acid and anti-nutrients really pose a threat (actually, not enough studies have been done to prove or disprove this theory conclusively), other foods are much more dense in bioavailable nutrients. Grains, in general, are just filler. Additionally, it's proven that an increasing number of people are developing sensitivity to certain grains, particularly wheat, corn, and their industrially refined products. Whether it's something innately in grains or the fact that grains are more subject to industrial tampering, I still conclude that I should avoid them. I also believe that management of blood glucose is important even if you don't have diabetes, and seeing as grains tend to be high-glycemic (they spike the blood sugar a lot), it would make sense to be careful with the amount of grains you eat. Again, anti-paleo people claim that the antinutrient thing is bunk, but no one that I've found has stated that grains are vital and indispensable. I think it's worth it to see how we feel without them.

Many people I've talked to about diet have said, "I just don't think I'll get diabetes. It doesn't run in my family." However, the number of people developing diabetes is exploding, and I'm certain a large portion of the people who develop it did not necessarily have a family history of the disease - and though I do think diabetes has a strong genetic component, I also think that certain environmental factors can trigger the disease. The nature of our food has changed drastically over the past 40 years, more so than in the 40 years before that (contrary to the changing diet myth perpetuated by the low-fat crowd), and I can't believe it hasn't impacted our health. Ultimately, I can see only benefit from focusing your diet on quality meats and vegetables, and eschewing industrial products as much as possible. In the end, not even Sally Fallon or Weston Price advocate for the total elimination of grain from the diet - indeed, we should utilize whatever can be grown sustainably and efficiently to optimize our nutritional intake. I just hope that in the course of this experiment, people have a heightened awareness of the things that we put into their bodies.

Oven-Roasted Root Veggies

2010-03-03T22:55:00.000-08:00

I sliced some beets, carrots, sweet potatoes, and onions and put them in a baking dish. I added some salt, pepper, herbs, and spices to some bacon fat (approximately 1-2 tablespoons) and stirred it into the veggies. Added a bay leaf. I baked it, covered, at 425 (because I was baking a dish of fish at the same time) and then raised the temperature to 450 when the fish came out of the oven. Baked until veggies were soft. Garnished with some lemon juice.

I have a neat sound clip of what it sounded like when it came out of the oven...but you'll just have to take my word for it because Blogger allows posting of photos and videos but not sound files.

You Ain't Eatin Enough

2010-03-03T19:17:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, just a reminder that you should be eating until you're full. If you've stuck with relatively strict paleo, you've probably been struggling to find things that you can eat. Keep at it, but under-eating can lead to some problems, so make sure you're eating enough. If you're hungry after a meal, keep eating.

Also, this isn't necessarily a low-carb diet. Unless you're trying to lose weight, eat as many sweet potatoes and yams as you want. But also keep in mind that protein and fat are very satiating.

Broccoli Soup

2010-03-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

Actually, scratch that, this is the simplest soup I know:

Bring some salted water to a boil. Throw some broccoli into the water. Cook until tender but still bright green. Remove the broccoli, and put it into a blender or food processor or another pot if you're using an immersion blender. Add a little bit of the water that you boiled the broccoli in. Blend it until smooth. If you want it thinner, add some more of the water. Salt and pepper to taste. You could use stock instead of water if you want, and you can also grate some cheese into the final product. You can also garnish with some crumbled bacon or crumbled blue cheese! Drool.

Sweet Potato and Coconut Milk Soup

2010-03-03T12:05:00.000-08:00

Here's the simplest soup I know:

Roast a couple sweet potatoes at 450-degrees until mushy (usually just under an hour). When cool enough to handle, remove skin. Heat some stock (vegetable or chicken) in a pot. Put the sweet potatoes in, blend it with an immersion blender, then add one can of coconut milk (the kind without preservatives or anything weird). Continue blending until smooth. Add more stock if you want it thinner. You can garnish with some scallions or cilantro, and you can also add curry type spices (tumeric, garam masala, etc) if you want. You could also do this with squash or yams.

Paleo-rific!

Bison Tongue in Ma La Sauce

2010-03-01T19:04:00.000-08:00

'nuf said.

