Here’s a question from Raphael in Australia:

“Hey Adam,

Just came across your website (saw a link on the IKFF Facebook page).
Some great articles to read – and just finished going through your
ebook!

Paul Chek’s book got me quite interested in general health. Then onto
Mark’s Daily Apple, and other paleo resources.
I’ve definitely moved to a more paleo eating regime, although still
love a bowl of oats in the morning, and always look forward to a visit
to the patisserie every other week. (I’m on the skinny side, so weight
loss is not a goal).
I’m actually trying to put some weight on again, this time in a more
healthy manner. Last time I put on close to 10kg eating a lot of junk
food (and heavy weights) – was definitely a good amount of muscle, but
too much fat!

Anyway, just wanted to pass on my thanks, as your site looks like a
great resource!

One thing I struggle with (I haven’t gone through all your articles)
is what to eat?? Organic animal + vegetables is a good staple, but
some people say bacon + eggs are also paleo (of course eggs are, but
processed meat such as bacon.. who knows).

My point is – It’d be great if you included meal ideas.. Maybe what
you eat.. It’s always good to see what others are eating..
I think a good strategy is to not think of breakfast as a separate
meal – organic animal meat + vegetables 2 or 3 times a day would
probably be the true paleo way.

Warm Regards,
Raphael
(Sydney, Australia)”

Thanks again for the question, Raphael – and all the kind words!

Here are the links to my past posts that will help out:

http://practicalpaleolithic.com/paleolithic-diet-blog/practical-paleo-tip-day-2

http://practicalpaleolithic.com/paleolithic-diet-blog/practical-paleo-diet-tip-of-the-day-sauces

http://practicalpaleolithic.com/paleolithic-diet-blog/perfectionism-and-self-sabatage-paleo-style

http://practicalpaleolithic.com/paleolithic-diet-blog/practical-paleo-diet-tip-of-the-day-green-smoothies

And here are links to my friends James and Kristin and George – BOTH are great recipe sites:

http://fastpaleo.com/

http://www.civilizedcavemancooking.com/

ttys

Adam

IMPORTANT! Adam Farrah is not a doctor or medical professional. This information is based on my own opinion and is not meant to be medical advice or to treat, diagnose, cure or prescribe in any way.

At the urging of a new friend who started reading my book “The Paleo Dieter’s Missing Link” a few days ago, I’ve decided to post the preface of the book here on my blog. My journey from where I was to where I am was long and difficult and full of setback, disappointments, shady characters and people who were all to willing to push me into accepting less for myself, my life and my health. Here’s how I got from where I was to where I am…

My book, “The Paleo Dieter’s Missing Link“  is a book I knew I was going to write for a long time.

In the fall of 2004 I owned a big house with a big mortgage, worked a high-stress corporate biotech job, slept fewer than 5-6 hours a night and had just started an evening MBA program. I drank tons of coffee. Everything about my life was rushed and stressed. Of course, everyone would have expected me to remain healthy despite the schedule and the stress – after all, I was working out all the time, jogging almost daily and eating a “very healthy” diet of chicken breasts, protein shakes, whole grains, protein bars, granola bars, name brand yogurt and taking plenty of vitamins and supplements.

I soon found out I was far from healthy.

After nearly dying from Ulcerative Colitis, I began a long battle with digestive illness, chronic fatigue, depression and a lot of other health issues. Of course, I (at the time) and anyone in the mainstream establishment I knew, attributed my problems to “bad luck.” All the conventional doctors I saw (save for one) couldn’t – and wouldn’t – do anything but medicate symptoms with drugs that usually made things worse or caused other problems. I was told over and over again: “There’s no known cause for your illness and no known cure. All we can do is ‘manage your disease’ with drugs. Diet has nothing to do with it.” I even had the head of Gastroenterology at a major university hospital recommend I eat “bread” because my diet of only raw fruit smoothies and steamed vegetables – which seemed to be making me feel better and reduce the pain of digestion – wasn’t of adequate nutrition and nutrient “deficiencies” might result without bread. Bread…

I also made the rounds to various alternative medical people. All of them proved useless as well and were only interested in selling high-priced supplements or advancing their own dogmatic ideas. None had any answers, but all were more than happy to accept money in exchange for a useless opinion, some tests and some useless bottles of crap that didn’t help or made me feel worse.

