Jelly Beans for Easter?

Yay! Jelly Beans are Gluten Free!!

I really like jelly beans, especially the black ones. (I didn't buy them this year though.)

Have you seen jelly beans with a Gluten Free label? It seems like more manufacturers are identifying which candy is gluten-free, widening the choices for candy-loving kids and adults. This is probably useful for people with celiac who otherwise eat the S.A.D.* full of sugars, oils, and preservatives.

But hold on, just because something is gluten-free doesn't automatically mean it's healthy. Jelly beans are just an extreme example, of course, and you probably realize that a label with "Gluten Free" just means there's no wheat gluten in the product, but doesn't say a thing about bad oils, sugars, HFCS**, preservatives, or other grains that still cause insulin to shoot up.

Breakfasts Ideas

Breakfast seems to be the most difficult meal to eat primally, since toast, cereal, oatmeal, muffins, danish pastry, donuts, pancakes, and french toast are off limits! Are eggs and bacon all we can eat?

A Second Visit to Rose Paradise Farm

chard, cabbage, kale, spinach for $6! (I didn't include them in the picture,
but  3 doz eggs were another $9).

Don't worry, I am not going to write a post every time I go out to RPF, but I just got back with more produce and 3 dozen eggs. Before I start washing and blanching greens to put in the freezer I want to say once again what a great deal they offer on fresh-picked vegetables.  Look at the chard, cabbage, kale, and spinach I got today :)

Natalya was setting out broccoli seedlings in straight rows; the beets are coming along and might be ready on my next trip. Can't wait for the summer vegetables to start coming in, hopefully I'll get some of their tomatoes, carrots, strawberries and blackberries, squash, okra, and all the good stuff they will be raising.  (By the way, I didn't always cook with most of these vegetables, so I've been collecting recipes to put on this blog as I learn ways to prepare them.)

I like the way the RPH folks update their website each week to let buyers know what's available. This week there's cabbage, collards, kale, chard, spinach, parsley, and green garlic.

Unfortunately there was no more romaine lettuce (too bad for me) as we've eaten all I bought there last week, but I am starting to get some more baby lettuce off and on from my raised-bed garden. Doing without romaine is just an example of eating food that's in season, locally grown and therefore picked at the peak of taste. In a week or so, the market on Broadway will resume, and that will contribute more vegetables, fruits, and local honey to our meals. 

Thanks to all the people who work so hard to raise healthy food! 

In Defense of a Native Diet

I have been reading Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food where he has some thought-provoking observations about our current attitude about good food. It is not a primal book at all (Pollan is in favor of whole grains), but he does recommend eating real food, not processed junk.  I will probably write another post or two about some of his ideas that are worth considering. (Actually the whole book is pretty interesting.)

Here is a story I excerpted that shows the health benefits of a traditional native diet. I'm not saying I want to live in the bush and eat grubs, but it once again reinforces the harm in our common "western diet" (highly processed, packaged, preserved, sugary, bad oils, refined grains).  Also, this experiment would not have been possible if the people did not already know how to live in the wild.

Not So Fast!

This is a cool idea from San Diego:   A paleo & primal food truck serving the west coast, offering local and pastured meats & eggs, wild caught seafood, and vegetables & fruit.
It's called  Not So Fast!

From the pictures it looks like a popular place to get a bite to eat, and the menu looks scrumptious! (The prices seem a bit high, but it is California.)

I wonder if this idea might catch on elsewhere (probably no chance of that!)  But it is a good way to get the paleo and primal diet out in view of the public, might make them learn about it.

Shake the Hand that Feeds You

What's the best way to get away from the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) or the Western Diet that is making so many of us sick and fat? Stay out of the supermarket! Stay out of fast food joints.  Cook Real Food at home.

Start shopping at farmer's markets, join a food co-op (CSA*), plant a garden! Why?

