Paleo Diet in a Nutshell!

There is so much to learn about the Paleo diet and lifestyle; what is the best Paleo exercise, what types of foods should I eat, what should I avoid...

I've immersed myself in this stuff for quite some time now, and I learn new "wrinkles" all the time!

Research is ongoing, and the movement is still in its infancy in terms of popular acceptance, despite the fact that this is the long term diet of humans for many, many thousands of years.  The real "dietary experiment" is the low-fat, highly processed, refined flour/sugar diet of the past 50 years!  This, my friends, is the fad diet of all time, albeit one that has been foisted upon us by our own government, and the medical establishment.

However, I think I can tell you how to become Paleo, and why, in a condensed version: (In order of importance)

Cut out grains!  This is the first rule, and the hardest for most.  I mean, almost all of our modern foods are made of grains.  Our foods are cooked in vegetable/grain seed oils (soy and corn oils), and almost everything has become a sandwich!  

Why cut them out?  Grains are genetically modified, and loaded with anti-nutrients.  These anti-nutrients will literally punch holes in your intestines, letting undigested food and pathogens free access to your bloodstream.  Can you say "autoimmune disease"?

Grains also turn directly into sugar- this is the second thing we need to cut way back on...

Cut way back on Sugar! What's so bad about sugar?  Back in the time of George Washington, the average American ate 3 pounds of sugar per year, now it's up around 260 pounds per person, and steadily rising! When you consume sugar, you blood insulin rises to help bring your blood sugar back down to normal.  It's actually a life-threatening condition; and emergency your body is trying to save you from!  It causes rapid aging, rapid fat storage in the body from the sugar itself, and is desplaces healthy, nutrient dense foods that would actually do good for your body.

So, in a "nutshell", Grains and Sugars cause rapid aging, nutrient depletion, obesity, and along with it most of the diseases of modern times. 

Eat High Fat Dairy only!  Sounds crazy, right?  Trust me- pastured, grass fed butter is loaded with fat soluble vitamins and compounds that we desperately need; Vitamin K and A, among many others. By the way, margarine/Crisco and their ilk are GRAINS! (See above- don't touch them!) 
 If you can get the raw, unpasteurized version of dairy- go for it!  As in all things, the less tampering with God's products, the better.  Fermented dairy, as in full fat yogurt (Greek yogurt), Kefir, and cheese is better that the liquid kind- it's already partly digested for you by the fermenting bacteria!

Eat LOTS of GOOD FATS!  Yes, I am deprogramming you here from the cult of low-fat, high grain consumption you've been fed your whole life!  Fat does not make you fat!  Repeat to yourself over and over...  Grains and sugar make you fat!  Repeat....

Coconut oil is a standout in this category!  A medium chain triglyceride that will fill you up, satisfy your appetite, lubricate and make your skin more youthful, turn your body back to it's natural alkaline state and away from the modern acidity that comes with grain and sugar consumption- coconut oil does all that and more!  Put it in your Paleo Smoothie!  Dissolve it in your morning coffee!  If there is a miracle food, this is it!

Get out in the Sun!  Yup- more deprogramming! Far from causing skin cancer, it turns out that Vitamin D deficiency is the main cause... we get Vitamin D from the sun!  Again, when we get "in the way " of God, and say that the sun itself, the source of all life on earth is BAD and we try to escape from it by slathering chemicals on our skin to ward off it's benefits...
Well, we get what we deserve!  And don't hesitate to put some Vitamin D drops in your daily Smoothie- I do!

Move around, slowly and leisurely a LOT every day!  I know, this also sounds "counterintuitive"- aren't we all supposed to run/jog, go on exercise machines for an hour a day, life weights to "failure"??!  In a single Paleo word: NO.  Paleo folks, hunter gatherers all, would move around a LOT, but they would be very concerned with conserving their energy for when they really needed it, i.e. chasing down and spearing an animal at the end of a long, slow, stalking type of hunt.  This is how we are wired- think a long 18 holes of golf- just don't use the stupid cart! 

And then, in addition, include a couple of sessions a week (at least) of something hard but brief.  Intense, but not exhausting- body weight exercise, chins, pushups, virtual resistance exercise (the best of all, in my opinion!), some stretching...

Make sure you eat lots of REAL FOODS: Grass fed beef (preferably), free range eggs, seafood, nuts (except peanuts- they're a legume), lots of veggies; some fruits!  The easiest, simplest, and most effective way to achieve this last is with a Paleo Smoothie... This takes care of just about ALL of your nutritional needs, simply, easily, and very, very effectively!  I am continually refining my daily "tonic", and plan to post the updated recipe for the Paleo Smoothie tomorrow!  Yes yes yes- Stay tuned!

J

Healthy eating, Paleo style, on the road!

Here are the hands of your own PaleoJay, cradling the sumptuous supper of lamb, sweet potatoes, zucchini and sausage at the Trempealeau Hotel in the small Mississippi river town of Trempealeau, Wisconsin!  The menu was replete with shrimp, steaks, salads etc., all ready for a traveling Paleo person to have a tasty meal packed with nutrition!

It seems that there are still many places to go where good, ancestral types of food are readily available.  Just as in buying our food, the very best quality food is available from small, independent restaurants; places where great pride is still taken in excellence of ingredients, and in careful preparation- quite the opposite of the big "Chains" that are all about cutting corners, using the cheapest ingredients to maximize profits, and spending most of their extra money on advertising to seduce you into patronizing them.  

The Trempealeau Hotel is one of these small eating places of excellence.  If you are passing by La Crosse on I90, it is well worth your while to get off at hwy 157 in Onalaska and head north to the Trempealeau sign, and then west to the Hotel!  You will even pass within a mile of the fabled home of yours truly...  be sure to wave!

My point, besides being a brief travelogue, is that of bypassing what has become the degraded nature of  the Mass American diet and culture of today, and seeking out those places that are more like what our culture embraced 50 and more years ago.  Small independent restaurants, small and independent farmers- this is where we need to be spending our dollars!  Not on fast/crappy food, or big/crappy chains, but to those who have traditional or ancestral values of quality.

I believe one of the most important figures today in a sustainable farming model of excellence is Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms.  A working farmer, Joel is also an excellent speaker, and a convincing role model for traditional agriculture.  Joel's most recent book, Confessions of a Lunatic Farmer, is must reading for any modern person seeking health and sanity in our crazy modern world!

He shows a real, viable alternative to the failing Big Agribusiness model prevalent today...

Bottom line:  Caring about your health, and the health of the land beneath your feet, and the animals and plants under your care, is the essence of Good Stewardship, and is really what we were created to accomplish.  To quote John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement:


“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” 

I think Polyface farms is following that tradition.

J

J, Phil and Holly at our last nursing home "gig"