Ginger Kombucha from Buddha’s Brew, on top at our local farmer’s market.

Locally raised, pastured chicken.  Baked using this recipe.

Cinnamon and sea salt almond butter, made up my own recipe.

Paleo chicken nuggets with homemade bbq sauce, mmm mmm!

Grass-fed beef jerky.  Also made up my own recipe.  Added molasses, fresh squeezed orange juice, and red pepper flakes.

Bacon-wrapped scallops and balsamic Brussels sprouts.

AMAZING grass-fed T-bone steak from the farmers market, along with local artichokes, and local sauteed mushrooms in pastured butter.

I have been loving this new eating lifestyle.  I have yet to get anything bad or even mediocre from the farmer’s markets here in Austin.  PLEASE check out your local farmer’s market and support the local farmers.  Your body will thank you!  Have a wonderful week, and I’ll see you on the flip-side (of vacation).  Follow me on twitter for some live updates.

My journey to Paleo/Primal has been rather up and down.  At one point I wasn’t eating much meat and found myself sluggish and lacking in energy.  I felt like I had lost my shiny hair and skin.  Although I had lost 25 pounds in the process, I felt deprived.  My diet was missing something: protein.  Without eggs and meats I was always hungry and yearning for my next meal.  I supplemented my lack of protein with carbohydrates/grains and still had a belly I just couldn’t get rid of.  Once I started adding protein back in (thanks to the AWESOME cookbook written by The Primal Palate) I felt amazing.   I finally enjoyed meals again and couldn’t wait to start cooking! On the superficial side I finally have a flat stomach and amazing body definition.  I feel healthy, wealthy, well and wise (my mantra I tell myself everyday).

Interestingly enough this new diet/lifestyle has given me more energy for strength training.  I had long since given up on it with my old diet, because it felt so draining.  Not only have I jumped back in with two feet, but doing lunges the other day was pain free.  My knees used start hurting about 5-10 reps into the set.  This time there was no pain. I haven’t had that experience in over 5 years.  Hooray!!  Alright enough bragging, let’s get down to the nitty gritty.  I have linked to an article for each bullet with further explanation.

DO NOT EAT:

• Legumes/beans
• Grains
• Potatoes (The Paleo Answer has a great chapter on this)
• Processed, packaged foods
• Processed dairy
• Artificial sweeteners
• Refined Sugar
• Unhealthy fats
• Grain fed meats

DO EAT:

• Fruits and Vegetables (The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a great resource for eating local)
• Grass-fed and pastured meats
• Pastured eggs
• Fats (the healthy ones of course)
• Raw dairy (if you can tolerate it)

Basically if it grows, eat it.  If it’s man-made, avoid it.  This is not a cut and dry lifestyle, it requires tweaking and paying close attention to your bodies response.  I know for me personally I avoid all dairy for my allergies, but would like to experiment with more raw dairy in the near future.  I also had some sleeping issues recently and starting adding more sweet potatoes with dinner and have noticed significant improvement.  Also be careful with your supplements.  Diets this rich in natural minerals and vitamins require much less supplementation.  I will be the first to admit I’m a recovering vitamin addict.  I thought a pill could cure everything.  I just recently went off a multi-vitamin all togerther and feel better.  Too much can be as harmful as too little.

As I said earlier, I can’t begin to explain in one post just how amazing this diet/lifestyle truly is.  Here is a list of great books and resources to do more self-investigation.

Suggested Reading:

• Mark’s Daily Apple
• The Paleo Answer (book)
• Make It Paleo (cookbook)
• Primal Palate
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma (book)
• Balanced Bites
• Livin’ La Vida Low Carb
• Rob Wolff
• Weston A. Price Foundation
• Chris Kresser

Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have.  If I don’t know the answer I will steer you in the right direction.  Happy eating!

Strawberry Almond Muffins, adapted from this recipe

Blueberry Lemon Muffins, adapted from this recipe

A delicious pork tenderloin dinner

Favorite paleo read to date

Spending quality time with my favorite nephew

And enjoying spring!

Off to the local farmers market, some thrift store shopping, and cooking up a chicken dinner.  Happy Saturday!

