Paleo Christmas! Paleo Quick Tips #9

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Paleo Christmas! Paleo Quick Tips #9



Christmas is fast approaching- how will you keep the holidays from wrecking your diet?  Simple, make it a Paleo Christmas!
Fill your Christmas stockings with the more traditional, ancestral types of treats:
Nuts, dark chocolate, oranges, hard boiled eggs??- decorate with red and green, hide around the house ala Easter!
Roast a great prime rib or duckling- have mashed sweet potatoes with plenty of pastured butter and cinnamon. 

For presents, do what I did this year- got myself the ultimate of all gifts, a 15 year old big  -freezered used refrigerator - voila, I have ample grass fed beef storage, and also room for when frozen veggies and fruits go on sale, or other meats, i.e. bacon, grass fed beef liver, pastured chicken, milk fed pork...Lots of options open up here! 

And, as an added bonus, this fridge incentivized me to completely “redecorate” my garage, which really means just cleaning out a bunch of junk and reorganizing the remaining... junk!  I’m even thinking of adding lace curtains to the windows...

Other practical Paleo presents that will actually help you to thrive over the coming year and improve your day to day life?

A Vitamix blender!  Yup, this is actually number 1, but since I already have two, I put the fridge first.  Especially if you are just starting out on the Ancestral diet and lifestyle (which really means pretty much how people lived and ate up until about 50 years ago!), this one tool will make your transition almost effortless, and will become more valuable to you as you continue to advance in your health.  Don’t skimp on this “ingredient” or tool of healthy living- This alone will save you so much on supplement purchases (you make your own from real foods in the VItamix!), lousy bought on the run meals (you can easily carry a jar or two of a Paleo smoothie in a lunchbox), supply you with an incredibly healthy, easy and fast breakfast; the list goes on and on!  You can click on the Vitamix banner on my website, www.paleojay.com, and you get free shipping (the best deal you can get on a Vitamix anywhere), and you help to support the show.

I have two excellent book recommendations for you as well:
http://www.amazon.com/The-4-Hour-Chef-Learning-Anything/dp/0547884591/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354904681&sr=8-1&keywords=the+4-hour+chef

and another called Thinking Outside the Pill Box by Ty Vincent, M.D.
http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/THINKING-Outside-the-Pill-Box/book-kfcEkqd9YE2-WwuRnBXfSA/page1.html
The Four Hour Chef book by Tim Ferriss is available almost anywhere (except Barnes and Noble, which is boycotting his book due to his promotional deal with Amazon- dumb Barnes and Noble!) and is not per se strictly about cooking!  Tim just chose that to write about, since he knew nothing about it, it was perfect for a subject in writing about how to learn to learn!  It is a fascinating read, and will inspire you to learn whatever you really WANT to learn, and tell you how to go about it in an efficient manner.  This is the book that kind of encapsulates all of the information Tim has gained in his previous books (4 Hour Workweek & 4 Hour Body). I highly recommend you purchase this in the hardcover- it is a huge, beautiful, well illustrated big book, and should be seen in physical form, where you can lay it down and refer to its many diagrams and pictures.  And, it’s a steal at $21.00- you can even buy it at Wal Mart.

Thinking Outside the Pill Box is another great book- Dr. Ty Vincent is a young Dr. who is quite fed up with our medical establishment, and the state of our health.  He explains just how and why the health of our nation is collapsing, and also tells you what to do about it, both personally and on a larger scale.  Very illuminating- also a very BIG book, all text, but Dr. Ty is an engaging writer, and it reads like a story!  I recommend getting this book in an ebook format, since it is so much cheaper (and lighter!)- it is $40 plus shipping in hardcover, but the eBook is $3.49 on Kobo, so you can read it on your phone, your tablet, or even on your computer! Kobo has free apps for all of these devices.  This book should get you to download Kobo, and then a whole world of books will be opened to you in a convenient, inexpensive format. (Like Perfectly Paleo Exercise)

You might also want to give the gift of food- I like to order from www.bulkfoods.com
I order my powdered coconut milk for my smoothies (cheaper and more convenient than canned), nuts and chocolate, spices and herbs from them- it’s all wholesale, convenient and fast, and one flat price for shipping.  It’s really a lot of fun to order and anticipate the box showing up at your door!

And so, Merry Christmas from PaleoJay to you and yours!  Just make sure you have a healthy, happy Christmas as well!

PJ 

Sustainable Small Scale Farming and the Four Hour Chef!

There is a new book in town: The Four Hour Chef, by Tim Ferriss.

Check out the trailer for the book:













Tim is the author of The Four Hour Body, and The Four Hour Workweek.  Both books are well worth reading, just for an alternative view on nutrition and exercise (the first book), and on your work life (the second).  He researches everything to the max, and comes away with interesting insights, to say the least!  (Some of his "experiments" are downright weird, but hey- that's just 60 year old me talking!).

He is basically a Paleo diet advocate, but he does include things such as a "cheat day", where he consumes multiple pastries, and also allows legumes, i.e. beans as "slow carbs", meaning they take a lot of time to digest.  He can get away with such licenses, since he is:

#1. Young
#2.  Eats a basically paleo type of diet, most of the time

He has the idea that anyone can master just about anything, given 6 months of "practice".

This is his idea that I really like, and I think he is on to something!  Hence- The Four Hour Chef as a means to master cooking skills!  I like that...

Here is a quote from the intro to his book, which I find compelling, and in line with my own thinking about sustainable farming:


"Here are a few of my notes, from multiple sources:

• In the U.S., the last generation of career farmers is retiring. Specifically, more than 50% are set to retire in the next 10 years. Their farmland will be up for grabs. Will it go to an industrial agro-corp like Monsanto, and therefore most likely lead to monocrops (wheat, corn, soy, etc.) that decimate ecosystems? Will it be strip malls? Or might it become a collection of smaller food producers? The last option is the only one that’s environmentally sustainable. It’s also the tastiest. As Michael Pollan would say: how you vote three times a day (with the meals you eat) will determine the outcome.

• Going small can amount to big economic stimulus. Let’s look at the economic argument for shifting from a few huge producers to many smaller producers: by diversifying crops beyond corn and soybeans in just six agricultural states, the net economic gain would be $882 million in sales and 9,300 jobs, according to the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University.

• Environmental impact? Converting the U.S.’s 160 million corn and soybean acres to organic production would sequester enough carbon to satisfy 73% of the Kyoto targets for CO reduction in the U.S.

In other words, the fun you have in this book will do a lot of good beyond you and your family. In many ways, our eating behavior in the next few years will decide the future of the entire country.

The magic number and my target is 20 million people. It is the tipping point: 20 million people can create a supertrend.

To dodge the submerged iceberg of industrial-scale food production and its side effects, to alter the course of this country and reinvigorate the economy, all I need to do is make you more interested in food. In total, we need to make 20 million people more aware of eating.

This will lead to changes, starting with breakfast. Then the snowball of consonant decisions takes care of the rest.

Stranger things have happened."

Go Tim Ferriss!!

J