I know, I know, where are the recipes? Well, honestly, I haven’t made anything to terribly new lately and I think it’s just as important that you are informed about why eating this way works.
It’s a bit long but INCREDIBLY informative. Watch it tonight instead of tv. Post thoughts to comments!
![I just finished a really good book by Wilhelm Reich called “Listen, LIttle Man!”. From the preface:
“Listen, Little Man!” reflects the inner turmoil of a scientist and physician who had observed the little man for many years and seen, first with astonishment, then with horror, what he does to himself; how he suffers, rebels, honors his enemies and murders his friends; how, wherever he acquires power “in the name of the people,” he misuses it and transforms it into something more cruel than the tyranny he had previously suffered at the hands of upperclass sadists.
[…]
It was felt that the “common man” must learn what a scientist and psychiatrist actually is and what he, the little man, looks like to his experienced eye. He must be acquainted with the reality which alone can counteract his ruinous craving for authority and be told very clearly what a grave responsibility he bears in everything he does, whether he is working, loving, hating, or just talking.
It’s a great book that really strikes a nerve with me especially with our current economic situation and everyone wanting to point fingers at who is responsible rather than taking responsibility for themselves…but this blog isn’t about that, so what am I talking about, you ask?
It’s important that we come to realize our responsibility to everything we do in our lives INCLUDING what we stuff in our mouths. Hopefully by now you have realized how clueless (or maybe just maliciously greedy) the “experts” on food in our country really are. It is not enough to rely on them to tell us what is good and bad. It is OUR RESPONSIBILITY to make EDUCATED decisions on what we put into our bodies.
But I don’t have a degree in nutrition! So what! Logic is what separates humans from other animals, so do humanity a favor and use it! Keep it simple: meat, veggies, nuts seeds and oils, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. If you can’t look at the ingredients label of pop-tarts and see what is wrong then you have other issues, and it’s accepting whatever the “experts” say that has gotten you to that exact point.
Pretend you’re a farmer. Would you feed the cow that was going to eventually feed your family a diet of grain and stale candy? Would you pump it full of steroids and antibiotics? Would you pack chickens in a coupe so tight that they couldn’t move around? Hopefully you said no to all of the above and to that I would respond then DON’T SUPPORT THOSE THAT DO by buying their shit!
People complain in this country but take no action and it’s time we realize that we have made the world we live in and we can change it to whatever we like. That’s a nice feeling isn’t it? Don’t take it for granted and start using the freedom that you have to make conscious decisions about the food that you buy and the “experts” that you trust. Every revolution in history began with one person deciding to make change. One person.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luzopc5jx41qhf3jzo1_250.jpg)
I just finished a really good book by Wilhelm Reich called “Listen, LIttle Man!”. From the preface:
“Listen, Little Man!” reflects the inner turmoil of a scientist and physician who had observed the little man for many years and seen, first with astonishment, then with horror, what he does to himself; how he suffers, rebels, honors his enemies and murders his friends; how, wherever he acquires power “in the name of the people,” he misuses it and transforms it into something more cruel than the tyranny he had previously suffered at the hands of upperclass sadists.
[…]
It was felt that the “common man” must learn what a scientist and psychiatrist actually is and what he, the little man, looks like to his experienced eye. He must be acquainted with the reality which alone can counteract his ruinous craving for authority and be told very clearly what a grave responsibility he bears in everything he does, whether he is working, loving, hating, or just talking.
It’s a great book that really strikes a nerve with me especially with our current economic situation and everyone wanting to point fingers at who is responsible rather than taking responsibility for themselves…but this blog isn’t about that, so what am I talking about, you ask?
It’s important that we come to realize our responsibility to everything we do in our lives INCLUDING what we stuff in our mouths. Hopefully by now you have realized how clueless (or maybe just maliciously greedy) the “experts” on food in our country really are. It is not enough to rely on them to tell us what is good and bad. It is OUR RESPONSIBILITY to make EDUCATED decisions on what we put into our bodies.