Speaking of meat, Paleo/Primal living has done my body good.  I have tons of energy, have been able to tone up my body in a healthy way, and feel satisfied everytime I eat.  I’m hoping to compose a post soon listing a lot of the benefits of Paleo/Primal living with links to articles and information.  But for a quick run down, this is Primal:

• No grains
• No legumes/beans
• No refined sugars (think minimal natural sweeteners: honey, maple syrup)
• Nothing artificial
• Low carbohydrates (fruits, starchy vegetables)
• Lots of good fats and oils (non-seed/vegetable oils)
• Lots of pastured/grass fed meats
• Lots of leafy greens and vegetables

For me this wasn’t a huge lifestyle change other than completely dropping grains and legumes/beans.  Although I have to say it is a life changer.  You will be amazed at how good you feel.  “Wheat Belly” is no joke.  Although I do treat myself on occasion to natural sweeteners and dark chocolate.  Actually dark chocolate is probably my weakness.  Whole Foods make some really really good dark chocolate.  I try and keep it down to one square a day.  I’m still trying to incorporate all of the awesome Paleo/Primal “superfoods” like bone broth, liver/organ meats, and fermented butter/cod liver oil (I have some on it’s way!).  Yes I may sound crazy, but sometimes crazy is awesome!

Since yesterday was Easter, I present to you (mostly) Paleo Coconut Cupcakes!  I subbed maple syrup for the agave and used finely shredded coconut in the batter.  I also dyed my coconut flakes green for grass.  Enjoy!

Now I may be satisfied with a delicious dinner, however my husband is a lover of beer (and cupcakes).  I have been wanting to marry the two loves together into one delicious dessert for quite some time.  However I didn’t stumble across the right recipe until I found Chlef Chloe.  She was actually the first vegan baker to ever win Cupcake Wars.  I made a few tweaks to her recipe in order to make it gluten free and it was already dairy free(aside from my grass fed butter substitute) and egg free.  Needless to say, he was quite satisfied.  Here is the beer I used.  I found it at Spec’s, I’m sure BevMo has it as well.  As always, please make sure all your ingredients are gluten free (powdered sugar, coco powder, etc) if you are gluten intolerant.

I hope the luck of the Irish is with you next Sunday!  Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

All cows do graze on pasture for the first six months to a year of their lives, but most finish at a feedlot on a concentrated mix of corn, soy, grains, and other supplements, plus hormones and antibiotics. This growth-spurt formula is the backbone of a hugely productive U.S. beef industry. A feedlot cow can grow to slaughter weight up to a year faster than a cow fed only forage, grass, and hay. “That’s one year that you don’t have to feed the cows in the feedlot,” notes Eatwild.com founder Jo Robinson, who spent the past decade examining scientific research comparing grass-fed and grain-fed animals. “Conventional factory meat is so cheap because they’ve done everything to speed growth and lower the cost of feed.” Source

As for me personally, I strive to find grass-fed beef if I can.  You can get relatively inexpensive (comparatively) ground grass-fed beef, but I haven’t had much luck finding cheaper high-quality cuts of grass-fed beef.  Here in Texas you can pick-up grass-fed beef at Central Market (HEB owned), Whole Foods, Natural Grocers, and even Costco.  I do believe that grass-fed makes a dietary difference.   Here is an extremely in-depth analysis of grass-fed vs grain-fed, but for those of us who want the shortened version, here is another great article from Mark’s Daily Apple (he has great recipes as well).  Happy eating!

Coconut Nested Eggs — different than I expected, but the fluffy coconut egg whites are tasty

Grain-Free Granola — perfect for snacking, we take it on hikes

Herb Crackers — love these with a little grass fed butter or nut butter on top

Huevos Rancheros — being in Texas, these are going to become a staple

Mint ‘Lamburgers’  — refreshing and filling, super delicious

Chicken and Vegetable ‘Lo Mein’ — perfect for your Chinese foof cravings

Fennel and Orange Salad with Orange Vinaigrette — refreshing AND delicious, leftover vinaigrette is great for big salads

And I’ve still been drinking my GGS every morning and having a big salad for lunch paired with leftovers from the night before.  I realize this is almost a shameless plug for The Food Lovers Primal Palate, but I received their book Make it Paleo from the library last week and cannot stop cooking from it!  Thanks Bill and Hayley!  Oh and have you seen my Pinterest Board?  I post all my tested recipes along with those I’m dying to try.

