So we're going Paleo. What should I pack?

StevLL

Doc say’s, no sugar, no dairy, no wheat, no corn, no grains, no soy, no processed foods, eat only foods without chemicals eat Paleo. Okay, so we are not completely new to this healthier lifestyle thingy, we can do this! We say, “Look at our pantry, we are like there!” Yeah us! Being good students, we, based on the best couch potato experts, download Netflix. We can view some documentaries on nutrition and food. AHHHHH!!!! Run for the hills Batman, that stuff is scary! Look what they are putting in food and calling it natural!!! However, we say to ourselves we have been doing well and our pantry is cool don’t ya know. (Insert smug look of righteousness here)
So let us look at our “cool” pantry, dried beans, quinoa and chickpeas from sprouts, check all good. However, didn’t she say no grains, does that mean the Quinoa must go? Yea buddy that’s what that means. (Insert slightly less smugly looking face) Okay well, shredded coconut is on the Paleo list so, that’s good, but wait, why is the ingredient list so long? Let’s look closer shall we. Coconut first on the list, sweet, then water, okay water is good. Now let’s see, sugar, why, coconut is sweet? Next is Propylene Glycol, isn’t that what was in the bottle I just poured into my truck radiator? Next ingredient is, salt. Why salt if it’s supposed to be sweet? Then last but not least Sodium Metabisulfite, what the heck!? I just wanted shredded coconut in my gluten free natural brown sugar pure protein powder cookies! I can see the teacher now! Red marks flying in all directions, D- on your pantry. So we go through it with a fine toothcomb, Natures Harvest Wasabi peas from the health food store must be good right. Not so much if you do not mind yellow and blue dye, soy and modified cornstarch, because the regular cornstarch in it is apparently not enough. (Insert look of complete surrender, DAANNNGGG!)
Tossed what was open and going to donate or give away what is not, but now our pantry really is, wheat, gluten, grain, soy, corn, dairy, processed, chemical free and almost sugar free. (Still has local mesquite honey in it) There is nothing in it, but real food, which now takes up half of a shelf of the previously burgeoning shelves. Now, to learn about Paleo.
Plant based, no grains, no dairy, no fatty meat, no processed food, but wait there is bacon on the list. Correct me, but that is fatty, processed up the wazu and not chemical free. Therefore, I am confused and it is only the first site I have been to. If you are Paleo and have recipes and ideas shout’em out, because what I thought was us leaning towards Paleo was more like just leaning over the coffin. Need links too, to help fine-tune our approach. We had already started juicing 4 days ago to reboot our system and that should help transition to all natural, whole foods.
Enjoy your day, thanks for any help in advance and for the love of all things good, if you wanna live, read your labels. If you wanna good scare tomorrow, read your labels. It ain’t pretty, but it’s what’s for dinner.:noway: :bigsmile:

laurelderry

Steve!! WHOLE 30! Look it up It's the most amazing Paleo guide EVER! And Jan's Sushi Bar (shes on Facebook and has a website) has some AMAZING Paleo recipes, along with OMG Paleo and "Well Fed"

kodiakke

I'm not strict paleo, but paleo is defined as many things. However, check out the following websites for recipes and ideas (I am not affiliated with any of them, just followers of FB and blogs):

Ditto on OMG Paleo, funny as heck!
Elana's Pantry
PaleoPot (focus on crockpot style foods - how easy does it get, I ask you?)
Nom Nom Paleo
Civilized Caveman Cooking (or something like that)

You can make some delish, non-processed non-junkie things from the websites above. Have fun with it!

Cheers!

nomeejerome

Ask buddy.....

GlassslippersAndFairyDust

Hi Steve, I live on these pages, which you can find on FB: Primal Dieting, South Beach Primal, Paleo Mom, Homemade Mommy, Just Eat Real Food, Grass Fed Girl, Primal Bliss, Marina's Primal/Paleo Cooking and Against All Grain. These are all great places to get recipes and such. We eat Applegate bacon....It's as Paleo/Primal as it gets. :flowerforyou:

ldrosophila

joke post?