But I don’t have a degree in nutrition! So what! Logic is what separates humans from other animals, so do humanity a favor and use it! Keep it simple: meat, veggies, nuts seeds and oils, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. If you can’t look at the ingredients label of pop-tarts and see what is wrong then you have other issues, and it’s accepting whatever the “experts” say that has gotten you to that exact point.
Pretend you’re a farmer. Would you feed the cow that was going to eventually feed your family a diet of grain and stale candy? Would you pump it full of steroids and antibiotics? Would you pack chickens in a coupe so tight that they couldn’t move around? Hopefully you said no to all of the above and to that I would respond then DON’T SUPPORT THOSE THAT DO by buying their shit!
People complain in this country but take no action and it’s time we realize that we have made the world we live in and we can change it to whatever we like. That’s a nice feeling isn’t it? Don’t take it for granted and start using the freedom that you have to make conscious decisions about the food that you buy and the “experts” that you trust. Every revolution in history began with one person deciding to make change. One person.
This is NOT Rocket Science
I was speaking with a friend the other night about Paleo recipes and she made a really good point that many of the recipes that are already out there are Paleo or are really close. There is no magic trick in calling something Paleo that suddenly makes it nutritionally healthier.
By now you all should have a good idea of what ingredients are Paleo and which ones are not. All that is left is finding a recipe that sounds good, remove the non-Paleo items, substitute in some Paleo friendly items and you’re good to go! It’s that simple. Stop trying to reinvent the wheel or worse still, convincing yourself that this Paleo thing is just too hard and giving up.
You can spend the $20-$30 on a Paleo recipe book OR you can just google what you’re looking for and use your knowledge of Paleo to come up with something that works for you. The majority of my recipes come from eating out at a restaurant and seeing or even eating something delicious and then going home and trying to recreate it in a Paleo friendly manner.
Cookbooks are great but they are going to grow old fast. The older I get the more I realize that the “experts” are really just kind of winging it themselves, so don’t be afraid to try something of your own. If you’re not sure about an ingredient…..GOOGLE it, learn about it and make a call.
If you want this lifestyle to work over the long-haul you have to start getting creative and making cooking a fun and enjoyable part of your life. Remember when families used to sit around the dinner table, eat and have conversation? Lets get back to that.
“I would only argue that Senators don’t have the luxury that a Research Scientist does of waiting until every last shred of evidence is in.” ~ Sen. George McGovern
Great, so you’ll just lie to the public in the meantime. Good work people in charge!
Eating Well According to the Ancients
Here’s one man’s interesting outlook on proper nutrition and how to decide what that means.
Ultimately, they (philosophers) understood that everything we do—especially something with life or death implications like diet—is a platform for philosophy, that something you do at least three times a day is worth doing well.
What is your philosophy of nutrition? What do you think this says about other aspects of your life? Post to comments.
GLUTEN FREE!
It was only a matter of time before the masterminds of marketing caught on to the new “Fat Free”, “Gluten Free.” People are beginning to come around to the idea that maybe gluten isn’t so great for us. We still have our opponents that refuse to believe anything they didn’t learn from a $200 textbook (for the price you can’t really blame them) but nature has it’s own cruel way to sort that out.
Now the problem we have, and will probably continue to have for a while, is that major food companies are beginning to make EVERYTHING gluten free. Why? Well they can charge more of course and they assume that we, the people, are too dumb to realize that just because you take gluten out of a brownie does NOT make it “good for you.”
Companies did the same thing with “Fat Free” starting back in the 80’s and we all saw what that did for our countries health. You think it’s a coincidence that obesity began to skyrocket around the same time? I don’t. They took all the fat out of everything and substituted sugar back in its place to make it taste good again…and we bought the SHIT out of it!
So where’s this rant going? I don’t want any of you to be that person that buys the Gluten Free cookies expecting that they’ll have no negative effects on your health. Notice I didn’t say NEVER buy them, but be honest with yourself. They’re NOT healthy and they’ll make you FAT like any other cookie. If true health is what you are after (and it should be) just stick to REAL foods and you don’t even have to worry about gluten. If you do buy something that is Gluten Free understand that the only promise that was made is that there is no gluten in that product. The label says nothing about sugar, soy, or any other weird man-made chemicals.