Dr. Mark Hyman believes that dairy actually causes more bone fractures, and is not digestible for most human stomachs.  This isn’t the first time I’ve heard about Americans having a diet too high in calcium.  Too much calcium can cause the reverse affect and make our bones more brittle. In many countries where there is very little dairy consumption (think African and Asian countries) there are actually lower rates of osteoporosis.  Kimberly Snyder, CN believes that because American dairy products are pasteurized our bodies cannot properly absorb calcium.  Pasteurization kills all the live enzymes, including phosphatase, which is essential for the absorption of calcium.  Along those same lines, most American adults do not posses enough of the necessary enzyme lactase to properly digest dairy.  Improperly digested dairy can cause mucus build up and lead to other health problems including allergies, diabetes, constipation, sinus infections, and weight gain.

Dairy products are very acid forming in our bodies and about 75% of the world’s population is actually lactose intolerant, meaning they are unable to properly digest dairy.  For anyone who actually is lactose intolerant, they can tell you how uncomfortable dairy consumption is on their body.  I believe myself to be mildly lactose intolerant, however dairy takes an even worse toll on my allergies.  For me, dairy builds up all of the mucus in my body causing constant allergy flare ups as well as being more susceptible to viruses.  Since coming off of dairy I have noticed a significant improvement in both my allergies and my overall health.  I have avoided getting the flu this season and am able to breathe out of my nose.

So I may (or may not) have convinced you to cut dairy out of your diet, but what about calcium?  It cannot be denied that calcium is extremely important to the function of our bodies. This chart from Dr. Stephen Wangen offers a ton of alternative ways to get calcium.  Aside from supplements, you can get your daily calcium from dark leafy greens, sea vegetables, nuts, seeds, and fruits.  In fact leafy greens have a calcium absorption rate of 50% compared to the 32% of dairy.

The hardest part in giving up dairy is not consuming enough calcium, it is replacing your cravings.  I still crave cheese.  Although with each passing day it’s easier to say no.  There are a ton of milk alternatives.  Including almond, coconut, soy, hemp, and hazelnut.  I personally drink almond or coconut milk and love it.  Yogurt never agreed with me, so that made it easy to say no.  My hardest craving to fight is for ice cream.  Although something like this usually does the trick.

I hope this was at least informative to you, if not life changing.  The way I feel every day makes the world of difference.  Having been a lifetime allergy sufferer, the ability to breathe deeply and take limited allergy medicine is a true blessing.

The Super Starch

The Bible says, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Eating bread is nearly a religious commandment. But the Einkorn, heirloom, Biblical wheat of our ancestors is something modern humans never eat.

Instead, we eat dwarf wheat, the product of genetic manipulation and hybridization that created short, stubby, hardy, high-yielding wheat plants with much higher amounts of starch and gluten and many more chromosomes coding for all sorts of new odd proteins. The man who engineered this modern wheat won the Nobel Prize — it promised to feed millions of starving around the world. Well, it has, and it has made them fat and sick.

The first major difference of this dwarf wheat is that it contains very high levels of a super starch called amylopectin A. This is how we get big fluffy Wonder Bread and Cinnabons.

Source: Three Hidden Ways Wheat MakesYou Fat by Mark Hyman, MD

Overall the article is very eye opening about what you are really putting into your body.  Gluten contributes to bad gut flora, weight gain, crazy cravings, and even diabetes.  This article, along with other readings, have led me to consider an ancestral diet, much like the one followed by The Food Lovers’ Primal Pilate.  I received their cookbook from the library and cannot get over how beautiful it is as well as delicious sounding.  We’ve tried a few of their recipes and enjoyed them all.  More on this topic in the near future. Thank you Stacy for linking to this awesome article!

Aside from snacking and crossing off most of my to-do list I also made a batch of homemade kraut.  It’s surprisingly easy and requires three ingredients.  Water, salt, and cabbage.  I use it on top of my salads and sometimes just have a bowl of it before dinner.  The recipe comes from Kimberly Snyder, she even has a how-to video on her blog.  In her book, The Beauty Detox Solution she recommends eating 1/2-1 cup of raw kraut every day to help keep flora balanced and our bodies pH has neutral as possible.  The kraut is great for cleansing your body and aiding with digestion.  Even though it can make the room you store it in a little stinky, it’s worth the smell and time for such an easy and affordable super food.