So, I've changed my diet a touch. Not too drastically, because I hate drastic changes, but a little bit. I happened upon some good resources on Paleo diet eating. Mostly, I typically think of fad diets as, well just that - fad diets. Take for example the Atkins diet - I hated that shite! I am not Enui and therefore I should not eat just whale meat. Sorry, but it's not in my genes. The Paleo diet, on the other hand is, after a little reading, quite interesting to think about.
In short, and I am by no means an expert, the Paleo Diet assumes the principle of mismatch between what (us) evolutionary psychologist call the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (the EEA) and our modern, industrialized world. The mismatch principle suggests (and I might note is supported by loads of psychological, biological, and anthropological data) that we are currently living in a world that was designed by us, but NOT designed for us. In fact, in strict EEA terms, our bodies are designed (by EVOLUTION) to be more like hunter gatherer tribes people.
Here are some straight up facts: Evolution is slow. It can take thousands, 10's of thousands, 100's of thousands, even millions of years for evolution to craft a change in an organism. We call this natural selection. In our ancestry, in fact in every organisms ancestry environments (that is landscape, food availability, predator risk, etc) tend to change fairly slowly. There are of course exceptions, but often in the event of exception many many individuals die. Take as an example, say, an ice age in the Northern parts of the world. Only those individuals who had evolved a mechanism to store large quantities of fat (for warmth) under our skin survived. The rest froze to death for a modern day anthropologist to dig up and become famous for ;-) In stark contrast, Industrialization is fast. Once our ancestors invented a means to pass information from one member to another within generation - memetically - industry could grow exponentially. Once our ancestors invented a means for printing and mass distributing the information, thus preserving valuable neural resources from reinventing the same old "wheel" technology could, and quite literally has, grown at rates that approach light speed.
The figure above theoretically plots the difference between evolutionary and industrial change over n generations. The magnitude of change at any given generation can be thought of as the magnitude of mismatch.
Taking the above theoretically-derived data to the notion of eating. Imagine that we are the product of evolutionary change (a biological organism) existing in a world of industrial change. Thus, this very existence has wreaked havoc on our bodies, probably being one of the main drivers of food allergies, mental illness, among other things. When it comes to food, because we started this post with a discussion of food and the Paleo Diet, assume that our biology has evolved to digest properly, extract nutrients from, and process foods that we encountered n generations ago (think thousands to 100's of thousands of years ago). But now, we have evolved the brain power for agriculture: now we artificially grow animals, instead of hunting them. Now we harvest milk, while our ancestors would have most certainly not done so without getting kicked in the face by a bison, and most likely would not have sucked on the utter of a dead cow when they could be pigging out on bone marrow or organ meats. Now we grow grains and in order to utilize the grains they need to be artificially processed, mulled, hulled, and goodness knows what else. Our ancestors most likely harvested wild fruits, berries, nuts, tubors, roots, and root vegetables. Occasionally, a lucky ancestor may have happened upon a great protein resource - eggs. Eaten raw, gross by our standards, and mine included - I like Paleo, but would have a hard time thinking about going Raw Paleo. So in short, and by short I mean we've just scratched the surface, this is the heart of the Paleolithic diet. Eat like a caveman because that is what nature has in mind for you to eat.
Now back to my breakfast of champions. I used to eat one of either a very large bowl of cereal with cow milk (artificially harvested grains and dairy milk) or cereal and fruit topped with cottage cheese (same things here). So how does one make the swap to a Paleo breakfast but keep the breakfast-y foods they like to eat. It is so freaking simple. Here is my recipe for a dynamite tasting and healthy breakfast (and what's pictured at the start of this post).
Pecan waffles and Southwest Omelette
Here's how you make it - takes about 5-10 minutes prep (depending on how tired you are, last night my dog woke me up barking at 5 am, so it took a while this morning). Takes about 10-15 (MAX) to cook.
In an omelette pan start sautéing some vegetables - i use anything from broccoli, asparagus, spinach, okra, squash/zucchini, eggplant, onion, parsnips, carrots (you get the idea). Season to your liking. I use a cajun seasoning made of crushed red pepper, sea salt, pepper, and garlic powder (it's quite spicy and nice).
While the veggies are cooking prepare your 'waffle batter' and begin to heat up your waffle iron.
Waffle batter: Combine 1/4 cup pecan meal + 1 whole large egg + 1/4 cup coconut milk (I use reduced fat, lite cocount milk, cuts about 66% calories from regular coconut milk). Whip together using a kitchen whisk. I sometimes also add a 1/3 smashed banana (really good) or some type of berry (blue, black, straw, etc).
By now your veggies are probably about ready to get egged. So pour 2 servings of Egg whites (I buy the 100% egg whites from the market, but you could easily make your own with real eggs).
