The Paleo Lifestyle and/or Diet

[DBK]

[Tom Van]

Lol. I know you're just trolling, but I feel compelled to point out that those guys have no idea what they are talking about.

[Billy Paternoster]

Tom does the Paleo Solution include recipes? Or does it just tell you the benefits
of paleo?

[Tom Van]

That book has a 30 day meal plan, but I'll hook you up with some additional resources.

[Nate Harris]

I've been (mostly) paleo for a year now and I've never felt better. I strongly encourage it to everyone. Robb Wolf was actually a member of ours at 10th Planet Santa Fe up until he moved back to Reno recently.

everydaypaleo.com has a lot of recipes on it.

[Michael Romano]

Since you asked about other members diets. I have been vegetarian for a couple years and recently switched to vegan 3 months ago. The only reason I decided to not eat any meat at all is because of how bad it is environmentally, and supporting it in any capacity is just not very good. I think that once I learn how to hunt and prepare my own meat I will start including it in small amounts to my current diet. Overall it is going very well, I have gained 8 pounds in the 3 months even with stomach flu setbacks. I feel great (but who doesn't at 21?) and I feel like I am making the right decision, which is very important for me. If you ask me you should really kill what you eat.

[Kurzy]

Meat is a touchy issue. Anti-meat militants feel strongly in one direction, and pro-meat militants feel strongly in the opposite direction. I for one absolutely hate the meat industry as it is today, because as far as I'm concerned, they are feeding us poison.
Meat glue, pink slime, antibiotics, growth hormones, genetic modification, superbug bacteria, etc.

So I started to hunt. I don't like killing things, but I like meat, and I won't eat the shit from the supermarket because often times it is imported from countries that have zero food standard regulations (Fish especially). Beside that, I personally believe that the food industry is one of the main reasons behind the unhealth of North America. (Conspiracy)

I hunt one or two deer every year, and my family (myself, my wife and two kids) eat every edible scrap. I also hunt and eat black bear. I will be hunting moose for the first time this fall. I also plan on eating squirrel this year (My daughter really wants to try it).
I figure eating wild game is about as paleo as you can get. These animals have lived in nature, untouched, eating their natural diet.

I also do gardening and catch my own fish. I'm nowhere near gardening to the point where I can feed my family from our own stock all year-round, so we still buy veggies and legumes and all that, but we rarely buy meat. (Chicken is the exception, and beef from the local farmers market once in a while for tacos)

But in today's fast-food and instant-gratification society, a majority of people aren't willing to get their hands dirty for their food. McDicks is always right around the corner.

I've never heard of the Paleo diet before, but it seems I am close to being on it already. I need to stop the sugar intake. Coffee is the worst culprit for me: 2 or 3 coffees a day, double double. I did switch to black last year for about 6 months, but then started cheating once in a while. I will switch back to black starting now. My sugar in coffee is probably the main thing that is keeping this little spare tire on my waist, because other than beer and cheeses, I really don't put anything unhealthy in my body.

[Tom Van]

The sustainability issue surrounding meat consumption is an important issue. It should be noted that nearly all of those problems arise from current industrial agricultural practices. By consuming grass fed, pasture raised animals you are supporting a sustainable model where animals feed off of the land, and their waste fertilizes the ground for perennial plants to grow, year after year.

That stands in contrast to vast farms of annual grains draining the ground of all nutrients, turning the soil to dust, and only propped up by petroleum-based fertilizers obtained from war-torn regions halfway around the world. Those grains are then fed to animals in feed lots, under horrid conditions, making sick animals, and sick people that eat those animals.

To my knowledge, all large-scale grain agriculture is destructive to the environment. And, the only true perma-culture includes animals in the mix, because key nutrients for the plants, such as Nitrogen, only come from animal sources. This is why petroleum -based fertilizers are used to support agriculture currently: Petroleum is liquefied dinosaurs. So, vegetarian solutions to the sustainability issue will always fall short, because they lack the key animal component in the natural cycle of soil preservation. That is my understanding, anyway.

Some will object to any consumption of animals, as immoral exploitation of those animals. I am a former vegan, and understand those feelings, as that was my motivation. However, the reality of the world seems to be that optimal human nutrition includes consumption of animals, and sustainable agriculture requires it. By purchasing local, pasture raised meat, you are providing a much better life for the animals, while preserving a sustainable ecology.

Of course, as a couple of people mentioned, hunting wild game is a great solution.

[Kurzy]

That is a great post, Tom Van. I personally don't agree with petroleum being from dinosaurs, but I agree with everything else you said 100%!

[Tom Van]

Sure, I understand that is not a technically correct statement, but I was trying to illustrate clearly that animals are a component in the cycle, and petroleum works as a (unsustainable) substitute, because it is decayed organic matter.

Thanks for the correction though. I should be more careful about what I say.