Taking (Making) Stock

2010-02-27T21:19:00.000-08:00

In light of the recent interest in soups, here's my recent foray into making stock (aka 'soup base').

I started by taking the roasted fat trimmings from a 2.3 lb chuck roast that I made earlier in the day, and combined them in a big pot with wilted-but-not-rotten veggies, as well as the carrots I roasted the roast on top of, and stems / tops / random bits from some root vegetables and kale that I cooked separately. I covered the meat and vegetable trimmings with water, brought it to a boil, and then covered it and left it to simmer. For a long time. Eventually, I strained the liquid into a container and discarded the solids. The result could be reduced a bit more, but it is a perfectly serviceable beef/vegetable broth for making soup.

This same process also works for chicken carcasses (be sure to add the feet, if you have them).

Soup recipes, please!

2010-02-27T10:19:00.000-08:00

If any of you have any good paleo-friendly soup recipes, please post them! I have a mad craving for soup but am not really sure how to put all my veggies together into a soup.

Is a calorie just a calorie?

2010-02-26T19:45:00.000-08:00

I really love this guy's youtube channel "Underground Wellness"

He's very pro Weston Price/ Paleo, and he has a knack for explaining very complex biological processes in laymans terms for dummies like me.

Sausages and Packaged Meats

2010-02-25T13:48:00.000-08:00

Be careful with sausages and packaged meats (even from Trader Joe's!), they're often laden with a million weird ingredients including sugar, corn syrup, MSG, wheat-derived substances, and horrible preservatives. In fact, it's very rare to find commercial sausage that doesn't have sugar. READ THE LABELS!!!!!! I can't stress this enough. Don't just read the nutritional information, read the ingredients, which is really more important anyway.

I've found the Roma brand sausages made right here in Baltimore are decent, cheap, and often available at Giant or Safeway. The label on Roma sausages says "pork, salt, spices." I'm not always sure what "spices" means, but I reckon it's not as awful as the crap they put in the Giant brand. I haven't yet found good salami, but you could probably ask people at Trinacria to see ingredient labels and such. Incidentally, their roast beef is pretty awful, just a tiny notch above Arby's - tastes like salty plastic.

The market at Belvedere Square has some nice stuff meat wise if you can splurge. They don't take food stamps unfortunately. Whole Foods also often has some ok sausage as well.

Wild Alaskan Salmon Salad

2010-02-25T10:09:00.000-08:00

Here's something you can make the night before and bring to work with you in some tupperware with some sliced up cucumbers or on top of a salad for lunch. Oh, it also goes really well with avocado! Sorry about the crappy pictures, all I had was my phone.

$2.68 at Giant... wild-caught, sustainable, omega-3 rich Alaskan salmon.

That's two omega-3 egg yolks in there with the juice of one lemon, a pinch of salt, and a spoonful of mustard. Blend it. Then, keep the blender on as you slowly pour in oil.

This is what it should look like when it's done. Mayonnaise.

Mix as much of that as you want with the salmon, basically until it attains the consistency of tuna salad. I chopped up some apple, shallot, and scallion and threw it in there. Black pepper. You could put some parsley or celery and carrots in there... whatever you like. From start to finish, the whole process took me about 5-10 minutes.

Update: I just spooned out the salmon salad onto cucumber slices and put bacon bits on them. A few of them I even put a little blue cheese under the bacon.

Butterfly-Cut Leg of Lamb

2010-02-25T08:15:00.000-08:00

marinade:
Leg of Lamb, butterfly cut
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/8 cup wheat-free tamari
3 sprigs of rosemary, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, crushed and coarsely minced
2 shallots, diced
salt/pepper

Butterfly usually means that a thick piece of meat is sliced partway through it's lateral midsection. Generally this is done to make it cook faster and more thoroughly. In the case of the lamb leg, the meat is sliced to the bone and unwrapped. This essentially turns the lamb leg into a flat steak. The butcher that sold me the meat also butterfly cut it for me but, it's a reasonably simple operation.

First you'll want to take all the ingredients (besides the Lamb itself) and combine them in a mixing bowl. Then marinate the Lamb. I ended up transferring the whole operation to a food storage container and marinating it overnight. You don't have to marinate it this long, but it's nice.

