Paleo Recipes

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

Dizzyblonde

I feel this thread is more suited to the Nutrition & Diet forum so I'm going to move it in there. There's a thread already in there that might interest you too http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056765159

Wibbs

While the so called Paleo diet is far better for someone than Maccy dees, Chinner dinners, "diet" coke and chocolate bars, the "paleo" bit is well spurious and provably so.

Wanna eat like our Paleolithic ancestors? OK, which ones? And which part of the paleolithic? Early? Middle? Late? Neandertals/Sapiens in glacial maximums? Then pretty much eat meat and offal and little else. Same in glacial minimums? Add more root veggies, grains(yep grains) and fruits/nuts in season. Paleolithic folks in Asia, or Africa? The choice is pretty big and each environment provided its own food choices.

Of course you must avoid all dairy as they most certainly didn't drink milk beyond weaning and defo not non human milk(which is very different), though that means ignoring the numerous gene changes that have occurred in modern populations since the advent of farming. The average person today is genetically quite different to a person from 10,000 years ago on the food adaptation front. Actually on the dietary adaptation front more different than we are to Neandertals in that respect. So dairy is fine, well unless you're a subcontinental Indian chap or chappess. Alcohol? Work away(in moderation) if you're European/Middle Eastern as you likely have the genetic adaptation for that too. Soya? Fine if you're Asian as you've been exposed to it for (only) two thousand years, but might be an interesting one for Europeans or Africans who've only been exposed to this novel protein for not much more than a generation.

The biggest difference today compared to human populations in the past, regardless of their environment? Sugar. Simple carbs. Very rare foodsource back in the day across the board, so IMHO the best "Paleo diet" would be to avoid simple sugars like the plague.


EDIT Naturally I'm not suggesting actual dietary advice here. I'm not a dietician. I just get twitchy when claims are made which don't bear scientific scrutiny.

Mellor

Wibbs, Im of similar opinion. Some advocates get far too into the strict paleo element and forget about the basic point. I'm talking about people who'll eat raw meat for lunch, random bits if exercise through out he day because that's what cavemen did.
On the diet front, they get so pedantic that they end up in endless contradictions.

On the other hand, im a huge fan of eating whole food. Meat, veg, fruit, nuts, fats. Real butter, yup dairy. Low sugar etc. Which is why I like the primal diet, very like paleo, but allows dairy and isn't and ridiculously anal about small things.

So eat real food. Call it what ever you want, remember its just a name.

Crann na Beatha

This post has been deleted.

RobAMerc

Its all about eating real good quality non processed food. And because of that I am a firm believer - trying to be paleo is much healthier than allowing lots of processed sugary junk into ones diet, and while knocking strict following of it is sensible, no one is going to be 100%.
I dont think anyone on this site takes it any further than a guideline to be fair.

Wibbs

Ah no I get ye, it's just the pedant in me when I read "Paleo diet". :D

Dotcomdolly

One of my fav paleo recipe sites is
Theclothesmakethegirl

Slydice

I hope to try out these Courgette (Zucchini) Pancakes if I get a chance in the next few weeks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-3OfXFK4Xg

Without the garlic

Slydice

Slydice wrote: »

I hope to try out these Courgette (Zucchini) Pancakes if I get a chance in the next few weeks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-3OfXFK4Xg

Without the garlic

I gave this recipe a shot during the week. Tasty stuff. Obviously I modified it to my taste.

Into a mixing bowl:
- Grated 1 courgette
- Added Finely diced (medium sized) onion
- Added (dry) Chilly Flakes from a Chilly Mill and some rosemary
- Added 1 egg.

Got my hands in and mixed it all about. Scooped in 5 servings unto frying pan and cooked them like mini pancakes as described in the video.

I think the onion added extra moisture than the scallions which she used. Maybe another dry ingredient could help with that.

--Kaiser--

Wibbs wrote: »

While the so called Paleo diet is far better for someone than Maccy dees, Chinner dinners, "diet" coke and chocolate bars, the "paleo" bit is well spurious and provably so.

