PaleoJay’s Smoothie Cafe Podcast #68 Don’t Just Eliminate Foods on the Paleo Diet- Add In Nutrient Dense Foods!

Let’s say you’ve been on the ancestral, paleo, or barbarian diet template for awhile, perhaps a year or longer!  You’ve probably improved your health and wellness quite a bit- lost fat, gained muscle, have improved digestion and health, and a new clarity in thinking.  But, perhaps not....

If this is the case, perhaps you have concentrated only on eliminating bad foods loaded with anti-nutrients; things like grains, sugar, vegetable or industrial seed oils made from grains and processed, margarine- those are all wonderful things to get rid of, and doing so enables your body to begin to heal all the damage they have caused to your body and brain over the years as they were damaging your intestinal villi, and otherwise tearing down your health.

But this is just Job #1!

The other half of the nutritional equation, which is every bit as important, it to add in those nutrient dense superfoods to give your body the raw materials it needs to actually BUILD excellent health!

So, just eating lots of gluten free goodies, while not as damaging as their grain-based counterparts, are still not giving your body what it needs to thrive and rebuild.  You need to add in those foods that are the most nutrient dense on the planet.

If you make a green, Paleo Smoothie and drink it pretty much every day, you are pretty much most of the way there, nutrient density-wise!  I go out of my way to have it include just about everything your body needs.  Think of the Smoothie as the Anti-S.A.D. diet- that diet of pizza, coke, fries, sick and abused and confined animal hamburger and chicken, noodles, fake fat, processed breakfast sugar cereals- you get the picture!

Those foods, while they are hyperpalatable, and are engineered to be that way just to sell- and they displace the foods that your body actually needs, and just give you loads of body fat and inflammation.

So, go with the Paleo Smoothie- great start!  You can include the vegetable sulphur rich foods with their organosulpher compounds, and do it in a raw form very efficiently and easily, but just blending them in!  Things like:


Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussel Sprouts...  These sulphurous category of vegetables have been pointed out by http://www.terrywahls.com/The-Wahls-Protocol as a very important category of nutrient dense foods, with which idea I completely agree with her!

Terry Wahls is and important figure in the ancestral, or nutrient dense style of eating, and is coming out with a new book which I think will be a must read.  Go ahead and sign up for the pre-order at the link above, watch her viral TED talk, and absorb the information she has to offer.

Back to sulphur-rich foods:  there are some other great organosulpher foods that are not really appropriate for the Paleo Smoothie, like:

Onions and Garlic, Shallots and Leeks

Garlic, in particular, is probably the most potent organosulpher foods you can take in!  What to do?  Simple- in addition to your smoothie, most days also have a giant salad- lettuce, spinach, meat or seafood,  lots of real olive oil and apple cider vinegar, and lots of garlic and onions!  Get yourself a good garlic press, like the ROSLE I have, and add in the anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic, anti-microbial, and glutothione stimulation that this wonder food will provide- not to mention garlic tastes great!
Glutothione is particularly important, as it is the “the master anti-oxidant” that will enable your body to fight inflammation, raise energy levels, and slow down the aging process, among other wonderful properties.

Getting all of this through real foods in incredibly important.  I you use glutothione supplements, this could shut down the production of it by your own body over time... so, just get the nutrient dense, sulphur rich foods your body needs, and let it make it’s own!

Also include sulphur rich animal foods, like eggs yolks, grass fed beef liver, grass fed beef, and even high quality grass fed whey protein! (That last can go right into your Paleo Smoothie!)

And so, remember- eliminate the BAD, but also be sure to embrace the GOOD!

J