Adapting to Paleo

When I had previously attempted to eat paleo, it was not successful.  This time, it is.  I think there are two reasons for that.  The first is that when I set out to try it this time, my mindset was different from in the past.  I was not looking at it as 'all the things I couldn't eat'.  From the start, I framed my focus to be all the things I COULD eat.  Having multiple Paleo cookbooks out there is definitely helping.  Seeing the gorgeous meals in blazing color has really helped with motivation to continue to cook, experiment and try new things.

Secondly, I intentionally set out to expand my horizons.  By this, I mean that when I eliminate grains, legumes and sugar from my diet, I don't just drop them and keep eating what I was eating before.  I know quite a few 'healthy' eaters who tried to go paleo by just dropping the necessary foods.  That left them eating low fat, and nothing but lean meats and some boring veggies.  Who can live like that long term? I knew that when I dropped a big portion of my daily calories,  I would need to replace those things with calories from acceptable sources (and maybe I am better about this now that I'm training to be an endurance athlete - something I was not doing in the past).  No, I don't need to eat grains or legumes.  But I do need to eat fat and tons of veggies and I'm learning to like things I would NEVER have eaten before.  Things like bacon and whole raw milk and unsweetened homemade yogurt and iced tea without sweetener.  I'm learning to use a little oil on my salads and in my cooking - something I shied away from before.  And I'm learning that when I keep myself satisfied this way, I'm not craving crap, bread or sugar.  I'm giving my body what it needs, so it doesn't need to 'beg' me for the things it shouldn't have.

I also didn't want to go paleo by trying to force my old recipes into a paleo alternative of their former selves.  That goes against the idea of embracing a whole new way of looking at food.  That said, I was peeling sweet potatoes for roasting last night when I remembered a recipe I used to make from the Victory Garden Cookbook (from the 70's).  There were these sweet potato squares (a snack cake) that we both really liked that were chock full of healthy items.  I remembered the recipe scared me a little at the time, because it was very fat heavy.  I pulled it out and lo and behold, it's easily adaptable to paleo!  I even laughed at my notes from the last time I'd made it - I'd cut out the fat by removing the oil and the nuts and I'd subbed Splenda for some of the sugar (and reduced the whole quantity of it).   Time for a different type of makeover...

To make it paleo - I used pastured butter for the oil (though coconut oil would work fine, too), I replaced the 1 cup of flour with 1/4 cup of hazelnut meal, 1/4 cup of coconut flour and 1/2 cup of almond meal.  Then in place of the 1 cup of sugar, I went with 1/3 cup of raw local honey.

The cake turned out great, but I think that the next time, I might try cutting the honey down to 1/4 cup and adding a bit of coconut oil for the lost moisture.  The bars were perfectly moist, but they were a bit crumbly and a tad too sweet for me now (did I just type that??).

So, without further ado, here is the altered recipe that is pictured above (original from the Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash):

Sweet Potato Squares

1/4 cup of coconut flour
1/2 cup of almond flour/meal
1/4 cup of hazelnut flour/meal
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
4 Tbs pastured butter (or coconut oil)
1/3 cup raw local honey
1 egg
2 medium apples (peeled and shredded)
1/2 lb sweet potato (peeled and shredded)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350F.  Mix flours, salt, soda and spices in a small bowl and set aside.  Cream together butter and honey; beat in egg.  Stir apples, sweet potatoes and vanilla into the butter mixture.    Add dry ingredients to the mixture and mix well.  Stir in nuts.  Spread into a greased 11x7 baking dish.  Bake for 40 - 45 minutes.  Cool before cutting into squares.

Time - or a lack of it

While I am thoroughly enjoying paleo nutrition, I am not enjoying the extra work.  It's kind of a catch-22 actually.   I do like that eating paleo forces us to eat at home more often, that it keeps my husband from eating a lot of junk (he works from home and used to satisfy his boredom with crappy foods), and that it makes me feel GREAT.  I don't like that in order to eat from home more often, I have to cook (and clean) more often.  I also have to plan ahead to have things ready to pack for lunch every day as well.  It's beginning to stress me out a bit because I've actually sacrificed workouts in order to cook or clean and this is NOT a benefit.  The last little piece is that because we are new to this, I don't know where to find all the essentials yet, so getting the ingredients we often need requires multiple trips to multiple stores to find the things we need (like coconut oil or raw almonds).

My guess is that with time and experience, we will get better at this.  I'm hoping to create a system of managing the fresh food in the fastest and easiest way possible.  I also need more paleo cookbooks so that I can just leave a recipe and ingredients for my husband and he can cook it while I workout.  As we find recipes we like, I also hope to build up an arsenal of good 'make ahead' meals that I can prep over the weekends for use during the week.  In fact, I should do a little research and see if there is such a cookbook out there for this exact type of meal.

My only other complaint about Paleo is that today's world has tied it to Crossfit.  I've now had three people mention this to me.  One found out that I was eating paleo and immediately noted "but you don't do Crossfit!".  Another found out and asked if I had plans to start Crossfit.  And a third said that I was the first person they had ever met who wanted to eat paleo but wasn't a Crossfit-er.  OK people - you do realize that The Paleo Diet and Neatherthin were both written and published before anyone had given the concept of multi-functional cross training the marketed name 'Crossfit', right? ;-)

A Few Good Meals

The paleo nutrition adventure is still going well.  I've been now eating this way (with a few random non-paleo meals in the first few days) for almost 3 weeks now.  I haven't lost any more weight, but I also haven't been that consistent about my workouts either.

I ordered a book called Everyday Paleo mostly for the recipes, but it does have quite a bit of non-nutrition information in it as well.  For now, I'm more concerned with new recipes so I haven't even read the rest of the book.  Our first meal from it was a salmon that was 'baked' on the grill with a bunch of fresh herbs.  It was AMAZING!  It was juicy, tender and completely delicious!  I cannot believe what a difference cooking wild salmon in foil makes for the juiciness factor.  Live and learn.

The second recipe we tried from the book was a pumpkin/beef casserole.  I don't know why, but the photo just drew me in and typically, I'm not a casserole fan.  I think it reminded me of mousaka (which I do like).  Anyway, we made it last night with only one slight alteration.  I didn't use fresh pumpkin - I used the canned version since I had a can already open from a smoothie experiment.  It was delicious!!

The recipe serves 4, but if it reheats well (which I assume it will), I may try doubling it next time to have more leftovers for freezing.  The nice thing about the dish was that it was chock full of spinach, basil, onions and pumpkin...(plus grass fed ground beef), so I didn't need to make any side dishes.  Great for a night when time is short!