Begin by preheating an oven to about 375F.

I decided to serve it with some brusselsprouts and carrots I had on hand. So I put the sprouts and carrots into a bowl and tossed them with some olive oil, salt/pepper and a little bit of butter and, put them in the oven.

Pull the Lamb out of the marinade and place the cut fatty-side (the outside) down in an unheated frying pan and place it on the stove over medium high heat. The cool thing about working with meats that have a thick fatty layer on them is that you can cook them in their own juices very easily. By placing the meat into the pan when it is still cold, you can slowly render out the fat as the pan comes up to temperature, rather than carbonizing the fat when it comes into flash contact with a hot pan. This trick also works really well with Duck breast and Bacon.

When it starts to sizzle, flip it over and fry it quickly on each side (the edges too if possible, tongs help for this, the less squeamish among us use our own washed hands). This process seals in the juices of the meat, so that all the flavor doesn't run out when it goes into the oven.

Now, move the lamb to the preheated oven
and roast for about 20 minutes, depending on how thick it is and your desired degree of doneness. If you're cooking your veggies in the same oven, you'll want to check on it earlier (I ended up overcooking mine a bit).

When it's done, take it out and let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before carving, in order to let the meat reabsorb the juices. In my case this meant staring at it and 'testing' little pieces of it.

Jessie's Flava Flav Chicken

2010-02-24T23:47:00.000-08:00

Seen here with turnip greens, sweet potatoes, and bison burger... and Keelin's hand.

Mayonnaise Recipe

2010-02-24T17:36:00.000-08:00

I really like making my own mayonnaise. Commercial mayo has sugar and is usually made out of soybean oil. When I make my own, I can choose healthy eggs and healthy oil. Also, it's a fun science lesson. So this is what you do... separate two egg yolks and put them in a blender or food processor.

Ingredients:
2 egg yolks
lemon juice
mustard
oil (light olive oil is best)

Directions:
Put the egg yolks in a blender or food processor. Squeeze a lemon in there and add a dollop of good mustard. A pinch of salt. Pulse it a few times to blend. Then keep the blender/food processor on as you slowly pour in a neutral oil... I've found light olive oil to work quite well, although you could use extra virgin if you don't mind a strong olive oil taste. Stop blending every once in a while to check the consistency. When it looks like mayonnaise, you've got yourself some mayonnaise. The lecithin in the egg yolks and the acid in the lemon juice and mustard act as an emulsifier to bind the water in the ingredients to the oil. It's really cool, and tasty. You can also add seasoning like curry powder, and if you add a bunch of raw garlic, you have yourself an aioli.

Also, as Mika says: taste your oil first for freshness. The oil can really make or break the mayo in terms of flavor. Also, if you're using a hand whisk to make it, be prepared for tired arms! It's doable but a hefty workout.

Breakfast & Lunch for the Working Gal

2010-02-24T09:31:00.000-08:00

Breakfast

2 scrambled eggs & aged cheddar cheese
2 pieces of bacon (i cooked 4 pieces- 2 for lunch!)

Lunch
I threw into a bag:

Knife
Spoon
Yogurt Container
Apple
Kiwi
Bacon
Cheese
Cucumber
Olives
Honey

During my lunch I cut up the Kiwi and apple and threw it into the yogurt with honey.
I cut up the bacon, cheese, and cucumber and made little "sandwiches".
I ate the olives.
And now I feel great!

More Controversy: Nuts, Dairy, Etc.

2010-02-24T09:16:00.000-08:00

Nuts
As Meat Ball Magic pointed out, nuts have actually even more anti-nutritive phytic acid than grain and also really high in omega-6s. Be aware of that when you're munching on them. Again, my sense is that most people aren't going to stuff themselves with nuts the way they would with grain and grain products, but I know some of you might be downing entire bags of nuts in one sitting right now. I don't think it's anything to worry about because I find it hard to imagine anyone would eat a bag of nuts every single day. If you think about it, nuts took a lot of effort in hunter-gatherer life. We had to forage them, break through their shells, and often cook them to make them edible. The equivalent of a big bag of nuts was probably not that common. But I still think they're a good option to help break other addictions. They're also low-glycemic and not addictive in the same way as refined carbs.