Wanna eat like our Paleolithic ancestors? OK, which ones? And which part of the paleolithic? Early? Middle? Late? Neandertals/Sapiens in glacial maximums? Then pretty much eat meat and offal and little else. Same in glacial minimums? Add more root veggies, grains(yep grains) and fruits/nuts in season. Paleolithic folks in Asia, or Africa? The choice is pretty big and each environment provided its own food choices.

Of course you must avoid all dairy as they most certainly didn't drink milk beyond weaning and defo not non human milk(which is very different), though that means ignoring the numerous gene changes that have occurred in modern populations since the advent of farming. The average person today is genetically quite different to a person from 10,000 years ago on the food adaptation front. Actually on the dietary adaptation front more different than we are to Neandertals in that respect. So dairy is fine, well unless you're a subcontinental Indian chap or chappess. Alcohol? Work away(in moderation) if you're European/Middle Eastern as you likely have the genetic adaptation for that too. Soya? Fine if you're Asian as you've been exposed to it for (only) two thousand years, but might be an interesting one for Europeans or Africans who've only been exposed to this novel protein for not much more than a generation.

The biggest difference today compared to human populations in the past, regardless of their environment? Sugar. Simple carbs. Very rare foodsource back in the day across the board, so IMHO the best "Paleo diet" would be to avoid simple sugars like the plague.


EDIT Naturally I'm not suggesting actual dietary advice here. I'm not a dietician. I just get twitchy when claims are made which don't bear scientific scrutiny.

I would agree with some of your points, certainly most of the food we eat these bear little resemblance to food that would have been available to our distant ancestors, but the basic gist of the paleo diet is generally to avoid grains, vegetable oils and sugar. There are studies to back up the fact that these three groups are bad news from a nutritional standpoint so saying that it doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny is a bit disingenuous

Wibbs

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

There are studies to back up the fact that these three groups are bad news from a nutritional standpoint so saying that it doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny is a bit disingenuous

Oh no K I'm not saying avoiding grains veg oils and simple sugars doesn't stand up to some scientific scrutiny. It does. Well... depends on the study. Some advocate (certain)grains and (certain) veg oils, both being a staple of the mediterranean diet for example. Simple sugars are pretty much a no go though. What I do say is that the "Paleolithic diet" description is largely bogus. More than largely on a few levels. A fashionable label to attach to another healthy diet and lifestyle choice, which is also a pretty obvious one and to be fair not nearly as faddish nay daft as some out there.

Its when I read some websites/authors out there directly claiming this is how our paleolithic ancestors ate/lived I get an attack of the rolleyes. That's the non scientific bit I meant K. Hell acknowledged experts on the actual lifestyles of paleolithic humans are constantly surprised at what they find on a near yearly basis on the diet score. That the Neandertals processed and ate grains in some areas of their range a recent example. They used to think they were pure meat eaters, much like Eskimos today. Then I'd add in that even if this were an authentic Paleo diet for all humans(impossible), our very wide ranging and rapid genetic adaptations to local and novel foods(esp proteins) over the last 10,000 years would render it somewhat moot anyway. We're quite simply not the same people anymore*. Eating stone ground organic oats with raw milk would be a pretty healthy breakfast for most folks today, but would have a Cro Magnon Homo Sapiens running behind a bush with a severe dose of the liquid sitdowns. :eek::D





*mostly. EG Folks with an actual gluten intolerance, with a side order of a lactise intolerance would be more "Paleo" than the majority. I say "actually" as it was terribly fashionable a while back for everyone and his or her dog to claim a gluten/wheat intolerance. Handy for actual coeliacs though as the food got cheaper and more available

El_Dangeroso

Just a pedantic point but veg oils are not in any traditional diet at all, olive oil is technically a fruit oil, as is avocado. Seed oils are entirely a 20th century phenomenon, possibly with the exception of small amounts of seseme oil used very much as a condiment (never heated) in Asia.