Is my sarcasm feeler off a 62lbs loss is very commendable would think you've got things figured out.

StacyReneO

I've never read no bacon in any Paleo literature. You do have to be careful about the types of meat you eat on Paleo - grass-fed, no nitrates, humanely raised, no antibiotics, etc. Most people are often just too lazy to pursue nitrate free bacon and humanly raised meats. There is also the option of curing your own bacon if you have the time.

darkangel45422

With the bacon, what's meant is not the highly processed shrink wrapped stuff you find in most grocery store but rather unprocessed bacon - basically just cured/smoked pig.

Check out marksdailyapple.com for an AMAZING amount of resources for going Primal (VERY similar to Paleo); it's got daily posts on a wide variety of ancestral living topics and it's been around for years so you can find info on just about everything. Wanna know what grains are bad, worse, worst or neutral? Got it. Wanna know exactly the differences between conventionally grown meat and grass-fed/organic/naturally raised/etc. etc. etc.? Got it. It's well worth a read on topics you're interested in.

Amadbro

Milk and cheese

Mr_Knight

I've never read no bacon in any Paleo literature.

Bacon comes pigs, which are a farmed animals, which can't be "paleo" by definition. Boar meat, which could conceivably be considered "paleo", has completely different nutritional content than pig meat. Ditto for beef (not paleo) relative to bison (arguably paleo).

There is also no such thing as "unprocessed bacon".

As a frame of reference, I actually raise my own heritage breed free range pigs, and make my own bacon.

WakkoW

Quiona is not a grain. It's a fruit.

chrisdavey

looks like 99% of paleo peeps have it wrong with the bacon then.

I'm glad that I'm on the anti-food avoidance diet.

mmipanda

if it has a face, its paleo enough for me.

FredDoyle

I'm going into the bush. I'll take what we always do:
Jerky , grains, and a bit of fat. See you on the other side.

erickirb

woolly mammoth

LolBroScience

Sabertooth Tiger Jerky

FredDoyle

Quiona is not a grain. It's a fruit.

Well, it's the seed of a chenopod. Not really a fruit. It's not a true grain either since it's not a grass.

Acg67

richardheath

What specific health issues have you been diagnosed with that your doctor would prescribe this diet for you?

ChrisM8971

The "no processed foods" always confuses me in these discussions because what processes are no no's don't seem to be mentioned very often

FredDoyle

Better stick to edible native plants too since all the vegetables in the store are recent cultivars. Man's been messing with those.
They're right out for paleo man.

MissHolidayGolightly

Eat crickets.

aimforhealthy

I've never read no bacon in any Paleo literature. You do have to be careful about the types of meat you eat on Paleo - grass-fed, no nitrates, humanely raised, no antibiotics, etc. Most people are often just too lazy to pursue nitrate free bacon and humanly raised meats. There is also the option of curing your own bacon if you have the time.

Or, you know, too poor.

kodiakke

looks like 99% of paleo peeps have it wrong with the bacon then.

I'm glad that I'm on the anti-food avoidance diet.

Hah! That's how I feel when I read about people who are anti-GMO, anti-processed, anti-farmed foods. What the heck do you end up eating? I am trying to follow a general "eat what is good for your body, avoid what just makes your brain feel happy but doesn't nourish your body" lifestyle. And still drinking wine.

Rage_Phish

I've never read no bacon in any Paleo literature. You do have to be careful about the types of meat you eat on Paleo - grass-fed, no nitrates, humanely raised, no antibiotics, etc. Most people are often just too lazy to pursue nitrate free bacon and humanly raised meats. There is also the option of curing your own bacon if you have the time.

Or, you know, too poor.

Poor people are poor cause they're lazy. Everyone knows this

theopenforum

what should you pack? dead animal and mother nature ^_^

redredy9

bump

cwolfman13

I've never read no bacon in any Paleo literature. You do have to be careful about the types of meat you eat on Paleo - grass-fed, no nitrates, humanely raised, no antibiotics, etc. Most people are often just too lazy to pursue nitrate free bacon and humanly raised meats. There is also the option of curing your own bacon if you have the time.

