Dana Carpender - Paleo/Primal in 5 Ingredients or Less: More Than 200 Sugar-Free, Grain-Free, Gluten-Free Recipe

2015 Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.

First published in the USA in 2015 by

Fair Winds Press, an imprint of

Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.

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Digital edition published in 2015

Digital edition: 978-1-62788-757-1
Softcover edition: 978-1-59233-695-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data available.

Cover and book design by Laura H. Couallier, Laura Herrmann Design

The information in this book is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to replace the advice of a physician or medical practitioner. Please see your health care provider before beginning any new health program.

Dedication

For my dear friends and next door neighbors, Keith Johnson and Peter Bane, who are passionate teachers of sustainable agriculture. For Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm, showing the world what agriculture can and should be, and for my friend Tom Tlusty and his partners at the Garden Tower Project, helping people grow their own organic food without having to own extensive acreage. For all who have fought for their right to raise poultry in their suburban neighborhoods or to grow vegetables instead of grass in their front yards. Indeed, to all who are changing the world and human health by teaching others how we can feed ourselves far better, without destroying the planet or giving our fate and our health over to multinational corporations.

The concept of Paleo is so very simple. Paleo is the notion that we are healthiest eating those foods on which the human body evolved, the foods that our ancestors ate for an estimated two to three million years before the Agricultural Revolution roughly 10,000 years ago.

It is incredible to think that something like 75 percent of the foods in the average American grocery store didnt exist as recently as the Civil War.

Grains and beans have been around for a while, of course. Many people like to blame their deleterious effects on genetic modification. In Wheat Belly, cardiologist William Davis, M.D., informed us of the alarming fact that, in wheat, simple hybridizationno gene splicing neededresults in novel genes, to the point where todays wheat is quite different, genetically, from that which our grandparents ate just a few decades ago.

Agriculture led humankind to quit following the herds and settle down, which led, in turn, to villages, specialization, and eventually civilization. Its hard to imagine how human history would have gone without it.

Agriculture was never, however, an unmixed blessing. Neolithic farmers were considerably shorter and weaker-boned than their hunter-gatherer forebears. Their teeth suffered, too, as they do to this day. Worse, womens pelvic outlets became smaller, making child-bearing both more painful and more dangerous. We have paid for architecture, art, and organization with our very bodies. It is interesting to contemplate how much of the history of medicine is a search for work-arounds for the problems caused by a sub-optimal diet.

It makes sense, then, that a move back in the direction of the diet that made our hunter-gatherer ancestors tall and strong would regain us some of that lost vitality.

Here is my assumption about you, dear reader: Youve figured out that you feel a whole lot better when you eschew grains, especially gluten grains, sugar, corn syrup, and cheap vegetable oils. Youve started eating cleanskipping chemical additives and buying organic when possibleadding more animal products, using traditional fats, and buying fresh, local, organic vegetables as much as possible. The farmers market is your new social scene.

One problem: The rest of your life is the same as it ever was. You probably have the same job, kids, chauffeuring duties, and chores. Because all of those things remain the same, I bet you also still have the same need to occasionally do a little exercise and the same need to get sufficient sleep. (Indeed, one of the least-Paleo things we do in the modern world is regularly staying up long after dark. Get some sleep.)

Your Paleo ancestors very likely devoted a large chunk of their time to hunting, gathering, and preparing food. Certainly as recently as 150 years ago, food preparation was nearly a full-time task for at least one, and often more than one, person per household. Yet very few families now have a member who can devote every day to food prep.

Also, theres a good chance youre not an enthusiastic or experienced cook. I have known from the beginning of my career that, unlike many cookbook authors, my audience is not made up largely of foodies, but rather of people who, until they realized the connection between what they were eating and their ill-health, had been living on macaroni and cheese dinners, carry-out pizza, cold cereal, and fast food like the rest of America.

In this chapter, Ill address common questions about the Paleo diet.