Week 3 Paleo

Three weeks already! Its getting easier as Katy and I are learning what is and what is not paleo (in the strict definition of no grains, legumes, dairy, or added sugar) and are starting to discover some foods and meals that we really like!

Sunday

 

 

Breakfast

Veggie Juice

Peaches

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

Salad

Mixed Nuts

 

Dinner

Steak

Butternut Squash Fries

Salad
 

 

 

 

 

 

Butternut squash fries have definite potential. You just cut the squash into long (fry-esque) strips, and then coat it in a little olive oil and salt and then throw them in the oven.

Monday

 

Breakfast

Egg Muffin

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

Avocado Egg Salad

Veggies

Apple

 

Dinner

Fish Sticks

Green Beans

Watermelon

 

 

 

The fish sticks were from the Paleo Comfort Foods cookbook and, like the butternut squash fries had definite potential, but needed a little work. It is really hard to cut a fish fillet into perfectly even strips so that they bake evenly! The fish part is cod cut into strips and then the cod is dipped in almond flour, eggs, and chopped nuts (pecans and walnuts) and baked. We also made homemade tartar sauce for the fish sticks! The Avocado Egg Salad was another pinterest find and was incredibly easy and pretty tasty!

Avocado Egg Salad and Veggies

 

Tuesday 

 

Breakfast

Egg Muffin

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

Tuna Salad

Veggies

Blueberries

 

Dinner

Potluck Dinner

On Sunday we made egg muffins for the week, which is pretty much just eggs and veggies. They were okay, but they had a slimy texture and Katy decided that eating so many eggs wasn't exactly something she was in love with!

I am one of the co-presidents for The Nutrition Coalition at UNC, and so Tuesday we held our back to school pot luck dinner and decided to serve BBQ for all the students new to North Carolina! So, Katy and I stuck as closely to Paleo as we could by eating pulled pork (no bun) and lots of veggies that people had brought. Katy also made a baba ganoush (hummus with eggplant instead of chick peas) for the potluck.

 

Wednesday

 

 

Breakfast

Veggie/Fruit Smoothie

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

Avocado Egg Salad

Veggies

Mixed nuts w/ dried fruit

 

Dinner

Butternut Squash Soup

Salad

Peaches

 

 

 

 

 Butternut Squash soup was the winner for the week....it was excellent, and, most importantly, made for great leftovers!

 

Thursday

 

Breakfast

Green Avocado Smoothie

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

Leftover Soup

Veggies

 

Dinner

Crab Cakes

Sweet Potato Bites

Salad

 

Thursday was an interesting lesson in paleo. I got home late (around 7:45) and Katy was in the middle of cooking dinner. She was making her famous sweet potato bites (chop the sweet potato up into bite size pieces, toss with a little olive oil, rosemary, parsley, and garlic) and had just put them in the oven to bake for 40 minutes. The salad was mostly put together, and she was getting the salmon out to marinate. I took the dogs out for a walk and shortly after I left the house got a phone call from Katy. She was calling to inform me that the fish smelled rotten, but she wanted a second nose to confirm. So, I headed back to the house and sure enough the salmon did not smell like any kind of fish I would want to eat. We did not want to waste the food we had already prepared, and so at 8:00pm and with only half an hour until dinner I had to think of something I could quickly run and buy to replace the rotten salmon. This is when I realized how hard it is to eat paleo on the spur of the moment. I ended up grabbing some pre-made crab cakes from the seafood counter at Harris Teeter and called it a night, even though these crab cakes contained all sorts of non-paleo ingredients. I thought about a piece of steak or chicken, but I wanted something I could take home and have ready fast. I'm going to have to think about super fast paleo meals to have on reserve for the future.

 

Friday

 

Breakfast

Egg Muffin

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

Almond Butter w/ celery

Veggies

 Plum

 

Dinner:

Shrimp Skillet

Squash Casserole

Salad

 

 

We spent the weekend at Smith Mountain Lake with my family, who were wonderful at joining in on this paleo experiment. Katy and I cooked dinner for everyone Friday night, cooking out of the Paleo Comfort Foods cookbook. My Mom, being a good sport and going out of her way to serve us something paleo, made a paleo approved apricot and cherry cake with a fruit sorbet....very good!

 

 

 

 

On Saturday and Sunday morning we had delicious breakfasts...Saturday My Dad and twin brother, Seth, made veggie omelets with some home fries. On Sunday my Mom made paleo breakfast muffins, which we served with an assortment of fruit. For lunch we had brought along lots of veggies, baba ganoush, fruit, and mixed nuts....so other then a few cheats for dinner when we went to out Saturday night, it was a good weekend away!

 

Saturday night Katy and I made a blueberry crumble out of the next cookbook we are going to use, Practical Paleo, and it was delicious!