Or, you know, too poor.

Also, no such thing as nitrate free bacon...companies that make "nitrate free" foods generally use celery juice in lieu of the pink salt...celery juice is all sodium nitrate. They can claim no added sodium nitrate because it's naturally occurring in the celery. So people get to spend and extra how many ever $$$ for something marketed as "nitrate free" that actually has more nitrates than it would have had they just used the pink salt.

i have curred my own bacon and just used the pink salt...I also cure my own corned beef. Also, the "nitrates are going to kill you" crap is just a whole lot of fear mongering. The National Academy of Sciences, the American Cancer Society and the National Research Council all agree that there's no proof of cancer risk from consuming sodium nitrite.

kodiakke

Also, no such thing as nitrate free bacon...companies that make "nitrate free" foods generally use celery juice in lieu of the pink salt...celery juice is all sodium nitrate. They can claim no added sodium nitrate because it's naturally occurring in the celery. So people get to spend and extra how many ever $$$ for something marketed as "nitrate free" that actually has more nitrates than it would have had they just used the pink salt.

i have curred my own bacon and just used the pink salt...I also cure my own corned beef. Also, the "nitrates are going to kill you" crap is just a whole lot of fear mongering. The National Academy of Sciences, the American Cancer Society and the National Research Council all agree that there's no proof of cancer risk from consuming sodium nitrite.

Eeenteresting... It's very difficult (IMO) to eat "healthy" nowadays because so much of the science is interpreted by different people, usually with their own slant on it. I just try and educate myself as much as possible, and not get so hung up on being strict, because then life becomes no fun. Also, it becomes very expensive, due in part to your comment above - people spending money on what they think will help. I knew that celery was used as "natural nitrates", but wasn't aware the NRC doesn't note causal effects. I'll have to check that out, thanks!

I'm new here, so would like to say, anyone interested in logically healthy eating or exchanging information like the above, please friend me to share these things! I'm still trying to figure out the best way to go through all these forums and, er, harvest (haha) the info.

Cheers!

bbontheb

I've never read no bacon in any Paleo literature. You do have to be careful about the types of meat you eat on Paleo - grass-fed, no nitrates, humanely raised, no antibiotics, etc. Most people are often just too lazy to pursue nitrate free bacon and humanly raised meats. There is also the option of curing your own bacon if you have the time.

I have to correct you on this assumption. We do not seek purchase these meats most of the time because we have 4 kids and one income and cost comes down to a huge factor, as our location, and transportation limitations. In addition, education is key. Many people don't know *to* look for something other than what they are used to as well as what the differences of say grain-fed and grass-fed/organic, etc. I firmly believe if we change our perspective and we help educate, and offer some degree of "try your best"...more people will become receptive to eating Paleo Editing to add not just "Paleo" but making "improved" choices regardless of your diet.

StevLL

Wow, thanks for the ideas and the advice and of course the energized comments.

I can clear up the bacon comment. I meant bacon is on the " can eat" list of Paleo, but it also says you should avoid fatty meats and chemicals, so I can't help but wonder how bacon is okay since it is fatty and a processed meat. Of course bacon does make everything taste better and we have already been using the nitrate free brands, so it really was more of a "thinking out loud" question that if anyone had the answer to would be kinda neat, but not life altering.

Good news is with a little research there are affordable natural, humanely processed meat sources available and we already belong to a vegetable coop plus grow some of our own, so it's doable.

We have been slowly (very slowly) changing our diets and while I have had success in losing I would like to take it to the next level and really clean up my eating and reduce my carbon impact. My wife has had MS for 17 years and this doctor we went to believes that if we can detoxify her body, she could see a reduction or reversal of symptoms and that's a pretty good motivation for taking our food and nutrient plan to the next level.

Thanks for the links and site info. I'm off to learn more. Good news is it's already jump started the weigh tloss again and I've lost 4 lbs already this week and feel much more energized. :bigsmile: