500 Paleo Recipes

500 Paleo Recipes

 

Score: 6/10

 

I kicked off my paleo journey by buying the cookbook, 500 Paleo Recipes, by Dana Carpender. Ms. Carpender spends the first 25 pages of her cookbook talking about paleo and some of her personal beliefs. She is of the train of thought that dairy, even though the cavemen did not consume cheese and butter, is okay. To me, this is just another paleo enthusiast saying they are eating like a caveman/cavewoman, but then taking exceptions to that rule because they don't want to give up some of their favorite foods. I realized that Ms. Carpender was writing largely based on her personal beliefs, some of which I think are a little nutty. She talks about the importance of exercise, but says to remember to exercise how our ancestors did, which, as she points out, did not include running marathons. Just because our ancestors did not (and we can't know for sure) run marathons does not mean this is not a healthy form of exercise. Also, Ms. Carpender recommends ditching the sun screen because our ancestors ran around all day naked without it! She says our obsession with sun screen has led to vitamin D deficiencies....I would argue its not our use of sunscreen but our lack of outside time due to the overuse of television and videogames.

Despite disagreeing with some of what Ms. Carpender says, she also makes some good points. She talks about our insane sugar consumption in this country, talks about the importance of not only diet, but other lifestyle factors as well, like sleep and exercise. She mentions the importance of eating quality meat and meat that has been humanely raised.

Most importantly, the cookbook has some good recipes in it. The recipes, for the most part, are easy to read and follow. The cookbook has good variety and I enjoyed skimming the pages looking for tasty ideas.

I am going to give this book a 6 out of 10 on my rating scale that is based solely on my thoughts and opinions. I liked a lot of the recipes I read through, but found some to be complicated with unclear instructions. While Ms. Carpender made some good points in her intro, she also wrote about some topics I disagreed with. All in all, a good cookbook for someone new to this diet.