 

Thoughts:

 

We thought this week would be challenging because of spending the weekend away at the lake...however we made sure to plan ahead and pack plenty of stuff we could snack on, and it turned out to be fairly easy. However, we did (and will continue to) cheat on occasion, especially when my parents brought about 10 pounds of Monster cookies with them! We discovered some really good recipes this week of which we will certainly use again. Drinking our coffee black is getting easier, and while everyone else had ice cream with their blueberry crumble on Saturday night, we did not, and the crazy thing is, I didn't even miss it (except for maybe a little!).

 

 

 

Paleo Comfort Foods

Score 5.5/10

 

This cookbook tries to bring homestyle cooking into the paleo world. The problem is, ingredients get pretty expensive when you are trying to mimic this style of cooking. Coconut butter, coconut oil, almond flour, pecans, macadamia nuts, and the list of expensive food items goes on and on. There are some good recipes in here and the pictures of the food are sure to make your mouth water (the problem is to get your creations to look like theirs!). We enjoyed several of the items we cooked from this book, of which you'll read more about in week three's post.

Katy cooked out of this book for several recipes and had this to say: Pros of the cookbook are that the pictures are excellent, the ingredient notes about lesser known items were very helpful, and it was fun to see some traditional recipes done with a paleo spin. A big negative of the cookbook was that they don't list the number of servings their recipes make, so it was sometimes hard to plan out our meals when cooking for ourselves and trying to decide whether to half the recipe, or cooking for friends and trying to figure out how much to make. Some of the recipes were also hard to follow, which was frustrating.

My biggest issue with the cookbook was the long narrative at the beginning that detail the authors journeys. They do make some excellent points, and I found myself at times nodding my head in agreement with what they were saying. At other times I found myself shaking my head because I am already getting tired of the arrogant tone that seems to be characteristic of a lot of paleo authors and bloggers. Multiple times they refer to paleo as eating "real" food and talk condescendingly about non-paleo foods. They mention that some people can do good on a vegan diet and that's great, but for them paleo is a lifestyle. Well, I have news for these authors, for plenty of people being vegan isn't a diet, its a lifestyle as well. I think paleo can be a wonderful diet for the right people...but it is not for everyone. That doesn't mean that people not following paleo can not pursue or even attain optimal health. As a nutrition student I am a firm believer in our food choices being a very personal and individual decision with more than just good health playing a role in these choices. Everything from religion to culture to emotion and to just sheer enjoyment plays a role in what we choose to eat. I want people who write books about food and diet to remember this, but it seems often they are narrow minded in their food perspective.

I gave this a lower score than the last book because it had less recipes and some of the recipes it did have I later found almost identical recipes for free online. I loved the idea of taking a style of cooking (homestyle) and putting a paleo twist on it, and the pictures were excellent. So, in my unscientific rating scale, I gave the book a slightly higher than average score of 5.5.

Caveman Cookies

Katy and I thought it would be fun to try some Caveman Cookies. These are paleo cookies made with whole food ingredients. We ordered the regular cookies, which are made with honey, almond meal, walnuts, raisins, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon. We also ordered the Alpine cookies which consist of honey, hazelnut meal, almond meal, and toasted ground carob. Both cookies were really tasty and served to appease mine and Katy's sweet tooth on several occasions. However, these cookies are also expensive and the packages only contain 8 of these treats, which are quite small. Both on the Caveman Cookie website as well as on Amazon these packages are listed at $6.25 for 8 cookies.

The verdict: It was fun to try them and we might order them again in the future, but for now we'll stick to the delicious peaches we've been buying for our nightly sweet fix.

Week 2 Paleo

 

 

This week was a little difficult to be Paleo, but we did our best.

Monday

 

 

Breakfast

Walnuts

Blueberries

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

Salmon Salad

Veggies

Apple

 

Dinner

Squid's!

 

 

 

 

 

Monday night was mine and Katy's 7 year wedding anniversary. To celebrate we went out to eat and devoured some freshly killed lobster. Not sure how you can get much more Paleo than that...your food is alive one minute and dead and in your belly the next. I guess eating it raw would be even more caveman-esque. To go with our lobster we had mixed veggies. On a side note, my wife is amazing and I could not have asked for a better partner in life. I mean, come on....she's giving up dairy, grains, and legumes for me!

Tuesday

 

Breakfast

Chia Pod

Cherries

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

TunaSalad

Veggies

Plum

 

Dinner

Hamburgers

Watermelon

Salad

 

 

In the morning we experimented with a Chia Pod from Whole Foods. The ingredients were Chia Seed, Coconut Milk, and Vanilla Bean paste. According to several paleo blogs, Chia seed is a good primal food full of healthy omega-3 fats. Out of curiosity we decided to try it as we're trying to get creative with our breakfast foods. I thought it was a winner...had a good taste and fit the bill for Paleo. Katy was a little less convinced as she was not crazy about the texture.

