Keeping it real

As I research, I'm finding that the word Paleo seems to have certain negative connotations. People are immediately sceptical. Heck, I was. I thought Dave was going to exist solely on meat for the next god knows how long. 

So where is this coming from?

There are Paleo extremists/elitists/perfectionists out there and they are scary and overwhelming.  It's so hard not to get caught up in the hype and become paranoid about the nitty gritty of Omega 3 - Omega 6 ratio's and eating only organic meats and produce over eating it at all. People can quickly assume that eating Paleo "properly" sounds way too much like hard work and they soon write it off as a practical solution. 

Sometimes striving for perfection can get in the way of just doing something good. ( I think that's a quote, I'm sorry to say it's not mine but it's good huh?).

Don't let Paleo Perfectionism bring you down! 

I'm not going to constantly question whether our caveman ancestors would have had access to something before I put it in my mouth. Or for that matter how much he/she would have eaten of it at any one time. Eating a whole punnet of Strawberries still beats eating a whole bar of Dairy Milk or half a tray of Toffee Pops. Calories are not created equally, despite the views of people who insist on counting them.

The truth is we have access to so much more variety in our diets year round than they ever would and we should take full advantage of that. I'm of the belief that the vast majority of the benefits someone will see by "going Paleo" are just to do with eating REAL FOOD. By real food I mean something that doesn't live in a packet in your pantry and has an expiry date of 2014. That's not natural.

So what are real foods? Vegetables, fruits, meats, fish, eggs for example. Food that comes straight from the source without anyone tampering with it's makeup first. Have a look at the flow chart in one of my earlier posts. 

This week I am proud to say, I bought just four food items prepackaged from the supermarket. A bottle of Red wine, some Lindt 85% Dark Chocolate, some Greek unsweetened Yogurt and a block of natural, unsalted Butter.  Nearly 3/4 of my trolley were Vegetables and Fruit. That has never happened before and it may never happen again ;)

Any small change is better than nothing, I fully intended to take this in baby steps but when I think about it I've really leaped right in. 
I just want to do what I can, change the obvious and substitute foods that I now know to be harmful to my body with foods that will do good. We're eating more vegetables, more fruit, more eggs. I'm excited to be in the kitchen again, coming up with new and interesting combinations of foods that stray away from my old staples. I'm hoping that it will continue to be a challenge that's fun rather than tiresome. Time will tell!



Kate =)