Dairy
Weston Price and Sally Fallon differ from Paleo advocates on the issue of dairy. Many nomadic tribes thrive on dairy-heavy diets, but some scientific research shows that the primary protein in milk, casein, can cause a lot of the metabolic problems and inflammation that we attribute to other things like grains. Dairy also has lactose, which is sugar. The back of a yogurt container says it has 12-14g of sugar - that's mostly lactose. Lactose in yogurt can vary based on how long it has fermented, but most cheese for sure has very little lactose. Dairy is technically a Neolithic food because it wasn't possible until we domesticated animals. Strict Paleo adherents often abstain from dairy. Again, my sense is that it's what we do in aggregate that matters more, and if you don't feel you have sensitivity to dairy, cheese and yogurt can be powerfully satiating and very likely healthy.

Agave Nectar
Agave nectar has been billed as a healthy sweetener, with "no refined sugars." But it IS a refined sugar. That's like the Corn Refiners of America claiming that high-fructose corn syrup is "all-natural." Agave is mostly fructose... so how does it differ from HFCS? It doesn't really, in terms of health, and it may even be slightly worse. Fructose, although low-glycemic because it's mostly metabolized in the liver, has a net effect on blood sugar as bad if not worse than table sugar - at least sucrose is a disaccharide that has to be broken down, fructose is a monosaccharide that just goes straight in for the money. It is more damaging than almost any other sugar when used as a sweetener. The amount of fructose you would get from an apple is much less than the squirt of it you might be putting into your coffee, and fructose in most fruit is absorbed more slowly because of the fiber and other nutrients. Agave is sugar. Evaporated cane juice is sugar. High-fructose corn-syrup is sugar. And sorry to be a bummer, but honey and maple syrup are also sugars, and should be treated as such. There is, however, some research that suggest fructose increases fertility in men. Perhaps, the season when fruits were most available to our paleo ancestors was also mating season i.e. mid to late summer. But eating a lot of it in concentrated forms is very bad for you. Sugar in the form of whole, seasonal fruit is fine, but as soon as you refine or extract it from its source, it acquires some pretty nasty qualities. Still, if you need a tiny bit of honey or maple syrup to ween you off of candy and sweets, go for it, just do so sparingly.

Meat
Contrary to popular opinion, the body doesn't really have a hard time processing meat. Vegetable fiber has more of a chance of getting stuck undigested in your gut than steak. If you're feeling constipated, it's probably more due to your body adjusting to a change in the diet than because you've eaten too much meat. Not to be too graphic, but I have been pretty regular since I stopped eating grains, regardless of how much meat I eat relative to vegetables. In fact, some vegetables have had a more adverse effect on my gut. But that's just my own personal experience. As for acid-base balance, even though meat has a net acid load on the kidneys, the more important factor seems to be how much acid is caused by excess sugar in the blood. The Masai and the Inuit used to eat exclusively meat and animal fats, but they had almost no bone or dental diseases. Acid load on the kidneys causes tooth and bone decay as the body leeches alkaline minerals from those parts of the body to balance the pH. From what I gather, the single most important factor in acid-base balance is sugar.

Flava Flav Chicken

2010-02-24T07:41:00.000-08:00

In a large bowl mix together about

1 tbsp ground coriander

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tbsp tumeric

1 tbsp dried thyme

1 tbsp dried sage

1 tsp ground nutmeg

2 cloves chopped up

1 onion chopped

2 tbsp fresh ginger finely chopped

2-juiced limes

1-2 habanero peppers chopped

about ¾-1-cup olive oil

¼ ish cup wheat free soy sauce

¼ ish cup of apple cider vinegar

add chicken, (I used a whole one that Punjab chopped for me) let sit for 24 hrs

TO COOK:

take chicken out of marinade, put into a pan and cook at 350 degrees for about an hour or so, while chicken is cooking, baste it with the remaining marinade.

Bada-bing-bada-boom, you got yourself some flava-flav chicken, biaches!

