After watching a documentary, The Perfect Human Diet, I found logic in several of the concepts. I had been seeing references in my online travels to celiac, gluten-free, wheat belly, wheat brain, which I think prepared me to give credibility to the documentary. We, being myself and my husband, were overweight and out of shape. I decided to put us on the Paleo way of eating, and changed our food immediately. It's been a bit more than a year since we began eating the Paleo way and can honestly say we are seeing positive results. My husband has lost 100 + pounds, putting him back to a size he hasn't been or seen for years. Myself, much slower, lost about a size, and the upside is that my ability to exercise and work out has been limited by a developing problem with my left foot.
Essentially, in the Paleo way of eating, we have eliminated sugar, wheat,legumes, processed foods entirely, adding back meats, fats, vegetables, fruits, nuts. Not exactly what nutrition and medical industries would recommend, however, we find the positive results favorable in our late stages of the life journey. I had been preparing foods in accord with the traditional nutritional standards for years, and neither of us was losing body weight, we were continuing to gain body weight. At our ages, we can ill afford to acquire some of the medical conditions that often come with aging years.
I'd like to use this space for some of the recipes we use frequently in our daily paleo intake. Photos when I remember to take them. My husband took an interest and after a few months he began preparing our breakfast - paleo foods. All these months later he has pretty much taken over preparing, cooking our breakfast meal, which I consider to be our mail meal of the day. He doesn't experiment with many new recipes, we go with a standardized regiment to include meat of the day - our choice, eggs primarily omelet style fold over, freshly steamed vegetable, sweet potato cubes, fresh fruit - mostly pineapple that he cuts up for us, a freshly made smoothie using frozen fruit and banana, guacamole using avocado, and salsa or pico de gallo.
For the evening meal, I get to play with recipes, come up with something light, in warm months would be salads, in cold months would be soups. We may choose to eat out, however, that is fraught with difficulties as restaurant foods are typically not prepared in the paleo way.
He would be so excited when he found an ingredient that fit the paleo way of eating. Sometimes though his enthusiasm would be dampened when I asked him if he read the list of ingredients. Over time he has learned that I want him to examine the ingredient list for anything we purchase. Ruling out anything that has been cooked in other than coconut oil works for us. Since most products are cooked in vegetable or safflower, or corn oils ..... nada. No sugars, no corn syrup, no sugar derivitaves.
If it passes those tests, then it might be a product we can buy, but for the most part few to no products pass the test ... yet. Paleo way of preparing food is a bit of a pioneer effort just now, however, it does dovetail on the concepts of whole food eating, healthy eating, vegetarian type recipes, and some of the newly forming ways of looking at wholesome foods. It is expensive to eat this way and I am not sure I could have done the grocery shopping on the frugal budgets of my past years. The preparation of the foods can be time consuming for a society that almost seems to require being on the hamster wheel turning it as quickly as possible and going in circles. It takes time to buy and prepare the foods, and for the most part delis, fast food, take out restaurant meals, grocery store take and go meals, pizza pick up and take home --- it's all quicker, but not necessarily a healthy way to eat.
We have given up many of our favorites, mourning the loss as we gave them up, and I did put us immediately on an almost purist approach. In time we came to appreciate the new tastes, and when we would decide we could take a 'cheat' we found former foods unpalatable, unfavorable, and not to our taste any more.
For the evening meal, I get to play with recipes, come up with something light, in warm months would be salads, in cold months would be soups. We may choose to eat out, however, that is fraught with difficulties as restaurant foods are typically not prepared in the paleo way. And I love to eat out .... it's among one of my favorite and preferred social activities.
We are enjoying our grocery shopping trips these days, calling it the 'meat circuit' as we look for what we can find on manager special, reduced price. While the paleo way of eating recognizes today's factory farms, meat markets, take far too many inhumane shortcuts, via wrong foods for the animals, tight caging, stressed out anxious animals taken to be butchered, antibiodics that disguise animal illnesses, and on and on goes the list, it is difficult for many income levels to get to an entirely purist level, and we fall into income levels that many seniors find themselves in --- in other words, we can't fully afford the purist approach to paleo way of eating. We do what we can with what we have, however, it has completely changed how and what we eat.
As for produce, we appreciate the farmer's markets in our area, going to the growers when we can, and when we can't, produce section of the grocery store. Our grocery trips pretty much mean going to produce section, meat section, and that is about all we need. We don't even take a look at all the other aisles in the store and to that we say whewww because there are a lot of aisles! Maybe frozen fruit and sometimes frozen vegetables. An apple for a treat when watching tv show at night time, some non-caffeine tea, and if we have made a paleo treat, that too. Mostly not though.
Seems that paleo way of eating, way of life has grown into a cottage industry, with people marketing books, products, courses, and whatever else will generate money. It's not my intention to sell a product, and I will be cautious in link referrals, as much that is available on the internet is at no cost. I neither support nor do not support the income generated or income producing products. People looking to make a living marketing products is part of the horizon, however, I will say much can be found at little to no cost in knowing your way around living a paleo life - food, sunshine, exercise, sleep.
RECIPES
Many, many blogs, sites out there now have Paleo recipes and galore - no shortage. When my husband and I began our Paleo lifestyle 2 1/2 years ago, there were very few Paleo recipes to find. Over time it became profitable for people to find niche market for Paleo recipes and lifestyle, and now there are more than enough recipes to quickly find using Google with word Paleo Recipes and ingredient. No need for me to replicate what is out there on internet now. I will save some of the recipes we want to try, use, or favorite have tried.
Russian Beet Salad - Vinegrette
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