Paleo and primal

[Daughteroughter]

I have been reading about paleo and primal diets has anyone tried them?

pufflemum, it does sound like you need to up your fat intake for fuel. When you eat few carbs, you need to replace them with fat.

A few pointers for upping fat intake:

Try making your own mayonnaise with light tasting olive oil. There are plenty of guides online (just search for paleo mayonnaise) and you quickly learn. It's great with tinned tuna.

I make paleo pesto with basil, olive oil, pumpkin seeds (my dh is allergic to pine nuts and they are too expensive anyway) and lemon juice/peel. You can make with any fresh herb (I get them on offer or from the local Asian shop) and pesto is great as a salad dressing or with steak.

Coconut milk is a good source of fat. I sometimes make a green smoothie of spinach, coconut milk and an avocado (another great fat, avocado oil is delicious, but expensive). Coconut oil is an excellent fat but expensive.

Make sure your salad is drenched in olive oil and pour olive oil over cooked veggies as well.

Lard is another popular paleo fat. I can't stand the smell when frying but I don't mind the taste.

You can also use goose fat or duck fat and you can even use the fat from cooking bacon (get the rashers, they are fattier than back bacon) for cooking.

When you buy mince, try to get the fattier versions. And make sure you get chicken fillets with skin on.

Fish: Sardines, mackerel, tuna and herring are the fattier fish.

snoworneahva, I didn't know that was why ghee/clarified butter is better tolerated. I recently got some from my local Asian shop and it's great stuff for cooking.

What does ghee taste like? Does it taste like butter or does it taste different?

Thanks for all the info re coconute milk and kafir grains.

Misscph, if I'm avoiding dairy as much as possible (not diagnosed intolerance but suspect it causes me problems so have cut all dairy out of my diet apart from occasionally a little hard cheese which doesn't seem to affect me) will milk kafir grains be a problem possibly?

What do people have nut butters with?

Google tells me these are good ways to eat nut butters:

With fruit/veg/salad sticks

You can make pancake batter by mixing a big spoonful of nut butter with a mashed up banana and two eggs.

You can also use it in shakes and smoothies. Nut butters go very well with coconut milk in the blender.

If you have any bananas that are starting to get old throw them in the freezer... later cut them open and blend them together with a little bit of nut butter and some water if it's too thick. Makes a great ice-cream like smoothie.

And then there the "nut butter lollipop" option- scoop a spoonful out of the jar and lick off the spoon!

thebestpossibletaste , re coconut milk and milk kefir grains: You can rinse the kefir grains if they have been in milk. They are not made of milk, they just like to grow in milk. I "refeed" my kefir grains in (a small cup of) whole cow's milk every now and again, but many don't and they live just fine in coconut milk only. Alternatively you could "refeed" the kefir grains in whole goat's milk.

Having said that, many people handle cultured/fermented dairy much better than milk and cream.

I am like you, I have not officially got a diary intolerance, but I try to avoid it as I suspect it's not exactly optimal for me. I do drink the kefir milk from the "refeed" of the kefir grains, as no one else in the family wants it and I am not going to pour it down the sink.

nappyaddict, I haven't tasted ghee off a spoon, only cooked with it. It's quite mild, but not sharp as olive oil can be. Like an even mellower butter, I guess.

I think ghee tastes like a slightly sweeter butter. I use it loads now for cooking - it makes chicken skin amazingly crispy!

Ok, so I have a confession to make. I've just eaten a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza. It used to be my favourite, I've had a long and knackering day at work, dp is out and I couldn't be bothered to cook so thought, why not?

It was completely dull, tedious and pappy. Totally pointless, tasteless and now I feel as if I've wasted my dinner. Plus, I'm going to be bloated and have heartburn within the next hour! Just goes to show... once you start eating real food, the processed stuff you used to love just tastes crappy and, well, processed. How annoying!

I also have a confession. Ate loads of biscuits today cos I am premenstrual. Don't even care. Will be back on track soon. So strange to have that confidence that I can do it, having felt so out of control with food for so long.

Tea and building... It's funny, but as time goes on, what I eat when having a cheat day has changed radically (and cheat days certainly seem to be related to hormonal cycle!).

Once you've done it a few times (had the pizza, eaten the kitkats), and you realise that actually it made you feel ill, didn't taste that great after all, you lose the desire(most of the time)

These days for me a cheat meal could be a plate of Total Greek yogurt (full fat) with a pile of berries and a spoon full of raw honey.
I don't eat very much fruit, and rarely have yogurt or honey/sugar so it tastes amazingly sweet and indulgent ... And doesn't leave me feeling bloated and ill like a slice of cake would.

Does anyone have any inspiration for a lovely Saturday night dinner? Last night was salmon and stuffed mushrooms, brunch today was scrambled eggs. I would really like something delish to look forward to, especially as DH cooks on a Saturday.

We always have steak on a Saturday night

Probably outing myself under my name change but hey
Fallen off paleo wagon due to stress and decisions about a v early pregnancy. Eggs and meat make me feel sick. Gutted because I've lost so much weight. Sciatica is back so I can't weight lift or do my usual circuits/crossfit so I'm feeling pretty crappy at the moment
Am off to the gym though to do some foam rolling and a gentle walk

Worried90,
Every day is a clean slate, just do what you can, when you can. Hope you feel better soon.

Puffle -our dinner tonight is lamb shank done in the slow cooker (great as you get all the gelatin and marrow coming out of the bones, yummy and full of nutrients, fairly cheap too).

Chop carrot, onion, turnip and put at bottom of slow cooker with salt, pepper and herbs of your choice. Place one shank per person on top, add in a few more veg and herbs in the gaps round the meat and cook for about 10hrs

On low.

Well today I've had a bowl of weetabix (threw up) and a cup of tea
A salad from salad bar (tried to make sure it was mainly eggs, and salad leaves and some ff mayo)
Beef casserole for tea (on its own)
Not horrendous. Managed some stretches at the gym and a brisk 20 min walk

Thanks for the supper ideas, we ended up with baked chicken curry from the River Cottage Everyday book. It's made with coconut milk, so has the fat and is very tasty. Roast beef for lunch today, I will skip the potatoes but include a sweet one for me.

Worried, hope you are ok and working through your situation. Have you tried peppermint tea for the nausea? It was one of the few things that worked for me. Keep strong.

Worried - I hope I'm not speaking out of turn but please don't beat yourself up about what you're eating/doing in early pregnancy. I know in my case I ate all sorts of rubbish in the early stages when the nausea and exhaustion were at their worst.

As my pregnancies progressed it became easier to eat healthily and do some gentle exercise but a few weeks of being off track won't completely derail you. You have made the biggest change - you know what a healthy diet is! If you had broken your leg and were stuck in hospital your diet choices would be pretty non paleo and you'd not be able to do any exercise but you wouldn't panic because you would know that once you were past the healing stage you have the tools to get back on track.

Both times I was pregnant I was convinced that my body and fitness were gone forever. My youngest is 2 and I'm now in the best shape of my life so please don't despair and please look after yourself.

Thank you. It's mainly the stress which is making me feel sick as I'm having to make a decision whether to continue with pregnancy

worried that is really, really hard. Feel for you.

Worried, that sounds tough. It sounds as if you have more important things in your mind than diet tbh. Hope you can work things out.

I've had a pretty poor weekend, paleo-wise! Far too much crap (started with the pizza on Friday, didn't massively improve ). Have really noticed the effects of too many carbs and crap, especially on blood sugar. Felt shaky and sick earlier after eating a horrible cheeseburger (fgs!) at ds's football match today. What an idiot.

I did, however, make chocolate courgette brownies last night, which were great, especially with a dollop of double cream! Totally primal with very dark chocolate, a bit of almond flour and a splodge of honey. Well, had to use up the courgette glut somehow!

Tonight is low-carb sausages, eggs and sweet potato fries. Am looking forward to the veg box arriving tomorrow - want to get back to proper food! Weirdly, I have also lost some weight this week...though I guess the pizza and cheeseburger might change that.

worried look after yourself.

Had a few cheats this weekend. Saturday night was steak onions mushrooms and sweet potato wedges - simple and lovely.

Today we tried the kippers but they were too bony, and after spending 10mins removing bones from one fish I abandoned the whole thing - kippers are not for me!

So after a 60 in run breakfast was a coconut flour muffin with smokey bacon and egg, lovely. And then 2 hours tidying up the garden I treated myself to a gingerbread square

For dinner we had meat balls with tomato sauce, dcs had gluten free pasta and the adults had courgette ribbons.

For pudding we had a homemade gluten free shortbread with puréed apple and options of thick double cream, ice cream, cinnamon, honey and maple syrup. All very lovely.

snow sorry, but a 60 inch run just isn't that impressive, you know. . .

Totally paleo again today (well, with dairy). No problem for some reason. So so satisfying.

Worried, sorry you're having a tough time hope you manage to work through things soon.