I'm coming to think that very little else matters with diet as long as you get sufficient macro and micronutrients (not too much) and avoid veg and hydrogenated oil.

Even refined sugars are very much healthy in the context of a nutritious diet low in polyunsaturates.

--Kaiser--

Wibbs wrote: »

. Then I'd add in that even if this were an authentic Paleo diet for all humans(impossible), our very wide ranging and rapid genetic adaptations to local and novel foods(esp proteins) over the last 10,000 years would render it somewhat moot anyway. We're quite simply not the same people anymore*. Eating stone ground organic oats with raw milk would be a pretty healthy breakfast for most folks today, but would have a Cro Magnon Homo Sapiens running behind a bush with a severe dose of the liquid sitdowns. :eek::D

Well, the fact that grains contain many anti-nutrients that our bodies can't get around would suggest that we haven't fully evolved to eat grains (soaking gains does get rid of some of them but this practice is no longer widespread). As well as that, modern forms of grains (especially wheat) are far different that the strains that would have been around a few thousand years ago

Slydice

Dinner idea ( warning: Burney )
1 Salmon fillet. (from Pack of 2 salmon fillets from lidl)
1 Onion
2 Chillies
Few lumps of Frozen Broccoli (you choose how much)
1 Carrot
Some extra virgin olive oil

Put Salmon fillet in the oven on full heat for about 15-20 minutes.

Skin the onion and carrot and chop the ends off the chillies.
Then wash them all under cold water.
Chop up two chillies and one onion.
Cut the Carrot it into chunks.

When the Salmon is about 10 minutes from done, put carrots and broccoli into a saucepan and bring them to the boil.
Keep an eye on them and turn off the heat when they have boiled for about 5-6 minutes.

When the Salmon is about 5 minutes from done, add the oil to a pan/wok and bring to high heat.
Add the chillies and onion to the pan so they start cooking.

When the Salmon is ready, take it out of the oven and slice it into pieces. It will probably break up into stringy lumps.
Add the Salmon lumps to the pan.
Cook for about 5-10 minutes until you are happy with how cooked the onions and chillies are.

Drain the water from the boiled veg.

Serve all on a plate and add some mixed salad if you like

Enjoy. I just did. ( just remember the warning, it is a bit burney )

arse..biscuits

The only advice I can give is to use iceberg lettuce instead of wraps for fajitas

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

ive been trying iceberg lettuce wraps... they're a massive pain in the ass

they either tear so much they're unusable or they're so small you end up eating about 10 of them for a decent sized stir fry

arse..biscuits

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

ive been trying iceberg lettuce wraps... they're a massive pain in the ass

they either tear so much they're unusable or they're so small you end up eating about 10 of them for a decent sized stir fry

I love them. I get some leakage on the hands alright, but hey that's the way our ancestors ate fajitas

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

ive kinda just given up on the fajita element of it and just dump all the cooked ingredients into a bowl

Animord

I made the lamb rogan josh from this guy's site recently - it was excellent.

http://thedomesticman.com/

Slydice

Something practical to wrap around food (particularly for work lunches) would be brilliant. I've been spending a fair amount of time looking it up and haven't found anything other than lettuce/cabbage and they seem to get used freshly off their heads whenever I see them on youtube. One idea I've read about is using the Japanese "bento" boxes which compartmentalise foods.

Redisle

Wibbs wrote: »

While the so called Paleo diet is far better for someone than Maccy dees, Chinner dinners, "diet" coke and chocolate bars, the "paleo" bit is well spurious and provably so.
.....

I agree with this sentiment myself. I cringe to say that I eat "Paleo" so instead I usually do a long winded description of how I am avoiding processed foods etc. I don't think it's a great word to represent this idea of eating mainly unprocessed foods and avoiding grains/veg oil etc. I don't like to call it a "Diet" either as the word seems to be synonymous with Fad Diets and temporary changes. I guess calling it a Lifestyle choice has to suffice.

Wibbs wrote: »

Soya? Fine if you're Asian as you've been exposed to it for (only) two thousand years, but might be an interesting one for Europeans or Africans who've only been exposed to this novel protein for not much more than a generation.

I think the big issue with Soya is how it's consumed in the Western World. Soy flour is added to a ton of things, soy milk is used to replace real milk etc. It could form a large % of someones diet. In Asia it seems to be mainly consumed in a fermented form as a condiment rather than a staple food source. This is fine to an extent as fermentation does remove a large amount of the potentially harmful components of soy.

Chris Kresser has a nice paragraph on Soy at the end of this article.


Regarding the actual thread subject, there's tons of good resources out there for food ideas. I rarely follow recipes exactly but certainly get ideas from them.

Some Links...
http://www.paleoplan.com/recipes/
http://nomnompaleo.com/recipeindex (This one is fantastic -- check out the cauliflower mash)
http://everydaypaleo.com/category/food/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-blueprint-recipes


I make a lot of soup and stir fries for dinner as well as basic meat+veg stuff. I typically bring a salad with me for lunch in some tupperware. People may frown at the plastic but I don't care really when it's just for storing cold foods. Wouldn't heat anything in it though.

The salad usually comprises of some combination of spinnach + Tomato + 3 x boiled eggs + cucumber + peppers + seasoning & olive oil. If you don't have a fridge at college/work just make it the night before and refrigerate, then take it in the morning. If kept in a bag it should still be pretty cold at lunch. This can be a very nice lunch if seasoned properly imo, I change it up quite a lot but some pepper sauce, salt and pepper and some chilli powder or paprika can work wonders.

I'm also starting to do a lot of "old fashioned" things like making stock. I have made chicken stock a few times now and beef stock once so far. It's very easy to do and makes for some fantastic soups and sauces. (Beef stock reduction after pan frying steak and mushrooms = yum).

karlitob

Wibbs wrote: »

the "paleo" bit is well spurious and provably so.

Where is your provable data. Robb Wolff has provided pages of references that support his arguments.

Wibbs wrote: »

Of course you must avoid all dairy as they most certainly didn't drink milk beyond weaning and defo not non human milk(which is very different), though that means ignoring the numerous gene changes that have occurred in modern populations since the advent of farming. The average person today is genetically quite different to a person from 10,000 years ago on the food adaptation front.

Where is your support for this? What 'numerous gene changes' have we undergone? What genes? What effect has this had and where is the supporting literature?

Wibbs wrote: »

Naturally I'm not suggesting actual dietary advice here. I'm not a dietician.

Great. And who decides if it does bear up to scientific scrutiny? You? The paleo diet has been researched by Prof Loren Cordain for the past 30 years. He holds a professorship in the Dept of Health & Ex Science at Colorado State University. I'm sure we can agree that he is a scientist.

Wibbs

karlitob wrote: »

Where is your provable data. Robb Wolff has provided pages of references that support his arguments.

Fair play, though I might question his references.

However, which paleolithic diet does he speak of, which environment and even which paleolithic member of our species is he talking about? The paleolithic era spans a very long time and contains at least five members of the human family. OK let's limit it to the upper paleolithic and our species Homo Sapiens? Which environment? Indeed which Home Sapiens? One of the major and I do mean major markers of our particular human species is our adaptability to local and novel foods. Far more than our predecessors and cousins. It may even be one of the factors that led to us being here and them being not(except as echoes in our genes).

EG you mentioned milk? Lactose tolerance is relatively new, in adults at least and only in certain populations(between 20 and 15 KYA, in Europeans mostly, but not exclusively. Some African folks are better subjects for tracing the adaptations). The majority of suckling infants have the ability to generate lactase which breaks down milk so it can be digested. Keeping that into adulthood was the neat trick and it was an evolutionary adaptation that did it. A pretty recent one too. OK, don't buy it? How do you explain lactose intolerance(or tolerance) in different modern populations then? Why does an average northern European get to enjoy a glass of milk, yet the average Indian can't? You want to get technical about it? Have an oul read of this, then come back to the debate.

Following on from that, how can you explain the variance in dietary tolerance, or not across the modern worlds people? Quite simply, one size can't fit all. High fat diets baaad? Tell that to a native Inuit(who are generally healthier on that diet than even a pretty OK western diet. Well they do have bigger livers as a local adaptation). A glass of wine a day is good for you? Great for an Italian or French person, but tell that to Native Americans, or Australians and others who never selected for the genes that break down alcohol. Cheese is grand? Tell that to an Indian who gets the liquid sitdown after a slice. Whole grains are good for you? Tell that to populations that didn't have the agricultural revolution, so have a higher than world average reaction to gluten. Mediterranean diet? Great diet, but tell that to a Celiac. Hell the Roman Galen 2000 years ago spotted this.

Where is your support for this? What 'numerous gene changes' have we undergone? What genes? What effect has this had and where is the supporting literature?

Have an oul read;
http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/evolutionary-adaptation-in-the-human-lineage-12397
http://www.livescience.com/7971-humans-evolving-brains-shrink.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/science/20adapt.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.news.wisc.edu/14548
/www.reuters.com/article/2007/12/10/us-evolution-human-idUSN1043228620071210
http://phys.org/news/2011-10-humans-evolving.html
That's after a very brief google digabout. The literature is all over the place. Along with pressures like population and novel pathogens, novel diets feature in the mix and there's likely more to come.

Great. And who decides if it does bear up to scientific scrutiny? You?

For me, yes and why not, if I review and keep up to speed with new data? Goes for anything people can reseacrh for themselves if they've a mind to.

The paleo diet has been researched by Prof Loren Cordain for the past 30 years. He holds a professorship in the Dept of Health & Ex Science at Colorado State University. I'm sure we can agree that he is a scientist.

One of the great things, if not the greatest things about science, good science is that it's up for review and constantly under scrutiny and constantly aware of new findings. Anything else is posing as faith(all to common in diet discussions). Hell 5 years ago the vast majority of scientists were utterly and vocally convinced we didn't have any gene exchange with other human species, yet today they are happy to say we did(even with a few scarlet faces in the mix).

In short and in diet, one size doesn't and can't fit all of humanity. Basically because each of us is a product of our evolutionary legacy and that varies quite a bit. Any diet that claims otherwise and claims to be a panacea for all humanity is at best very vague and at worst BS. Yes people are going to be better on a "Paleo diet" than on a mix of choccies, Chinnerdinners and Maccydees, but they would be better on a basic homecooked "meat and two veg" diet too. It doesnt "prove" much beyond the bloody obvious.

Ziphius

karlitob wrote: »

Great. And who decides if it does bear up to scientific scrutiny? You? The paleo diet has been researched by Prof Loren Cordain for the past 30 years. He holds a professorship in the Dept of Health & Ex Science at Colorado State University. I'm sure we can agree that he is a scientist.

The first google hit for Loren Cordain is 'thepaleodiet.com' which is " the original site for the Paleo Diet, your lifelong plan to optimize health and well being" (which is in turn a quote from himself).

He's hardly the most objective authority.

Ziphius

karlitob wrote: »

Where is your support for this? What 'numerous gene changes' have we undergone? What genes? What effect has this had and where is the supporting literature?

An interesting article published yesterday on nature.com describes a study of genetic change of human populations.

The article states that of the "1.15 million single-nucleotide variants found among more than 15,000 protein-encoding genes, 73% in arose the past 5,000 years".

Bear in mind that the palaeolithic ended 10,000 years ago.

Dotcomdolly

Slydice wrote: »

Something practical to wrap around food (particularly for work lunches) would be brilliant. I've been spending a fair amount of time looking it up and haven't found anything other than lettuce/cabbage and they seem to get used freshly off their heads whenever I see them on youtube. One idea I've read about is using the Japanese "bento" boxes which compartmentalise foods.

I've found gem lettuce works well if iceberg doesn't work for you.