Fruits and vegetables are awesome

2010-02-24T05:23:00.000-08:00

Yes, we all know that fruits and vegetables are awesome. But YouTube also says so, so it must be true! In case any of you need some humor to get through sugar cravings:

Big Fat Truths

2010-02-23T22:41:00.000-08:00

Before I crawl into my cave and drift off to a land of prancing antelope, I just want to get the conversation on fat going.

Omega-3s and Omega-6s

Most nutritionists (whom I don't usually trust, but I'm not finding much argument here) believe that one of the culprits of our deteriorating health is the balance between omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. The body needs both and can't manufacture either, but our modern diet has way way too much omega-6 from soy, corn, seed, and nut oils. The animals we eat also have this imbalance because we mainly feed our animals grain and industrial foods. Omega-6 causes inflammation, blood clotting, and cell proliferation, while omega-3s suppress those responses.

Part of the Paleo approach (and other more mainstream dietary approaches) seek to up the omega-3 intake by eating fatty fish, fish oil supplements, omega-3 eggs, and fat from grassfed animals (butter, lard, gristle, tallow, marrow... yum!). There are vegetable sources, but the omega-3s in them are precursors to the ones we need - eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic (DHA) - and the body has to synthesize them out of those precursors. Therefore, while vegetable sources are better than nothing, they aren't as effective in balancing fatty acids.

Saturated Fat
Contrary to PC nutritional wisdom, saturated fats are actually really good for you. They are stable when heated and they are easily metabolized by the body. There are no consistent results from scientific studies that suggest that saturated fat is bad for you, but there are more consistent results from scientific studies that show that fructose and corn oil are. In fact, Americans actually consume LESS saturated fat than we did 100 years ago. Look at it this way: if you were in the wild, the most easily procured types of fat would be saturated - animal fats, coconuts and avocados in tropical places, fish fats, eggs, etc. If you found civilization and stumbled into a corn field and you tried to eat enough corn to ingest the amount of corn oil in an average fast-food meal, you'd literally explode. Even a century ago, most people had only lard, butter, tallow, chicken fat, etc. The vegetable oils commonly used now are only possible because of heavy industry.

Cholesterol
Dietary cholesterol has no impact on blood cholesterol, and overall blood cholesterol has nothing to do with coronary disease. Your body manufactures cholesterol. Your blood cholesterol can fluctuate quite a bit throughout the day due to countless things in your environment. Your cell membranes, the sheath around your nerves, and a lot of your brain are made out of cholesterol, and cholesterol is a key building block in hormone production. Without it, you would die. Of course, analyzing the many different kinds of cholesterol and their levels in your body may be more useful, but read Gary Taubes' book if you want more detail - the key thing to note is that SUGAR actually has a direct impact on your blood-lipid profile. Don't worry about cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol is good for you and won't impact what's going with your blood, eggs are good for you, butter is good for you. The myth that cholesterol is bad just serves to sell more cholesterol-lowering drugs. If you're worried about heart disease... DON'T EAT SUGAR.

Anyway, I'm trying to keep it brief in the hopes that this doesn't overwhelm you.

Fats to Use:

Olive Oil - use extra virgin for salads, and light olive oil for cooking. Extra virgin oxidizes when heated. This is bad.

Coconut Oil - get the unhydrogenated pure stuff. It should smell like coconuts. Supposedly magical. It's mostly saturated fat. Buy it from Punjab.

Butter - get grassfed when possible. LOOK ON THE LABEL. It should just be butter, no "natural flavoring" or anything else.

Ghee - make your own out of butter (ghee is just clarified butter) or buy it from Punjab. Again, make sure it's not hydrogenated.

Bacon and Bacon Fat - I sometimes just chop up some bacon and fry it in a pan to cook veggies rather than reaching for a bottle of oil. If you have bacon in the morning, bake it (350-degrees for about 15 minutes) so that the grease doesn't burn and you can pour it into a little jar or something to use for cooking later.

Duck Fat - get it at Wegman's or scoop it out of the bottom of a pan next time you roast a duck.

Lard - again, get good quality, non-hydrogenated, no preservatives. I have yet to find a good source in Maryland, but I haven't asked at the farmers market yet. A good butcher can get you leaf lard, which is the leaf-shaped deposit of beautiful fat along the inside of a pig's back, inside the ribcage.