I wrote this article a while back while I was still living and working in Atlanta. It’s an explanation of what I understand about fish oil and why it is so important. It also touches on why grass-fed is so important.
It’s a quick read and it’s useful info so take 5 and check it out.
There’s hope Dad!
Growing up my father LOVED hotdogs….and still does. I can remember many occasions when my mom had to work late and dinner was up to him and his infamous beanie-weenies. Ever since I started eating Paleo there hasn’t been any room for such highly processed meats (among all the other bullshit they put in hotdogs), UNTIL NOW!
Today at the grocery store I found these meat treats by the lovely folks at Applegate Farms, who apparently are after my heart. Humanely raised 100% grass-fed beef hot dogs! No filler, no nitrates, no nitrites, no casein, no gluten, no dairy, just good ole’ beef with some seasoning. This truly put a smile on my face.
THERE IS HOPE! Thank you Applegate Farms.
Here’s a great article on why it’s not as simple as calories-in/calories-out, and better yet why that’s not even addressing the reason we’re getting fatter. In his own words:
This is what happens when the laws of physics (thermodynamics) are used to defend the belief that overeating makes us fat. Thermodynamics tells us that if we get fatter and heavier, more energy enters our body than leaves it. Overeating means we’re consuming more energy than we’re expending. It’s saying the same thing in a different way. (In 1954, the soon-to-be-famous — and often misguided, although not in this case — nutritionist Jean Mayer said that to explain obesity by overeating was about as meaningful as explaining alcoholism by overdrinking, and merely reaffirmed, quite unnecessarily, the fact that the person saying it believed in the laws of thermodynamics.) Neither happens to answer the question why. Why do we take in more energy than we expend? Why do we get fatter?
And Taubes’ answer:
Then maybe there’s another way to look at it. Maybe when we get fat it’s because those physiological, metabolic and genetic factors you mentioned are dysregulating our fat tissue, driving it to accumulate too much fat, and that’s why we eat so much and appear — to you anyway — to be kind of lazy. We’re compensating for the loss of calories into our fat.
There is so much more to nutrition and health than how many calories we consume vs. how many we use. As humans we’re not that mechanical. I would go as far to say that the quality of the calorie is more important than the quantity. Lets start there.
What does organic mean? grass-fed? all-natural? Do you really know?
This is your Brain.
Okay, so not really, but remember those anti-drug commercials back in the day? Well we could use some now for anti-fake-food, otherwise known as the shit they sell us in grocery stores.
Check out those eggs and tell me which one does not belong. Yes, the one yolk broke (and we’ll get to that in a second) but check out the color difference between that one and the other two. The two that held together came from 2 ladies at the gym I coach at and came from chickens that live outside and eat their natural diet. That means worms and bugs and whatever else they can find on their own on the ground. The other egg is from King Soopers here in Boulder.
So they’re different color, what’s that matter? What are we doing by following the Paleo Diet? We’re going back to eating the way that our genes have evolved to eat, so doesn’t it make sense to do the same with the animals we eat? You can’t feed a chicken shit and expect it to be healthy for you to eat it or it’s eggs! Same goes for any other animals.
In addition to the color being much more vibrant in the real eggs the shells of these eggs were also much harder to crack and the yolks were much more resilient to busting (no, I didn’t purposely break the other yolk to prove this point). It’s as if nature favors the chickens that eat what they were intended to eat. Harder-to-break shells and stronger yolks equals a higher chance of survival. Makes you wonder what benefits eating Paleo can do for us, doesn’t it?
We’ll get into the science of why this matters to us in the future, but in the meantime here is a great source to start with to get back to eating real foods and the benefits they provide for us: Eat Wild
Inherent - existing in something as a permanent, essential or characteristic attribute. Appetite - the desire to eat food felt as hunger. The Paleo Diet is based on what our ancestors ate millions of years ago and therefore what our genes have evolved around. Believe it or not, it's inherent in your genes. It's a simple prescription: eat meat, nuts, seeds, and oils, vegetables, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. When asked to eliminate grains and sugar from their diets many people feel like food has to become boring. Inherent Appetite is a place for me to prove that untrue. Enjoy.
My thoughts exactly!
