Winkler - Paleo Planet: Primal Foods from The Global Kitchen, with More Than 125 Recipes

The Harvard Common Press

www.harvardcommonpress.com

Text and photographs copyright 2015 by Becky Winkler

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Winkler, Becky.
Paleo planet : primal foods from the global kitchen, with more than 125
recipes / Becky Winkler.
pages cm
Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-55832-853-2 (acid-free paper)

1. High-protein diet--Recipes. 2. Low-carbohydrate diet--Recipes 3. Prehistoric peoples--Nutrition. I. Title.
RM237.65.W56 2015
641.5'6383--dc23
2015018098

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Author photograph by Benjamin Hall

eISBN 978-1-55832-854-9
v1.0915

For my mother, Sarah Jane Penn, and my fianc, Benjamin Hall, for their love, endless support, and taste testing

As a kid, I was one of the worlds pickiest eaters. I begged for macaroni and cheese, chomped on chicken fingers, gobbled down grilled cheese, and stubbornly refused almost everything else. The only vegetable I deigned to eat was broccolibut it had to have cheese melted on top. I detested anything with tomatoes in it (raw, cooked, even ketchupit was all off-limits), and I was so difficult at restaurants that my mom would bribe me to take just three bites of something new.

Needless to say, those days are gone, and today I will try almost anything. Discovering foods from other cultures never fails to make my day, and figuring out how to make a paleo version of a new dish at home is guaranteed to make my week. The one aspect of my attitude toward food that has remained unchanged since childhood is my steadfast determination to seek out food that I love, and to turn down everything else. Food has always really mattered to me, and although my criteria for choosing what I eat have changed drastically, Ive always held on to my passion for eating delicious things that make me feed good. When I developed the recipes for this book, I was constantly looking for new ways to combine familiar ingredients with innovative or unfamiliar cooking methods, and found classic dishes from cuisines all around the world that could benefit from a paleo makeover. Ive never eaten as well and with as much variety as I did during the year I wrote this book, and I hope youll feel the same way after cooking from it.

You may be wondering if you have to be fiercely devoted to a paleo lifestyle to benefit from this book, and the answer is no. The recipes in this book will help anyone enjoy delicious and varied meals at home.

Youll likely find that your energy level and overall health improve just by eating home-cooked, grain-free, dairy-free meals even three or four nights a week. And with more than 125 recipes in this book inspired by ingredients and cooking techniques from around the globe, I promise you wont be bored.

If youre a paleo maven whos been cooking without grains, dairy, and refined sugar for years, this book is ideal for you, too! These recipes will help you expand your cooking repertoire to include ingredients, flavor combinations, and cooking techniques you may have never tried before, and will ensure you dont get stuck in a rut of cooking the same few recipes over and over.

So, if food matters to you, dive in! Cook from these pages and prove to yourself and everyone you feed that food can be delicious, exciting, and exotic without refined sugar, grains, or dairy.

WHAT IS PALEO ?

The paleo diet is designed to generally mimic the diet our ancestors ate. The idea is that eating what we evolved eating keeps us healthy and keeps our digestive system in good working order. Many people today, including me, have found that switching to a paleo diet, even just 80 percent of the time, helps them lose weight, have more energy, sleep better, and feel happier.

Grains, dairy products other than ghee, refined sugars, and legumes (including all beans, soy, and peanuts) are off-limits on a paleo diet. Dont worry, though, because you can have all the meat, poultry, fish, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds in the world!

I first started eating paleo because of my food blog, A Calculated Whisk. Within two months of developing traditional recipes for my site, I had gained almost 20 pounds! I figured there had to be a way to lose the weight and keep it off while still publishing a food blog, so I gave paleo a try. I lost those 20 poundsplus a few extraand Ive been able to keep the weight off while still cooking and eating amazing food. My favorite part of the paleo diet is that it focuses on using high-quality ingredients rather than on limiting the quantity of food you eat. Now I am able to make a huge variety of tasty dishes and eat until Im pleasantly full, while still maintaining a healthy weight.

FOOD ALLERGIES AND SENSITIVITIES

Many people turn to the paleo diet to help them figure out their food allergies and sensitivities or to avoid foods they know they cant tolerate. In order to make this book user-friendly for everyone, no matter their dietary restrictions, I created lists of recipes that are free of common allergens, organized by chapter. All the recipes in this book are designed to be gluten-, grain-, soy-, and peanut-free, but be sure to carefully check the ingredients labels on all foods you buy at the store if youre allergic to something. If you have a dairy allergy, you may want to avoid ghee (use coconut oil or olive oil instead). If youre lactose intolerant, like me, its likely that youll still be able to enjoy ghee, since the lactose is removed during the clarifying process. Aside from ghee, all recipes in this book are dairy-free.

You can find a list of nut-free recipes on .

If you stock your pantry well, youll have the basic ingredients necessary to make a wide variety of paleo meals and treats right at your fingertips. Nothing beats the urge to order takeout like having all the components of a healthy gourmet meal already in your kitchen! You can find most of these ingredients at Whole Foods Market or any large, well-stocked supermarkets, and they are widely available online.

POULTRY, MEAT, FISH, AND EGGS

When it comes to poultry and meat, local, organic, and grass-fed or pastured is best. A meat CSA or your local farmers market can be a great way to get the protein you need while supporting farms near you. Check out eatwild.com to find great sources of sustainable meat, poultry, and eggs in your area. When buying fish and shellfish, consider the environmental practices involved in the fishing or harvesting process. Visit seafoodwatch.org to search for sustainable seafood.

I save chicken bones to make homemade stock (see how I do it on ). When I need stock for a recipe and dont have any homemade on hand, I buy organic, low-sodium chicken stock and check the labels carefully for undesired additives like sugar or potato starch. My favorite store-bought stock is Pacific Organic Chicken Bone Broth.