Paleo Evolution

If something's worth doing...it's worth doing. A commenter told me that they want to go paleo, but they are post veg*n and still have an aversion to all things fatty. I was there. But any paleo-style diet is going to be beneficial and the great thing about paleo is that it's fairly flexible. On Free The Animal, Erwan Le Corre talked about his original diet, which was fish, tubers, fruits, and vegetables. He now eats all kinds of meat fatty delicacies.

Luckily, I just organized my photo collection in Picasa and I have a great record of my early forays into paleo:

Macadamia nut salad with pickled ginger

Microwaved wild salmon filet with vegetables and feta

Scary mini fridge

No wonder I was often hungry and cheated often, but in retrospect it's possible to do a low-fat paleo diet as long as you load up on the carbs and are careful to get enough calories.

I simply didn't know how to cook, I had never eaten many vegetables before, I had never eaten fish....AND I didn't have a kitchen at all. I just had a minifridge and a microwave. The earliest experience was just trying to eat clean and to expose myself to new foods by taking cooking classes, reading, and going to the farmer's market every Saturday morning. The first time I tried to cook meat I had no idea what to buy. I bought some sausages because that seemed easy to cook, but in the microwave they turned into a greasy mess and I threw them away. I ended up eating out a lot, though I tried to make my meals in restaurants as paleo as possible.

I think what's interesting about my experience was that restaurants played a big role in introducing me to new foods. At a nice restaurant I would try to order many new foods. They were cooked with great expertise, so I had positive experiences from the get-go. I remember pretty vividly my first lamb shank- it was at a small lovely tapas place in Champaign, IL. It was cooked in wine, which is a great way to "cut" the greasy flavor, and it melted tenderly in my mouth. It's been several years since then and 2009 was the first time I attempted lamb shank myself. In NYC I've finally completely embraced fat, but it's the first time I've had things like pork belly or lard. Guess I was finally ready.

If you eat well and expose yourself to new things, your diet will evolve into the direction you need. In did the paleo diet "wrong"- tons of fruit, massive amounts of nuts, and very little fat. My cheat meals were very scary. I sometimes ate whole jars of almond butter. I STILL felt better and was able to eventually remove those habits as my diet broadened. The goodness or badness of a diet is relative. Start with what you know you can do better and move from there. In the meantime, read good food writers like Jeffrey Steingarten, take a class on cooking a new dish, visit or volunteer on some farms, and enjoy a beautiful summer day at a farmer's market near you...or a winter's day at a good indoor food market where things like oysters and ham glow tantalizingly in the glass cases.

Edit: What's in my fridge now? Marrow bones, goat shanks, my farmer friend's homemade pancetta and lardo, wild rabbit, boar flank steak, some lemons, smoked wild salmon, lard, a jar of bones for stock, asparagus, and there are some mangoes on the kitchen table. Plus the herbs and lettuce on the windowsill. I haven't gone to the grocery store much this week, but I did make it to the butcher, so it's been a carnivorous one. I had not idea what any of these things were or how to eat them back when the old pictures were taken, but now I sure do love them! The main things that are gone from my fridge are bagged lettuce/spinach and almond butter.