Tallow - this is beef fat. You can get a few good grassfed beef or bison marrow bones and roast them at a low-ish temperature (275?) to render out all the fat to use for cooking.

Peanut oil and sunflower oil are acceptable if you really really have no other choice. Whatever you do, avoid corn, soy, and canola oils.

Oh, finally, FATS DON'T MAKE YOU FAT.

Roasted carrots recipe

2010-02-23T19:22:00.000-08:00

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. I use this temperature because I can also roast a sweet potato at the same time, but higher temperatures (450, 475) work, too.

Peel and slice carrots into similar sized sticks. Pour a small amount of olive oil into a mixing bowl (I used about a teaspoon for a lot of carrots). Add sea salt and black pepper and/or other spices--I used cayenne pepper as well. Toss the carrots in the oil to coat, then arrange on a baking pan or cookie sheet.

Bake for ??10-15 minutes or until carrots are soft and starting to brown on the edges. Yummy snack!

Sardines - Non-Dairy, Non-Nut

2010-02-23T13:41:00.000-08:00

Sardines. Check them out. Sustainable, cheap, and really high in omega-3s. If you don't like their fishy taste, mix them up with some homemade mayonnaise (much easier than you think), diced carrots and celery, salt and pepper, and lemon juice. Maybe a pinch of tumeric. Spoon some on top of cucumber slices. If you don't have time to make mayonnaise, try just mustard and olive oil.

Big Picture

2010-02-23T13:23:00.000-08:00

So, I need to reiterate that our attempts to eat more like our Paleolithic ancestors shouldn't be guided by ideology or a romanticized notions of what pre-agrarian people were like.

The removal of grains from the diet isn't a moral or dogmatic decision. As I've said, there are healthy ways to eat grains, but unfortunately, with our busy modern lifestyles, most people don't have the time or knowledge to prepare grains properly. Regarding phytic acid, even though other foods contain perhaps more phytic acid than grains, they are often more satiating and are more nutrient-dense. In aggregate, if you remove grains and legumes, you're eating more nutrients relative to anti-nutrients. It's about proportions. Additionally, you address other issues like insulin levels. We're not cutting out dairy, even though casein, the primary protein in dairy, causes some of the same inflammatory affects as grains.

Look at this way: Do you eat a piece of fish on top of a bed of cashews? Do you eat a steak on top of a pile of cheese? Maybe you do, I don't know. But most of us don't, so nuts and dairy shouldn't pose too big of a problem for people who don't already have issues with those foods.

gotta love the NUT

2010-02-23T11:27:00.000-08:00

NUTS!!
Yes, very delicious. Important thing to remember though, peanuts are legumes, which means they contain phytic acid. So try other nuts that might contain less. Walnuts? Pistachios? I actually don't know the level of phytic acid that these nuts contain. But perhaps it is worth looking into.

I came across this blog that debates the nut thing for paleo dieters. Read the comments. Mostly what I get from it is that one should not binge on nuts. As with most foods, binging is bad. But otherwise, nuts are great especially when you are first starting the paleo lifestyle.

I welcome people to look into this if they like and provide more insight or perpectives. I certainly would like to learn more.

Recipes for Day 1

2010-02-22T20:56:00.000-08:00

Here are some recipes from the day:

MOCK TENDERLOIN CHUCK STEAKS (pieces of chuck cut into medallions that we got at Whole Foods for cheap)

Ingredients:
Mock tenderloin steak
minced garlic
wheat-free tamari
lime juice
black pepper
light olive oil, ghee, or bacon fat

Instructions:
Marinate the meat in the other ingredients for at least an hour. Heat oil in a medium high pan. Sear meat for about 5 minutes on each side (it should be a rusty brown color). Yummers!