I spent years sick and exhausted. My usually boundless creativity and energy were gone. I had all I could do to drag myself in to a job that I hated so I could sit at a desk and collect a paycheck. I still worked out and did Karate, but my training was lackluster and always interrupted for various time periods by digestive problems from moderate to severe. I made more than one trip to an emergency room due to dehydration, anemia and sever inflammation of my intestinal tract. Each time it was the same story: “Diet has nothing to do with it. You’ll need to be on medication for the rest of your life to ‘manage your disease’.”

That’s me, sick and miserable sitting at a desk doing a job I hated. The company I worked for was failing and I was surrounded by difficult and negative people…

My grandfather once said about me: ”Adam is over-confident and over-optimistic, but he usually turns out to be right.” Looking back it was pretty crazy – I stopped taking the prednisone and other crap they were loading me up with, stopped going to anyone for help and began reading everything I could get my hands on and experimenting. I experimented with all sorts of diets, fasting, positive thinking, meditation and everything else that had even a remote chance of helping me. Every so often, I’d show up in an emergency room because things got out of hand. I’d do just enough conventional treatment to get back on my feet and get back to my still-stressful job and resume my dietary research and trial and error.

This was all nearly 7 years ago. It’s relatively easy to talk about, but the day to day process I went through was excruciating. Over that 7 years I examined every aspect of my diet, my past, my goals, my thinking, my friends, my relationships, my work and my life. It was a battle and I was literally fighting for my life. And not just my “life” as in not dying, my life as in having a good one that I enjoyed and actually wanted to live. I have no doubt that the doctors could have kept me alive – but I’m certain the life I would have had under their care would have been a living hell.

I reached the point where I was determined to regain my health and live the life I wanted or die trying. There would be no lifetime of drugs and surgeries and emergency rooms and gastroenterologists who could barely speak English. They all told me I would die if I didn’t take their medications and do what they told me. They told me that nothing I did with my diet or lifestyle would help.  It was a risk I was willing to take. Life on my terms or death, those were my options. At times, I really didn’t care which one it was.

Things began to really turn around in 2008, even though I was working yet another stressful and miserable corporate job and still had plenty of negative people and situations in my life. I was doing relatively well on a diet of meats, fruit, vegetables and goat yogurt and had been eating that diet for years. I was still far from healthy, though. At this time, I still thought my training days were over. I was too tired and too out of shape to want to do much of anything. I used to be big and strong and fit and live in the gym. College, then corporate life and then illness changed all that. I had lost all of the muscle and strength I built from a lifetime of weights and training. And now, the diet I needed to be on to stay healthy wasn’t anything like the one I “needed” to be on to get strong and train again. Or so I thought.

Like most, I was deluded by marketing and mainstream nonsense. I thought there was a specific diet you ate for each health problem, a diet you ate to build muscle, a diet you ate to burn fat, a diet you ate for psychological health, a diet you ate to run marathons and on and on. Special diets and special supplements. Like everything else in our modern world, everything was specialized and fractionated as far as I could tell. Something Paul Chek’s work helped me realize is that there’s a basic, foundational way to eat for health – and that health is a foundation you build on for specific needs. Eating to heal a digestive illness may have been my priority at one time, but it was entirely ignorant of me – and of our culture in general – to think that the diet that healed my digestive system wouldn’t be the diet that would help me achieve strength and performance or psychological health or any other goal I had. Certainly the application of certain principles or foods might change, but a healthy diet is a healthy diet regardless of goals or specific circumstances.

A healthy diet is a healthy diet and is universal.

Let me say that again in a different way:

There are solid, unchanging principles that make up a diet that is healthy for humans. This is a fact. There is a right and a wrong way to eat.