Pour waffle batter into waffle iron and spread evenly. I usually wait just about 1 minute before closing the lid so that the bottom of this unusual mixture begins to cook a little.
Flip the omelette when ready.
The waffle iron will let you know when the waffle has been cooked, but with my waffle iron I need to let it cook another 2-3 minute so that I can pluck it out without the waffle falling to pieces.
And while all that was cooking, I chopped up a piece of red onion, a quarter of a tomato, and cilantro to make a fresh pico de gallo for a topping. Top the waffle with pure maple syrup or raw honey. Both are excellent toppings, although you do get more bang for the caloric buck using honey.
Enjoy.
I have found two major things associated with my change in diet:
1) i have loads of energy. That plus I sleep deeper. So when I wake up, I am usually not groggy, unless Bruno (my dog) has woken me up for no good reason at 5am and I have energy all day.
2) my knee joints no longer hurt. i had read about dairy related arthritic like pains, but never believed it. I can now do deep squats, one-legged squats, cleans, etc without pain.
Taking the above theoretically-derived data to the notion of eating. Imagine that we are the product of evolutionary change (a biological organism) existing in a world of industrial change. Thus, this very existence has wreaked havoc on our bodies, probably being one of the main drivers of food allergies, mental illness, among other things. When it comes to food, because we started this post with a discussion of food and the Paleo Diet, assume that our biology has evolved to digest properly, extract nutrients from, and process foods that we encountered n generations ago (think thousands to 100's of thousands of years ago). But now, we have evolved the brain power for agriculture: now we artificially grow animals, instead of hunting them. Now we harvest milk, while our ancestors would have most certainly not done so without getting kicked in the face by a bison, and most likely would not have sucked on the utter of a dead cow when they could be pigging out on bone marrow or organ meats. Now we grow grains and in order to utilize the grains they need to be artificially processed, mulled, hulled, and goodness knows what else. Our ancestors most likely harvested wild fruits, berries, nuts, tubors, roots, and root vegetables. Occasionally, a lucky ancestor may have happened upon a great protein resource - eggs. Eaten raw, gross by our standards, and mine included - I like Paleo, but would have a hard time thinking about going Raw Paleo. So in short, and by short I mean we've just scratched the surface, this is the heart of the Paleolithic diet. Eat like a caveman because that is what nature has in mind for you to eat.
Now back to my breakfast of champions. I used to eat one of either a very large bowl of cereal with cow milk (artificially harvested grains and dairy milk) or cereal and fruit topped with cottage cheese (same things here). So how does one make the swap to a Paleo breakfast but keep the breakfast-y foods they like to eat. It is so freaking simple. Here is my recipe for a dynamite tasting and healthy breakfast (and what's pictured at the start of this post).
Pecan waffles and Southwest Omelette
Here's how you make it - takes about 5-10 minutes prep (depending on how tired you are, last night my dog woke me up barking at 5 am, so it took a while this morning). Takes about 10-15 (MAX) to cook.
In an omelette pan start sautéing some vegetables - i use anything from broccoli, asparagus, spinach, okra, squash/zucchini, eggplant, onion, parsnips, carrots (you get the idea). Season to your liking. I use a cajun seasoning made of crushed red pepper, sea salt, pepper, and garlic powder (it's quite spicy and nice).
While the veggies are cooking prepare your 'waffle batter' and begin to heat up your waffle iron.
Waffle batter: Combine 1/4 cup pecan meal + 1 whole large egg + 1/4 cup coconut milk (I use reduced fat, lite cocount milk, cuts about 66% calories from regular coconut milk). Whip together using a kitchen whisk. I sometimes also add a 1/3 smashed banana (really good) or some type of berry (blue, black, straw, etc).
By now your veggies are probably about ready to get egged. So pour 2 servings of Egg whites (I buy the 100% egg whites from the market, but you could easily make your own with real eggs).
Pour waffle batter into waffle iron and spread evenly. I usually wait just about 1 minute before closing the lid so that the bottom of this unusual mixture begins to cook a little.
Flip the omelette when ready.
The waffle iron will let you know when the waffle has been cooked, but with my waffle iron I need to let it cook another 2-3 minute so that I can pluck it out without the waffle falling to pieces.
And while all that was cooking, I chopped up a piece of red onion, a quarter of a tomato, and cilantro to make a fresh pico de gallo for a topping. Top the waffle with pure maple syrup or raw honey. Both are excellent toppings, although you do get more bang for the caloric buck using honey.
Enjoy.
I have found two major things associated with my change in diet:
1) i have loads of energy. That plus I sleep deeper. So when I wake up, I am usually not groggy, unless Bruno (my dog) has woken me up for no good reason at 5am and I have energy all day.
2) my knee joints no longer hurt. i had read about dairy related arthritic like pains, but never believed it. I can now do deep squats, one-legged squats, cleans, etc without pain.
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