 

Wednesday

 

 

Breakfast

Kale Smoothie (compliments of Pinterest)

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

Garden Salad

Mixed Nuts

Peaches

 

Dinner

Med Deli

 

Med Deli is one of our favorite restaurants. We decided to try it out and see what Paleo options we could find. Katy got a squash eggplant stew, roasted peach salad, and a fattoush salad. I got a cantaloupe stuffed with chicken salad and a greek salad. It was hard, but we said no to the pita bread. We can't know for sure what ingredients were used in the dressings, but for the most part we staid true to Paleo, because if it was not for this diet, our plates would have looked a lot different!

 

Thursday

 

 

Breakfast

Banana/Spinach smoothie

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

Celery and Almond Butter

Mixed Nuts

Apple

 

Dinner

Chicken Jalapeno Burgers

Guacamole

Veggies

Peaches 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday

 

 

Breakfast

Baked Sweet Potato with cinnamon

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

leftovers

 

 

The weekend was a busy one with us eating out both nights with friends. We tried our best to stay true to Paleo (Katy did better than me) but could not resist when one of our friends brought us over a homemade blueberry peach pie on Saturday night....it would have been rude to turn that down!

 

Thoughts

 

The challenge continues to be eating out. We feel like we can do a pretty good job staying away from grains, legumes, and dairy, but the hard part is staying away from added sugars as we are unsure of what all goes in to the dishes. Some paleo blogs recommend asking the waiter/waitress to inquire about all the ingredients, but we're not that crazy with this diet and so when we eat out we do our best and then kick back and enjoy our time with friends.

 

We did not cook a lot this week, but the winner was definitely the Chicken Jalapeno Burgers served with our homemade guacamole (Katy makes some awesome guac!). Not only were the burgers awesome, we realized we really like dipping different vegetables (cucumbers, carrots, and celery) in the guacamole in place of tortilla chips.

 

We're getting creative with breakfasts. I told a friend we did sweet potato one morning and they thought that was crazy. My question is, why is that crazy? We think in our minds that only certain things should be for breakfast, and, to me, that is what is crazy.

 

Another successful week (for the most part) of Paleo is in the books. People have started to ask if I feel different and I tell them,  "Its strange, but I keep getting this strong urge to leave my house and hunt down a wooly mammoth!" So, no, the answer is I don't feel any different than from two weeks ago.

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

Week 1 Paleo

As I made out the grocery list and shopped for our first week of paleo, I realized something exciting....everything I bought and put in our cart (with the exception of the cashews and almonds which were salted) had only 1 ingredient...meaning everything I bought was a WHOLE food.
That was a good feeling.

 

 
Monday

 

 

Breakfast

Walnuts

Cherries

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

Garden Salad

Mixed Nuts with dried fruits

Apple

 

Dinner

Steak (quality grass-fed New York strips)
Green Beans (straight from a friend's garden and steamed)Strawberries

I used the skirt steak marinade off of the blog, Mark's Daily Apple





 


Tuesday



 

 

Tuna Salad ingredients

Breakfast

Hardboiled Egg

Blackberries

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

Tuna Salad

Mixed Veggies

Mixed Nuts and Dried Fruit

 

Dinner
Lemon Basil Cod

Sautéed Zucchini and Squash

Cherries




Before

After



 
 

Wednesday

 

 

Egg Salad Ingredients

Breakfast

Pecans 

Cherries

Coffee (black)

 

Lunch

Egg Salad

Mixed Veggies

Peach

 

Dinner

Strawberry Chicken Salad
Green Beans

Strawberry Chicken Salad

 

 

 

Thursday

 

 

Breakfast

Strawberries 

Avocados

 

Lunch

Garden Salad

Mixed Nuts with dried fruits

Blackberries

 

Dinner
 Salmon

Baked Sweet Potato

Spinach and Strawberry Salad

 

 

Friday

 

 

Brunch

Scrambled Eggs with Onions,

Spinach, and Avocado

Strawberries

Pears

Veggie Juice (homemade)

Coffee (black)

 

Dinner

Steamed Shrimp and Crabs
Sautéed Veggies

 

The Weekend

 

The weekend was challenging because Katy and I spent the weekend at Virginia Beach volunteering with the organization "Life Rolls On" at their "They Will Surf Again" event in which volunteers help people with physical disabilities surf. It was an amazing event, and so we cheated some during the weekend, but we did our best and I was proud of our efforts. For breakfast they offered doughnuts and bagels, but we brought a pear and banana and so ate those instead. Lunch and dinner we cheated out of necessity. On Sunday we had eggs and fruit for breakfast at a local restaurant and for lunch stopped on our way home at a grocery store to have a salad. For dinner we picked up some shrimp and we made a salad.

 

 

Thoughts

 

We made it through the week with only eating desert once, and that was during our weekend at the beach. For every night that we were at home we staid true to the diet, and we did our best while eating out. Every recipe we cooked was from the cookbook 500 Paleo Recipes. We made mayo, salad dressings, tuna salad, and egg salad all from scratch. It was a good first week of Paleo and definitely made evident what some of the challenges will be (eating out) and what some of the rewards will be (cooking everything with whole ingredients).