Butterhead lettuce, looked like
a watercolor painting

Your produce will be local, so it will be in season and at the peak of quality. No need to buy strawberries from Chile in November (have you noticed a lot of produce is coming from South America now? It may be labeled organic, but it can't be picked ripe if it has to travel that far.) Last year, we got strawberries from our CSA for a few weeks. They were picked the day before we ate them, and were so juicy they were staining the bag red. The butterhead lettuce was perfect with velvety-soft leaves so beautiful I took pictures of it. It tasted as good as it looked too. My home-grown lettuce mixture surpasses anything in the "baby lettuce mixtures" at Fresh Market, which tastes like cardboard in comparison. Yesterday, the lettuce in the salad came from the dirt to the table in about 10 minutes.


Chris and Jenny, the farmers for our CSA. We say Hi every
Saturday from April to November.

You can shake the hand that feeds you! Talk to the people who are raising the food you eat.

Our CSA farmers, Chris and Jenny, feed over 125 families with the fresh organic food they raise on 4 acres. Sometimes I look at the food on our table and realize everything we are about to eat is a result of their hard work.  (Chris writes a farm blog that is so well-written, I told him he should turn it into a book!)





SunGold Tomatoes

The variety of products will probably be different from what you'll find at the supermarket as well. I tried Japanese Turnips recently from White Oak Pastures -- they were so tasty I ate them as I sliced them onto a plate, but they aren't available in stores.  The local SunGold tomatoes are so sweet you will wonder if you bit into a yellow grape. By buying produce from the local farms I discovered vegetables I had never heard of: tat soi, sunchokes, Japanese turnips, watermelon radish; plus some I had heard of but didn't recognize: bok choy, Russian kale,  and more.

Of course, the farmer's market probably won't operate year-round, or you might not live near one. If you have to shop at the store, stay around the perimeter, don't go into the aisles with all the processed packaged food-like substances.  Not everything around the edges is natural of course -- just look at all the no-fat yogurts and individually wrapped cheese slices. But you can find produce, eggs, meat, and dairy that are not overly processed. 

*CSA Community Supported Agriculture, another name for a farm co-op. Members pay at the beginning of the season then recieve a box of produce each week from the farm. It's a great way to eat fresh food while helping small local farms stay in business.

GMOs Exposed -- Genetic Roulette

Will you take an hour to learn something very important to your health? Please watch this video, Genetic Roulette, describing the dangers of GMOs (genetically modified organisms.*

Warning: After watching this video you may want to change your family's diet.

Tips to Start Eating Healthy

I just read "So You Want to Start Eating Healthy -10 Tips that Will Get You Started" by Kelly at Primally Inspired; it is worth reading for yourself so I won't copy her entire blog.

I thought it would be interesting to consider how her suggestions have applied to me.  Here are her tips in bold and my success or failure doing them. You'll notice that these are not "quick-fix lose weight today" tips. This is a lifestyle change so it may take time to implement these ideas and adopt them in your life.

What do you Feed a Ferrari?

If you had a Ferrari and you put diesel fuel in it, how would it run? Would it even run at all?

What if there was no gas station nearby, so you scooped in some sand and poured bottles of water in the fuel tank "just this time."  Once is all it would take to ruin that engine. 

Anyone who could afford this car had better be smart enough to take care of it, and that includes knowing what to put in the gas tank. (I suppose Ferraris take premium gas.)

How about a race horse (or any horse for that matter)? Would you feed your horse corn chips and candy bars and let it drink sweet tea? It wouldn't stay healthy for long if you did. Horses have specific nutritional needs to stay strong and healthy.

So why do we think that we can get away with putting junk in our bodies?  We are infinitely more complex than a Ferrari -- so why we don't we provide our bodies with the proper fuel to be healthy and strong.  Unlike the Ferrari, we can get by for a while eating junk, but sooner or later it will affect our health.

Next time you are tempted to eat fast food or something full of preservatives and synthetic chemicals, look for Real Food instead.

Real Food does more than just fill you up like junk food does.

It contributes to your health!

Bored with Breakfast?

I admit it, eating eggs for breakfast everyday is boring. Even if I make them in omelets, scrambled, boiled, or in a frittata, with bacon or sausage, they still taste the same overall and I just can't eat them every morning. 

So I was very curious to try this recipe for Chocolate Breakfast Souffle with almond butter sauce when I came across it this morning.  Since I hadn't eaten breakfast and  had all the ingredients (including a ripe banana), I got busy and made this. It took less than 25 minutes start to finish.

First bite, hmmm, it's not bad. By the end, I was scraping the bottom of the dish to get every tasty bit. I hope these will be good cold, or maybe rewarmed for Nic's breakfast tomorrow. He will be happy!

Since this is not a recipe I invented, please go to the website of the original for the ingredients and directions.

To the left,
the four ramekins
are sitting on the pan
just out of the oven.
(I used 6 oz ramekins
bought at Target
last month for $2 each.)
You can bake the souffle
in a pie pan too.

 

 

Since this was so good, I will probably try some of the variations: Breakfast Fruit Souffle and Gingerbread Breakfast Souffle.

 

Thanks to Kelly at Primally Inspired for these recipes.



Shop at Local Farms

When I wrote a couple of days ago about Pastured Eggs, I included a couple of links at the bottom for LocalHarvest.org and EatWild.com.  I checked those websites for farms around my area here in SW Georgia and found one that sounded interesting.

the farm stand in summer

Rose Paradise Farm  It's not real close, maybe 25 miles, so I'd have to weigh the cost of gas against the value of fresh produce and eggs. But today I had to drive over that way anyway and decided to take a nice country drive and check out Rose Paradise Farm.


Michael and Natalya

 

cutting collards

It's not a big operation. The owner Natalya came out to meet me in the driveway.  After telling her what I wanted to buy, she cut the greens while I stood there talking to her, and she stuffed a grocery bag full for $1!  She said they try to give good value for the money. And I think I got a good deal.

Large pastured eggs, from a heritage breed of chickens that live on the field in a moveable coop, are $3/dozen, so I got 4 dozen! (With the Primal diet, eggs are a "superfood" -- you can eat a lot!)

Yay, what I saved on eggs (they are $5.29 at Fresh Market) more than paid for the gas.

Here's what I got for $16: 4 dozen eggs (just 1 dozen eggs in the picture, two grocery bags stuffed with collards, 4 heads of romaine lettuce and about 1/2 bag of rainbow chard. Natalya also sells home canned preserves, sauces, soups, and Russian cabbage slaw (yes, she is Russian, so tell her привет, "pree-vyet" which is "hi".)

You might find a small farm near you -- check out Local Harvest and Eat Wild and support your small local farmer while you eat good food.

Doctors Used to Smoke

 

Did you know that many doctors used to smoke, and actors pretending to be doctors were featured in cigarette ads touting the benefits of smoking?* These days we would never expect to hear a doctor encourage people to light up. 

Just as doctors used to smoke and didn't discourage it in their patients, today's doctors often don't encourage a healthy diet.  But it doesn't mean that your diet is not important. Who knows, someday we may see doctors encouraging better health by telling patients to avoid grains and sugars.

 

 Hey Wait! We already DO see

doctors encouraging patients

to avoid grains and sugars!!

 

A few come to mind:

Dr Robert Lustig, on Sugar: The Bitter Truth, a video that lasts about 1 1/2 hours, but is worth listening to if you can spare 90 minutes for your health. Dr Lustig has a new book out Fat Chance where he expands on the information he discusses in the video.

   

Dr William Davis, a cardiologist, who wrote Wheat Belly, in which he explains how wheat contributes to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other diseases of western culture. He also has a video that is worth watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47QlothkpsE

   

Dr Ernie Garcia, writes a blog called PaleolithicMD (he has not updated this blog for a few months, but past posts are quite informative). He encourages his patients to try the paleo diet as a means of reducing their risks of heart disease and diabetes.

   

Dr Dan Egan writes at Paleo Happy 

   

Here is a list of more Low-Carb or Paleo Doctors who maintain websites. The Paleo Physicians Network and Primal Docs maintain a list of doctors who prefer to treat non-emergencies with a paleo diet approach first.

-------------------------   

It is turning out to be pretty easy to avoid grains and sugary foods.  Just as I've never looked at the cigarette rack and wished I could smoke, now I don't walk past the bakery department and wish I could eat the muffins and breads -- I have stopped thinking that I am being deprived and instead I see them as bad stuff to avoid.

