Paleo Cookbook For Dummies (3 page)

Chapter 1

Becoming Paleo Smart

In This Chapter

Getting an overview of the nuts and bolts of Paleo

Losing weight, sleeping better, feeling better, and healing conditions with the Paleo approach

Flipping your inner health switch

When I discovered the power of Paleo, my life changed, and I'm certainly not alone; Paleo has changed the lives of countless others as well. So much buzz surrounds Paleo because of its success in helping people lose weight, boost immunity, fight aging, heal conditions, and perform better. And who doesn't want to look and feel their best?

I wrote this book to help you discover the Paleo principles, getting you the best nutrition possible and showing you all the ins and outs on everything from what foods to buy (and what to toss) to where to get your food to how to cook the tastiest meals. The recipes you find in this book are from the absolute best Paleo culinary experts out there. All have different flairs and special touches to match your personal style. These recipes will entice you with their flavors and simplicity while providing you the best nutrition on the planet.

Paleo Cookbook For Dummies
is your road map to the world of cooking and eating Paleo.

Surveying the Paleo Blueprint

The Paleo foods are your foundational foods — the foods your body is designed to have. The key concept behind Paleo is that nature determined what the human body needs before agriculture or modern food processing. In fact, DNA evidence shows that our genes have changed less than 0.02 percent in 40,000 years. Many of the foods that seem like common, everyday foods, such as grains, starchy carbohydrates, and drinks with sugar added, are really quite new compared to what was available when those genes were hard-wired.

The foods on the Paleo plan are those that work best with your body. By really tuning into your body and your feelings about food, you start to instinctively become aware of which foods make you feel good and which don't.

Perusing Paleo foods in a nutshell

The Paleo diet is based on simple, easy-to-understand nutritional principles. What I love the most about eating Paleo is that it eliminates food confusion; it's simply about eating the foods that work best with your body.

Paleo-approved foods are whole, unprocessed foods: Meat, eggs, and seafood; non-starchy vegetables and Paleo-approved starchy vegetables; healthy fats; and some (but not a lot of) fruit, nuts, and seeds (see
Figure 1-1
).

Illustration by Elizabeth Kurtzman

Figure 1-1:
A Paleo meal may look like this.

Paleo principles support avoiding foods with sugar, grains (even whole grains), legumes, and any processed, unhealthy oils. If you're going to be a straight-laced Paleo convert, then dairy's out because it can cause a host of problems for many people. However, some folks can enjoy some full-fat, organic, antibiotic-free dairy options (which seem to present less of a problem because of their source) like yogurt,
kefir
(a fermented dairy product), and
ghee
(clarified butter).

Think of it this way: If the food can be hunted or gathered, it's probably a safe bet. If the food has been processed or is presented to you in colorful, crinkly plastic packaging, it's probably a Paleo no-go.

Stick to the food choices that lead to optimal health in a modern world. You have to keep individual variation in mind. Some people may do okay on dairy; most others (about 80 percent) don't. Some can thrive on fewer carbohydrates; others need more. That's why eating a basic Paleo diet is the foundation; you adjust the basics in a way that works for your life.

Getting quick results by eating Paleo

I always say that if I had a football field full of patients and they told me what ailed them, the root of their problems would boil down to one of three sources: blood sugar problems, chronic inflammation, and gut disturbances. That's why so many health practitioners love Paleo: It provides the solution to these problems.

If you've been eating a lot of foods such as grains, processed foods, and sugars that have been causing inflammation, blood sugar problems, and gut irritation, you may just perk up in a flash. For some, that bloated feeling goes away after the first few meals.

Even if you don't currently have one of these ailments, know that all the nutrients in the Paleo-approved foods can really make you come alive, especially if you're coming from a place of nutrient deficiency. When you go from a state of deficiency to one of sufficiency, results can come pretty immediately.

Making Paleo work in your busy life

In modern-day life, speed seems to be the goal: How much can you get done in the shortest amount of time while trying to balance family and career? So the question becomes, how do you add one more layer — finding time to eat well and prepare meals — to this intensity?

In one way, you save time almost immediately because you're no longer aimless about what and where to eat. This sense of direction is pretty liberating. Shopping even becomes easy because you quickly learn exactly how to hunt and gather for Paleo foods (see
Chapter 6
for more information on shopping).

You start developing food values; as a result, you become very clear on what you will and won't eat. Just like you go back to your moral values whenever you make a decision on anything —even if you aren't aware of it — you refer to your food values when making eating decisions. When you get into eating Paleo, you get a solid understanding of what works for you and what doesn't.

You can find other tips throughout this book on becoming organized and reallocating some of your time to help Paleo fit into your world. For example,
batch cooking
(preparing several days' worth of staple or convenience foods at once, such as hard-boiling eggs, precooking meats, and cutting and chopping veggies) saves a tremendous amount of time. After you get the hang of batch cooking, you get really fast and it becomes no big deal.

You can make eating Paleo practical in the modern world; in time, this lifestyle will become second nature to you.