Yes, there is latitude within the context of “what is a healthy diet to eat” and there will be differences and variations depending on goals, individual health, tolerance for certain foods, genetics and a million other details, but the question of what to eat is not as complex as many would like us to believe. In fact, science tells us – with absolute certainty – what is healthy for us to eat and what is not healthy for us to eat. It’s just that the science that tells us this isn’t medical science. The science that gives us the answers to the questions we ask about what to eat is anthropology and the related disciplines. To see our way to a healthy future we need to use science to look at the past.

The idea of this diet vs. that diet, the 1000’s of diet books, the experts and doctors and pundits and arguments and conflicts on The Dr. Oz show and most everything else within the commercial diet landscape are nothing but distracting nonsense, bullshit, hype and manipulative marketing efforts.

Evolution tells us how to eat and how to live. History shows us what we were designed to eat and how we were designed to live and history shows us how we’ve declined as a species the further we’ve drifted from what is natural to us. The future of health and of medicine is in this evolutionary concept and it will someday be the commonly accepted way to understand and treat health and disease.

**********************

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

- Arthur Schopenhauer

**********************

Everything changed for me in 2009 when I read Randy Roach’s book “Muscle, Smoke and Mirrors. Volume I.” In this outstanding history of bodybuilding and Physical Culture, Randy showed the diets and nutritional philosophies of the strongest and healthiest from the 1800’s and early to mid 1900’s. This is before modern medicine was what it is now, before marketing and medicating symptoms were what they are now. The early strongmen ate the things we eat now and consider “Paleo” in many instances.

For the first time, I was aware of athletes who were capable of moving weights I couldn’t have dreamed of in my best training days – and they were doing it long before anabolic steroids, “advanced” protein shakes and bars, pre-workout drinks and stimulants and all the equipment “advances” we’re told we need to be strong and be healthy. Many of these men drank raw cow or goat milk, ate foods straight from the farms they were grown or raised on and practiced a lot of the “strange” things I read about in many of the very fringe books I was reading about health and healing. Many of them fasted, they obsessed about food quality. Many avoided grains. Most avoided alcohol. This is the first time I really saw the connection between eating for health and eating for strength and performance.

I also saw the connection between lifestyle and health or the lack of it. Once I started making these connections, things started to really pick up momentum and change in my life. I quit jobs and ended relationships. My friend Chris Wright-Martell let me start training clients as a strength coach out of his school, Modern Self-Defense Center in Middletown, CT. He had a few kettlebells at the school and I started using them. I got hooked. A few months later I got certified as Kettlebell Teacher by Steve Cotter and Ken Blackburn from the IKFF. I started training harder and feeling better.

It wasn’t too long after this that I found my way to the CrossFit community when I taught a kettlebell seminar at CrossFit Relentless. I became good friends with the owner, Merle Mckenzie, and he encouraged me to get into CrossFit. I did. And that’s when I came full circle. CrossFitters were eating Paleo and doing it for performance. I started following Robb Wolf’s work.

In 2005 all my friends and coworkers wanted to know when I would be able to eat “normally” again. Girlfriends were annoyed and frustrated because there was “something wrong with me” that kept us from taking day trips to Sturbridge Village to eat fried seafood and ice cream. They wanted to stay out all night and drink in loud clubs and I wanted to be home sleeping at 10pm – because there was “something wrong with me.”

Today, I’m healthy. I’m happy. I live in the tiny beach cottage in Old Saybrook, CT that my great grandfather bought for the family as a summer home. I run at the beach. I feel good. I eat good local foods. I do yoga in the yard in the sun with humming birds flitting here and there. I go to bed early, I get up early and I lift heavy things in a little barn behind the house. I write constantly. I have a wonderful, spiritual woman in my life. I actively avoid negative people and places and practices. There’s nothing “wrong with me” anymore…

And this is me NOW (Summer of 2011) – Strong, happy, healthy and doing what I LOVE…

Me and my great friend Carrie.

That’s my AWESOME girlfriend Michelle in the beach pic above. She has a great new blog called “Chalk and Chi!”

