Paleo Dan

I like hummus. But, being made of beans, I don’t reckon that it’s all that paleo or primal. What’s a caveman to do?

I don’t remember how I found this site, maybe my wife pointed it out to me, but I found my answer over at Everyday Paleo:

Walnut Red Pepper Dip

2 cups shelled walnuts (soak them for at least 1 hour to soften them; it’ll be easier to process them this way)
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. salt
1 jar (12 oz.) roasted red peppers – drained
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. lemon juice

In a food processor, pulse walnuts, cumin, and salt until walnuts are finely ground (like the consistency of Hummus). Add peppers, garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice.  Whirl until smooth.

I just made this today and I have to say, it’s not exactly like hummus, but it’s a damn good replacement! So, thank you, Sarah, for posting this recipe to your site.

OK, so I was stumbling around on the Internet when I found the AllRecipes.com Dinner Spinner (iPhone app). I don’t know that AR will have a lot of paleo/primal recipes to choose from–or, at least, there won’t be a paleo/primal category to choose from. However, me being me and free being free, I tried it out. I did a search for appetizers utilizing… oh, I don’t know… let’s try pork. Well, one of the first recipes to pop up was a recipe for scotch eggs! I had never heard of nor even tried scotch eggs until about 3 months ago when I tried some at Tir na nOg in Raleigh, NC.

First of all, scotch eggs are good. I mean, hard-boiled eggs, covered in sausage and breadcrumbs and deep-fried. Um, yeah, they are really good. And, really, aside from the breadcrumbs, they are not all that bad for you… and, depending on the quality of the sausage, I’d say that they are downright good for you!

So, now I’ve got to find a primal replacement for the breadcrumbs that will keep the texture right. Time to confer with the Great and Powerful Google. A quick search for “primal scotch eggs” and there’s Mark’s Daily Apple rightthere at number one. Link one is to the forum where a few users have some great ideas: shredded coconut, almond flour, pork rinds. Link two is to a post from Mark called Primal Bloggers Around the Net. One commenter, Krys, points over to some scotch eggs at Caveman Cooking which is pretty simple in that it’s eggs wrapped just in sausage and then baked.

Now I’ve got a few options to try out. I love coconut and the idea of shredded coconut, sausage, and eggs deep-fried sounds really, really good. Then again, encasing eggs in sausage and baking them sounds really, really easy.

Adding these in with all of those recipes from over at This Primal Life, sounds like I have my work cut out for me in the kitchen.

Yesterday, Richard over at Free The Animal put out a call to health & fitness bloggers to leave links to their website so he can update his blogroll. I used the comments myself to find a few new blogs and sites to keep an eye on. One of those is called This Primal Life. I gotta tell you, some of the recipes on that site look awesome and I will definitely be trying a few of them.

Here are a few that caught my eye:

• Strawberry Picking and a Primal Pie
• Coconut-Orange Pound Cake Recipe
• Experiments with Primal Cookie Making
  • Sort of Almost Primal Chocolate Chip Cookies and Other Recipes
• Primal Coconut Blueberry Muffins
• Primal Cheddar Jalepeno Biscuit Rounds Recipe
• Primal Carrot Cake with Coconut and Walnuts Recipe

I’ll have to post pictures and reviews when I extensively test each and every recipe.

Back in ‘06, just before I ran the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half-Marathon here in Virginia Beach, I created a replacement of the USDA’s food pyramid. Mark Sisson even used that original version in one of his posts: Sisson Says: Don’t “Loaf” Around. I had actually forgotten about it until I stumbled across Mark’s post. I could not find the original image I used and the one on Mark’s site is a bit degraded… and I really hated the font I used. So I recreated it…

The Paleo Pyramid

I just recreated this version using the same design as my first. Though thinking on it a bit, I might have changed a couple things. Specifically, rather put vegetables and fruits on the same level, I think I should’ve put vegetables as its own level just above meat. Then I would’ve made nuts, berries, and fruits vertical groups of the same size to fill the rest of the space — you know how the “new” USDA MyPyramid looks with the vertical slices for each group? That’s what I have in mind. Also, if I had more accurately represented the calorie distribution I’m aiming for, the meat group should’ve been much larger. Oh well… this should still be better than what the USDA is pushing on society now.

Meat Crust + Toppings = Meatza. Yummy!

My wife and I used to do this often when we were doing Atkins. I think that maybe it’s time to do it again… though, perhaps with less cheese. As I recall, it was typically just a beef crust, but I really like the idea of pork… oh, and maybe some turkey! Or, some chicken! Oh the possibilities… the yummy, yummy possibilities.

The Healthy Cooking Coach's Meatza

We’ll have to share pictures the next time we make it…

While recommitting myself, I mentioned a “paleo-esque lifestyle.” What do I mean by paleo-esque?

Well, first I guess I should tell you what “paleo” is in terms of diet. In my “About Me” post, I boil it down to “eating [just] what I could eat in the wild with nothing but a knife.” PaleoFood.com states it pretty succinctly at the top of the page:

Recipes are: grain-free, bean-free, potato-free, dairy-free, and sugar-free.
Ingredients used: meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, nuts, and berries.

While eating paleo, you can (for the most part) eat unlimited amounts of the foods in the “[i]ngredints used” list. If you are trying to lose weight, you need to be careful of the amount of fruit, but otherwise, have at it. At first, you might possibly find yourself overeating, but as you’re body adjusts to the high quality foods, you should begin to self-regulate without even realizing it. That’s what happened with me during my first go ’round with paleo.

I was also better able to recognize what foods my body was craving. When eating processed foods loaded with sugars, grains, etc, my cravings were generic: I wanted something and it didn’t matter what, I just ate! Once deeply into the paleo diet, I was able to tell specifically what I was craving: bananas, fish, steak, salad, etc.

Now, what do I mean by “paleo-esque?” Well, to my “ingredients used” list, I’m adding in corn, beans, and limited amounts of dairy.

Scott Kustes over at Fitness Spotlight posted a great article about how a Paleo/Primal eating plan improves your health.