You can't have the cake, but you can have the bacon

In the dim light, the red walls glowed the pictures of various delicious animals. Brown paper tablecloths were stained with tiny conspicuous spots of grease. We had waited a long time to be here, and we were rewarded with course after course of succulent meats with vegetables whose sole purposes were to soak up the salty fatty drippings that tasted of rich flavors- savory black pepper, piney rosemary, lemon, and garlic. Of course the meats were delicious, but what the meat did to the vegetables was even more impressive. Ramps wilted in brothy sauce melted in my mouth. Asparagus fried in lard had been morphed into a pork rind-like delicacy that crunched pleasantly as it dissolved into fat. The waitress asked if we wanted dessert- we ordered another plate of ham.

The rich flavors of that night haunted me for days, until I bought some asparagus and fried it in lard with my friend's home-cured pancetta, garlic, black pepper, and a splash of lime juice since I had run out of lemons. It was incredible and I can't wait to make it again.

It is in these moments that I'm glad I didn't chose the paleo diet's rival- the low fat diets of Ornish and his ilk. With both high-fat and low-fat diets getting similar results in studies, I don't see any reason to give up my fatty treats in favor of bowls of barley and steamed carrots. My stomach is flat and free of pains it suffered with I ate loads of gluten and sugar every day, avoiding fat like the plague.

Sometimes I miss things like the cinnamon rolls in Sweden or the buttery biscuits from my native land, but on a low-fat diet I would have had to give up these....AND bacon/pancetta/lardo/fatty steaks/lamb shank. Yeah right. Life is too short for eating rabbit food. Maybe I'm just too much of a foodie, but how can a diet that purports to improve the quality of your life exclude the best foods in the entire world?