In truth, there never was anything “wrong with me.” There was – and still is – something wrong with a culture where health isn’t a priority, foods we’re told are healthy by “experts” aren’t, disease is rampant, lifestyles are out of control with stress and strife and no one will look at the facts, tell the truth, drop the politics and create change. Misinformation in the diet and health fields is ubiquitous. Almost no one tells the truth. Almost. Change is coming and there will be many established power structures that suffer and disappear when it does.

The “Paleo Dieter’s Missing Link” is my contribution to creating change in the way we think about health and diet and the way we eat and live. Some of the things I say in the book are risky and unpopular. It’s a Paleo diet book but, as I’ll show you, Paleo is a diverse diet genre. It’s not a single diet made up of black and white principles to follow without question or individualization. I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to help you understand Paleo and related approaches in a way that they’re not typically presented or explained. I want to empower you to make your own decisions, ask your own questions and find your own answers. I want to make connections and integrate knowledge from different places and different historical periods. I want to help you understand health and diet on a much deeper level than it’s currently presented.

I had to understand diet, health and lifestyle to heal and live again. I understand it on a very deep level because of the stakes I was playing at. I had to because I couldn’t have turned that mess of a life I was living around any other way. Many people still don’t get me or my lifestyle or my diet, but that’s really OK. I don’t care. I’m living my life the way I want to live it and that’s what’s important. I’m living life on my terms…

ttys

Adam

Today’s question came to me from Francis and it’s one that I have a particular passion around. As I talk about in the preface and intro of my book “The Paleo Dieter’s Missing Link,” I struggled for a number of years with Ulcerative Colitis and eventually recovered and regained my health. The video above details some of the things I learned during my struggle with the illness.

Here’s Francis’ email:

Hi Adam,

Got your book, and have been reading through it (and Robb Wolf’s book)
with great interest.

My son (now 12), has had colitis for 3-4 years. It had been under
control until a few months ago, and a recent colonoscopy showed the
first 15 cm of his rectum/sigmoid are completely compromised, and
nothing but bleeding lesions. Needless to say we’re panicked as
parents, as the GI doc’s next step is steroids.

We don’t want to go that route – and are moving him to paleo like diet
(I’m convinced all the wheat/grains he eats has got to have an effect
on him).

My question(s) to you:

- I want to go paleo with him, but he’s in a huge growth spurt; should
I go strict at first, and then loosen the reigns after we get his
current crisis under control? I will cut out wheat / grains, but what
about brown rice?

- I have been reading a ton about kefir, and would like to make daily
shakes for him with organic goats milk kefir / fruit smoothies, do you
think it’s OK to have this dairy in his diet and see where it goes?

- In general, any comments or thoughts you have in going from a
“normal” western diet to a paleo diet for disease mgmt (especially
with kids) is appreciated.

- I don’t see how we can be successful if we have to cut out
simultaneously all grains, eggs, nightshades, and dairy. I think I can
come up with an eating plan if I could include limited dairy (kefir),
and eggs, otherwise, it becomes meat and veggies exclusively.

Thanks for your book and your blog – it’s inspiring and brings hope to
us.

Francis

ttys

Adam

IMPORTANT! Adam Farrah is not a doctor or medical professional. This information is based on my own opinion and is not meant to be medical advice or to treat, diagnose, cure or prescribe in any way.

This answer is in response to Dana’s question below:

“I am 5’4” & 123lbs and I have always focused on eating healthy. SInce January I’ve been working out about 4x/week and since March more like 5-6x a week. I run every other day (anywhere from 3-6 miles) and the opposite days I do a 20-30 min video like 30 day shred (advanced level). I am also training for my first 1/2 marathon on May 1st so I’ve incorporated a few longer runs (8-10mile) in there the past month. BUT I am NOT happy w/the amount of body fat I have.

This answer is in response to Erin’s question below:

“I started a diet and exercise plan in April of 2010. I have lost a total of 90 lbs so far. When I started this journey I was eating lean proteins and veggies, very little fruit. I would use whatever salad dressing I wanted on my salads. One of my trainers at my local Crossfit suggested I try her version of paleo. Its more like the ketosis diets. I have done her “lifestyle” eating for a month and lost 17.5 lbs and 8.5 inches (so its working!). I want to switch to paleo for the rest of my weightloss (40 lbs more). My question to you is do I just go ahead and switch over or do I ease my way into paleo? I am measuring my food now and eating a certain amout of carbs (from veggies). My fear is that I will gain back the weight I lost on her plan.