*See Cigarettes Were Once 'Physician' Tested and Approved

 

Pastured Eggs

Easter will be here in a couple of weeks, and one fun part of the day is children finding colored eggs hidden outside in the bushes and tall grass. Is that what you think of when you hear "Pastured Eggs"? 

(By the way, if you don't know yet, eggs are good for you.  The information from the past that said to avoid eggs or eat just the egg white is wrong. See Why Are Eggs Good For You.)

Grass-fed Beef

We've been buying grass-fed beef, pastured chickens, and their eggs from White Oak Pastures, a farm about 80 miles south of Columbus.

 

Maybe you are asking, "Grass-fed cows, pastured chickens and eggs, what's the big deal?"

Real Food Shouldn't Be So Hard

We have to eat, but there's so much misinformation out there, how do we know what to eat? Every new study jerks you around: eat this; no don't eat this, eat that instead!

For most of human history people haven't been reading diet books and news articles about the latest diet study results. They had better things to do than over-analyze every bite that went in their mouths. I think they knew what was poisonous, and what was healthy, and they probably tried to eat the good stuff. They were not obese, they did not suffer from modern diseases like heart attacks and diabetes, they did not jump from diet to diet (they probably didn't have any other "diet" to jump to), and they would have been appalled to see what we call food today.

Eat Your [Fresh] Vegetables!

Did you grow up eating a variety of vegetables?

I didn't, although my mom did make dinner almost every night from scratch. Most of the time we ate meat or chicken with potatoes (fried or mashed), LeSeure peas mixed with carrots, or maybe a frozen package of buttery corn. Sometimes the potatoes were boiled with green beans. But Dad didn't like vegetables much so Mom was stuck making what he would eat. I know she liked more vegetables than that. I guess we had other things for weekday meals but they really don't stand out in my mind.

Gluten-Free Junk Food

 Just Because it's Gluten Free

Doesn't mean it's Healthy!

A recent survey says that almost one-third of Americans are trying to reduce or exclude gluten from their diet.* Have you noticed the gluten free label on cake and cookie mixes, cereals, breads, and breakfast items? The big food manufacturers are all on board with Gluten Free. It's the latest fad and they aren't going to be left out. But just because they've removed the gluten, it doesn't mean the item is healthy for you to eat. It's still in a box or a package, it still lasts for months on a shelf, and it's probably still full of sugar, preservatives, bad oils, not to mention grains that don't have gluten but still cause the rise in insulin.

Praise for Coconut Oil

Refilling the coconut oil jar

This morning after putting a heaping spoonful of coconut oil in my breakfast smoothie, it was time to refill the small jar from the large 54-oz container I bought last month on amazon. 

I ate what was stuck to the spoon-- it is so yummy-- but I didn't think so a few months ago, so maybe coconut oil is an acquired taste. The unrefined oil I have now has a faint coconut flavor which is delicious, but the refined oil has no flavor at all.

There are many articles on the health benefits of coconut oil. I like it because it's a way to get fat in my diet. In spite of knowing that pastured animal fat is good for us to eat, I just have a hard time eating beef or chicken fat. A slice of roast with a huge piece of fat attached, ugh, I can't eat it.

One Year on Primal

Celebrating One Year since I started the Primal Diet, March 5, 2012.

I am grateful that Nic's aunt asked him if I'd ever considered eliminating gluten to see if it would help migraines.

Her question is what caused me to start reading everything I could find at the library and on the internet about wheat, grains, sugar, processed foods, and their connection to health problems.  The first two books I read were Wheat Belly and The Primal Blueprint.

Don't let "Greek" Yogurt Fool You

Greek Yogurt is the new rage now in the dairy section...have you noticed that almost every brand of yogurt is "Greek" or "Greek style"? All it is is yogurt that has been strained a little more so it is thicker and creamier -- and more expensive. Beware of imitations; check the ingredients, because they may just be using thickeners (natural or not) to create the texture of real Greek yogurt which allows them to put a lower price on the product.

Clearer Skin with the Primal Diet

Occasionally I read the Epic Beauty Guide,  a blog about having beautiful skin and not too surprisingly, the author, Stephanie, follows and recommends a paleo diet. Click on the link to see what she eats and what she avoids. Stephanie also refers to a study  that says people in non-westernized countries rarely have acne: