Saturday, April 17, 2010

Paleo What? (Mac)

The basic premise behind paleolithic nutrition is modeling food choices based on what humans would have eaten pre-agriculture i.e. hunting and gathering.  For the vast majority of human evolution we ate meat (insects, too), fruits, and vegetables.  There are loads of books and interpretations of paleolithic principals out there for you to research so I am not going to give an exact breakdown here.  Some proponents advocate higher fat than others, some more protein, etc but for the most part they all stick to the common theme of meat, fruits, and veggies - no breads, no grains, no cereals, no starchy vegetables, no processed food products and no dairy (depending on who's book you are reading).

I tend to eat a lot of meat and the fat that goes along with it as well as veggies.  I eat fruit a few times a week and it is mostly berries, the odd small apple, and banana pancakes on Saturday mornings.  I am 36 and woke up this morning laying in bed with a blood pressure of 97/52 and a pulse of 49 and my usual mid day average BP is somewhere around 105/60 - dispelling the notion that eating a lot of meat and fat will give you high blood pressure.  My meals are pretty straight forward, quick to make, and are nutritious and tasty. For example let's take last night's dinner - ground bison stuffed peppers with curried cauliflower rice.

I simply took some ground bison and tossed it in a skillet with some chopped leek, garlic, and coconut oil and fried it all up.  I then cut some peppers in half, added the meat mix, and threw some diced tomatoes on top.  Popped the plates in the oven at 250 for 45 minutes and they were done.

For the cauliflower rice, I started about fifteen minutes before the peppers were done by chopping up the cauliflower into manageable pieces and then using a "Slap Chop" like device proceeded to chop the cauliflower to the consistency of rice (a food processor could also do the job).  After I had the cauliflower cut up I added some curry powder and cayenne pepper and tossed in in the dry skillet (after I cleaned it) and toasted it all up a bit.

By the time the cauliflower rice was ready the peppers were done and it was time to eat.  Yummy!  I forgot to take a photo of the finished dish before we ate, but you get the idea :-)

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