This morning I’m launching a new series on Practical Paleolithic – Training and Paleo Diet Q and A!

So far, response to my new book, “The Paleo Dieter’s Missing Link,” has been great! I’ve talked to a bunch of people who have read it or are in the process of reading it and, so far, it’s helping a lot of people AND stimulating some different thinking in terms of Paleo diet and what it means to eat a “healthy diet” in general. In addition to the feedback, I’m getting lots of great questions too! And that’s where the idea for this video series came from.

Ask a Question, Get an Answer…

So, here’s the deal: Ask me your diet and training questions and I’ll answer them! Pretty simple right? I get so many training and diet questions by email and on Facebook that I thought it would be a lot of fun to make the questions and answers more available to everyone. A LOT of you have THE SAME or SIMILAR questions, so this will be a great way to archive things in a searchable way.

By the way – and people who know me already know this – I make no claim about being a guru or expert. I’m just a relatively smart guy who reads A LOT and tries A LOT of different things. And, I have about 7 years experience doing Paleo and working on the healthy lifestyle thing and about 20 years of weight training and fitness experience. Whatever your questions or problems, it’s a good bet I’ve either had THE SAME problem at one time or another, or have come across something related to it in my library and internet travels. So, ask away!

Here’s how to submit a question: Just send an email to adam@practicalpaleolithic.com and put your question in the subject line. That’s it!

So, ask away and let’s get this week rolling!

ttys

Adam

My friend Leigh made a comment about my book, “The Paleo Dieter’s Missing Link” on Facebook yesterday that made me want to do a post on this topic. Thanks for the feedback, Leigh!

Here’s something that a lot of people don’t fully understand – there are many, MANY different Paleo diets. Sure, there’s “The Paleo Diet” book by Loren Cordain and there are plenty of “Paleo” authors, like my friend Robb Wolf. But “Paleo” can be looked at in a VERY broad way and it can include a HUGE variety of approaches. Something I worked very hard to do in my book is show the history of Paleo or “hunter-gather” diets and show how the different authors and “classic” books on the topic fit together and influence the variations you’re likely to see.

Authors and nutritional theorists have been advocating and studying hunter-gatherer or “Paleo” diets for OVER 100 YEARS! There’s a HUGE body of knowledge on this topic – if you know where to look…

Figure 1:

The bottom line in Figure 1 – and what I talk about throughout my book – is that oval superimposed over the columns. Paleo proper is there in the oval and to each side there are “outlier diets” that are very similar to Paleo but deviate from the “straight” Paleo diet you’d think of when talking about Paleo. I believe this is why some people do really well on a VERY low carb Paleo diet that even excludes fruit on one end and – on the other end of the spectrum – there are some vegetarian athletes who thrive.

It’s about principles that are found in ALL healthy diets – principles I believe Paleo embodies to a LARGE degree. These “core” or “backbone” Paleo principles are then combined with some number of changes and substitutions that make up each individual diet. For one person it might be very low carb. For others – like myself – it might be higher fiber and more fruit. For YOU it might be something else entirely – but ALWAYS within that oval and with the Paleo backbone.

I feel terrible on very low carb ketogenic diets. I also feel hungry and anxious when I let my dietary protein and fat get to low. My digestion and elimination gets better when I keep my fiber higher with green smoothies and a psyllium husk supplement and it also improves when I eat yogurt and kefir.

When are vegetarians Paleo?

I’ve talked to a few vegetarians who are actually eating pretty close to Paleo. They’re basing their diet on a large amount of fresh fruits and vegetables, not eating a lot of grains, beans or processed foods and they’re eating local dairy from well-raised animals, small amounts of cheese and sneaking some fish or chicken once in a while. This lacto-ovo model (when done on a Paleo template) is VERY close to the diet some hunter-gatherer societies in Africa subsist on or subsisted on at some point.

But, milk isn’t Paleo!

Milk and dairy aren’t Paleo if you go by the standard and popular definition. But, if you look at a hunter-gatherer tribe like the Maasai in Africa, you’ll see that milk from grass fed cows makes up a portion of their diet. So, is dairy Paleo? That depends. And different dietary templates will work differently for different people…

Here’s My Pet Peeve About Dairy and Paleo…

Something that I think is really silly – and happens A LOT in the Paleo community – is people advocate a “strict Paleo” approach with NO DAIRY and then use dairy-based protein powders like whey and casein. Some of these people even drink their coffee black – and HATE it – in an effort to avoid dairy. And then they use 10 scoops of whey protein a day. SILLY! These are usually the same people who give ME flak for using organic goat yogurt in my diet or eating raw cow milk kefir that I make myself from local milk.

My stance on dairy and Paleo is this: if you’re willing to use a processed and heated protein powder from industrially farmed animals, you should NOT use the powder and get the highest quality local, raw, humane and organic dairy you can find!

*Sigh*

ttys

Adam

BTW, if you want a seriously in-depth discussion of this topic and many, MANY others, check out my book, “The Paleo Dieter’s Missing Link.” It’s a HUGE resource (Over 160 pages!) and it’s had great feedback so far! Click on the link above or the book image below for more info!

This drink recipe has become a SERIOUS favorite of mine. What’s funny is, if you’d talked to me 6 months ago, I’d have told you I didn’t drink. I’ve been going through a move and a lifestyle “reorganization” recently – a VERY positive one – but one that’s been full of stress, logistical nightmares and other wacky stuff. So, faced with the option of a clock tower and a sniper rifle or a drink or two here and there, I’ve opted for the drinks! You can thank me later

I’ve been VERY sensitive to alcohol my whole life – one of the reasons I really don’t drink – but this recipe is pretty easy on my system and it’s also fairly Paleo friendly. I got the original recipe from my friend Robb Wolf’s book, The Paleo Solution, and I put a few of my own tweaks on it.

Let me know what you think of my favorite – and only – drink recipe!

ttys

Adam

Explore Sauces and Condiments

I’ve talked before about the power of sauces and condiments to make the boring interesting. There are plenty of websites out there like InsaneChicken.com that specialize in sauces and condiments. There are also plenty of other places you can go to find sauces and condiments. There are A LOT of people out there who take this stuff REALLY seriously!

Depending how seriously you want to take the Paleo thing, you might have to read the labels on the stuff you consider using. Some sauces have sugar, wheat, soy, corn starch, etc. in them. A lot DON’T though and it’s really up to you whether you want to take it this far. But, be warned, if you’re really sensitive to some things, keep an eye out for them in the ingredients of the stuff you consider.

Here are 5 places to look for great sauces, condiments and other ways to make the bland interesting:

• Google “Hot Sauce” – I already mentioned Insane Chicken above. And they’re one of the better known out of hundreds and hundreds of online stores that sell hot sauce, mustard, sauces and rubs. And, remember, even if you don’t like spicy food these sites have plenty of “mild” mustards, sauces and marinades too. Just grab a cup of coffee and do some browsing!
• Go International - Even the “regular” stores have pretty good international sections now. If you look at all those little cans and jars there are literally HUNDREDS of choices for stuff to throw on top of meats and salads. Spanish or Mexican sections are going to have tons of different peppers, salsas, and sauces. Italian and Mediterranean sections are going to have all sorts of olives, peppers, pestos (some will have cheese and nuts in them) and flavored olive oils.
• Try some “Rubs” – Rubs are another big area that the “grilling crowd” gets into. A rub is really just a fancy term for a bunch of dry seasonings mixed together that you “rub” onto meats before grilling, roasting or sauteeing them. They give whatever you’re cooking flavor and they help the meat “crisp up” on the outside. If you go to foodnetwork.com and search “rub” you get back 2,489 results. That will probably keep you busy for a while… Virtually any food store you go into is going to carry a wide variety of rubs and seasonings. Buy one or two and try them out.
• Get into BBQ and other sauces - BBQ and BBQ sauce is another “cult” food thing. There are BBQ competitions all over the country and everyone has their own sauce recipes and methods. One of my favorite sauces is Bone Suckin’ Brand. Not only is Bone Suckin’ the best TASTING I’ve had, it’s also gluten and sugar free. Not a bad deal! Their site has tons of recipes and they also make mustards, teriyaki, salsas and other stuff. There is an entire WORLD of mustards, hot wing sauces, salsas, teriyaki and other sauces just waiting for you to try and experiment with!
• REAL Pickled Veggies - This is another area with a lot of variety. Things like pickles and sauerkraut can be gotten at health food stores in their raw, organic and “real form” – that is, cultured with healthy bacteria the way they’ve been made for 1000s of years before they got mass produced and canned – and different brands will have very different flavors. You can try, for example, a grilled grassfed burger with a heap of REAL sauerkraut over it and some REAL pickles on the side. Other pickled veggies are things like Kim Chee – traditional Korean pickled cabbage – that can really change the taste of salads and meats. The trick is to find raw and fermented pickled vegetables because you get the benefits of raw foods plus the healthy probiotics. Canned and supermarket versions of this stuff are virtually ALWAYS heated, pasteurized and NOT properly fermented with good bacteria. Stay away from this stuff if you can.