GERRY & JAKE'S JERK CHICKEN FOR JERKS

Ingredients:

For the rub:
cumin
coriander
small onion
knob of ginger
green chilies
cinnamon
nutmeg
tumeric
black pepper
cardamom
lime juice
chunks of mango
salt
a couple cloves
enough olive oil to make everything into a paste when you blend it

Other ingredients:
One whole muthafuckin chicken
Sweet potatoes cut into slightly-bigger-than-bite-sized chunks
Onion cut up into chunks

Instructions:
Blend all the rub ingredients together in a food processor or blender. Rub that love all over that naked, vulnerable chicken and put it in a roasting pan. Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Scatter onions and sweet potatoes around yon chicken and dizzle some olive oil on them. Stick her into the oven for 50 minutes or so or until the legs wanna come off pretty easily and the juices run clear. Shake the pan and give the veggies a turn halfway through so they don't scorch. Aight, yous gots chicken.

Travel-food for the working / wandering paleo

2010-02-22T20:14:00.000-08:00

I confess, I'm still in researching-the-logistics mode. Most of the food options offered near my workplace are based on grains and sugar (or both). And for the near-mid future, I have virtually no time to cook during the week-- before this experiment, I have been cooking my foods in bulk, once a week.

My challenge, in addition to assessing the workplace options more thoroughly, is to find paleo / low-glycemic foods that I can take with me, from school and then to work, that will provide me with 2 meals and a snack or 2 for my day. These foods need to be stable for at least 4-6 hours at room temperature, easy to transport in a backpack/messenger bag, and provide enough nutrition that I can successfully resist the siren calls of the cafeteria/vending machine/large platter of cookies that somebody left in the conference room.

So far, I've found unsweetened applesauce single-paks, raw fruit, and treenuts (which my teeth are not happy about, but that's another story).

Longer term, I'm seriously considering undertaking a beef-jerky-making project--recipes welcome!

Snacking Tips

2010-02-22T19:52:00.000-08:00

SNACK IDEAS!! WHEEE!!!

Instead of crackers or bread, try slices of apple or pear with goat cheese. A drop of honey will also help beat back that sugar beast.

Carrots and celery are not very bioavailable raw, but they can be great mouth occupiers. Dip them in almond or cashew butter. If you can't eat nuts, goat cheese or mustard maybe? You can also eat them straight, but again, nutrition wise not so effective, just great for keeping your pie-hole busy.

Nuts, if you can eat them, are a great freaking snack. The protein and the fat content make them really satiating.

Berries are a good substitute for candy, particularly when they are in season.

Roast a chicken, or get one of those rotisserie chickens from the store (make sure no weird ingredients), shred it up, mix it with some tahini, lemon juice, garlic, and diced onion, salt and pepper. Maybe add diced up apple or chopped walnuts and celery. You got yourself a pretty satisfying chicken salad.

Day 1

2010-02-22T19:13:00.000-08:00

Some of us crazy Baltimore losers are trying out the Paleo Diet - you know, no grains, no legumes, no refined sugar, eating like cavemen, wearing loincloths... we're also drawing a bit from Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions and the research of Dr. Weston Price. Oh, and also Gary Taubes' book, Good Calories, Bad Calories.

Why are we doing this? Well, we all have our own individual reasons, but mainly, we're just trying to see what happens. I have heard arguments about grain being tolerable for a lot of people, but I haven't heard from anyone why they are necessary or why they should take up space on a plate where good meat or vegetables could go, so I figure we can get rid of them and see if we feel different. I'm hoping a lot of us feel better. I'm hoping we all develop a broader understanding and appreciation for food. I hope we bond and figure out better ways to navigate a really confusing and increasingly bleak food environment. I'm hoping to convince my friends to eat raw liver. That's pretty much it.

Last night, to kick things off, we had loads of collards, sweet potatoes, two different kinds of fish, and mussels in a coconut curry. We talked about food. It was nice. I'm one of those people who loves it when people post what they had for lunch of Facebook. Today, during the day, some people had difficulty, others did not. Seems like work and school make it difficult for people to abide by the diet. We'll try to figure out ways to make it work as the month goes on.

Here are the Paleo Basics

- No grains or legumes because they contain phytic acid and other anti-nutrients and they spike the blood sugar. Spiking blood sugar bad.
- Especially no wheat or other gluten-containing items because gluten is the devil
- Vegetable sources for carbohydrates that don't spike the blood sugar. Spiking blood sugar bad.
- No sugar (spiking blood sugar bad) or processed foods.
- Basically meat, vegetables, eggs, fruits, nuts, and some dairy