There’s some more stuff to keep you busy!

ttys

Adam

Nevermind “Paleo cooking” – just COOK

My first “real” career was as a chef. I went to culinary school – not Paleo culinary school – and learned, of all things, Classical French Cooking mainly. The thing is, once you learn the basic techniques of cooking you can cook pretty much anything. And there is absolutely NO shortage of cooking resources in this country! There is an entire culinary WORLD out there that can help you learn to cook and keep things interesting. You don’t have to become a Chef or spend $1000 a week at Williams-Sonoma, but getting a little into food and cooking will go a long way toward making Paleo fun and keeping you Paleo long term.

Just get interested in cooking and keep your eyes and ears open. Sure, bread and pasta is out, but there are plenty of “regular” recipes, cookbooks and cooking shows that can give you some great ideas for Paleo dishes.

Don’t limit yourself to Paleo-only resources

Here are 5 non-Paleo resources to get you started:

• Recipes on WholeFoods.com - Sure, maybe half of these recipes aren’t Paleo, but A LOT of them can either be made Paleo with a few changes or are almost there already. If you spent some time on this site once in a while you’d definitely have a ton of ideas to work with. You can browse by categories like Beef, Dairy Free, Wheat Free, Portable, Poultry and Vegetables. Remember, a category like “Vegetables” or “Vegetarian” doesn’t need to be a main course. You can use a vegetarian “meal” as a side for your beef, chicken or fish. Yeah, the vegetarians might get mad, but they’re too skinny to do much about it
• Spend a day at the book store – If you spent some time in the cookbook section of a big book store like Borders or Barnes and Noble you’d find a ton of great cookbooks. Buy a couple and resolve to try one recipe a week. If you really like beef or chicken, get a book devoted to one of them. Out of an entire book devoted to meat or poultry, a lot of recipes will either be Paleo or can be made Paleo pretty easily.
• Recipe books on amazon.com – Same thing here. And you can get really niche on a site like amazon. There are over 2,785 cookbooks on amazon today for “meat, poultry and seafood.”
• Check out Food Network and foodtv.com – Again, there’s plenty of non-Paleo stuff here, but there’s also plenty that IS Paleo or can be made so. Guys like Bobby Flay do TONS of grilling and spicy stuff that is either straight-up Paleo or is Paleo when you drop the side dishes. Flay’s show “Boy Meets Grill” is a good one to check out.
• Don’t forget the Vegetarians – Believe it or not, I have a bunch of vegetarian cookbooks. Like I said above, a lot of vegetarian recipes make great side dishes for a big old hunk of meat

Paleo can actually be a pretty easy way to eat. Once you get a handle on what’s excluded from the diet you can use a HUGE variety of “regular” recipe resources to find Paleo recipes and ideas for Paleo dishes. If you make cooking and food a little “hobby” for yourself you might even find that you enjoy it!

ttys

Adam