Archives for March 2012

Waiting for the winds of change
To sweep the clouds away
Waiting for the rainbow’s end
To cast its gold your way
Countless ways
You pass the days

Waiting for someone to call
And turn your world around
Looking for an answer to
The question you have found
Looking for
An open door

You don’t get something for nothing
You don’t get freedom for free
You won’t get wise
With the sleep still in your eyes
No matter what your dreams might be

What you own is your own kingdom
What you do is your own glory
What you love is your own power
What you live is your own story
In your head is the answer
Let it guide you along
Let your heart be the anchor
And the beat of your own song

I’m a bit late for this, but it’s still running. I don’t know for how long, so do it now. Takes but a few minutes.

The 2012 Paleo Community Survey is Active

To see an example of the data produced, check out the results from last year (PDF), in which over 6,000 folks participated.

by Russ Crandall

As the Paleo FX Ancestral Momentum – Theory to Practice Symposium (so glad they didn’t go with the long version of the event’s name) wound down last week, it felt like the Paleo blogging world and its faithful audience (hereafter “Paleosphere”) had worked itself up into a frenzy. Over what, I’m not quite sure. It may have just been the gathering of like-minded individuals with strong online presences. What left a lasting impression was the tone of the Paleosphere during the event, and it just so happened that the timely coalescence of Paleo personalities and its ensuing social media onslaught brought everything to a head for me.

You see, I’ve been following a Paleo way of eating for about 18 months now, and it’s had a profound impact on the way I view the world, how I feel, and (obviously) how I eat. I replaced most grains, dairy, legumes, refined sugars, and seed-derived oils with whole foods and many of my autoimmune symptoms went into remission. I can honestly say with conviction that I “eat Paleo”. However, I do not identify myself as “being Paleo”. I think there’s a distinction that needs to be made before we move on.

To me, “being Paleo” means that you are self-identifying with a group. It’s like calling yourself a musician or a video gamer (as opposed to simply writing music or playing video games). The problem with identification is that disidentification – the mentality of “us vs. them”, and a focus on what you are NOT – often emerges. Consider the in-group-out-group bias. This phenomenon can lead to aggression and prejudice, and some suggest that it leads to a lack of productivity, as identifiers take action while disidentifiers tend to just make a lot of talk. (And who is the “them” in this case? Just about everyone else – those pesky grain-eaters that make up the rest of the population, and those cursed Vegans that try and muck everything up!).

While the Paleosphere (thankfully) doesn’t focus too much on the “them” aspect of the diet, there’s definitely an overbearing “us” momentum that isn’t entirely healthy, either. I often see the Paleosphere as being on this slippery slope towards extremism.

As an ever-increasingly-large group of people that eat a similar diet and in many cases hold similar values, I think it’s important we don’t lose sight of the fact that extremists and ideologists often alienate themselves from the rest of society. How are we supposed to make an impact on the nutrition world if we work the Paleosphere up into a frenzied cult status? John George and Laird Wilcox, scholars of fringe movements, have identified the following characteristics of political extremists and ideological contrarians:

1. Absolute certainty they have the truth.

2. [The belief that] America is controlled to a greater or lesser extent by a conspiratorial group. In fact, they believe this evil group is very powerful and controls most nations.

3. Open hatred of opponents. Because these opponents (actually “enemies” in the extremists’ eyes) are seen as a part of or sympathizers with “The Conspiracy,” they deserve hatred and contempt.

4. Little faith in the democratic process. Mainly because most believe “The Conspiracy” has great influence in the U.S. government, and therefore extremists usually spurn compromise.

5. Willingness to deny basic civil liberties to certain fellow citizens, because enemies deserve no liberties.

6. Consistent indulgence in irresponsible accusations and character assassination.

Does that sound alarmingly familiar to you? Admittedly, the above characteristics have a major political slant, and the fact that big corporations have major influence on what ends up on our dinner plates may not lead to some of those characteristics (like the willingness to deny basic civil liberties part).

I can’t deny that a relatively extreme diet (side note: it’s sad that the Paleo diet is considered “extreme” in this age of processed/fast foods) will attract people that gravitate towards fringe thinking – as sociologist Daniel Bell put it, for those on the fringe, “the way you hold beliefs is more important than what you hold. If somebody’s been a rigid Communist, he becomes a rigid anti-Communist – the rigidity being constant.” How many ex-Vegans are in the Paleosphere? Lots. (As some would argue: not enough.) An extreme lifestyle will attract extremists, which simply isn’t preventable. My point is this: just because there are crazies in the Paleosphere, we don’t have to listen to them, and we need to keep ourselves in check to make sure we don’t become them. An easy way to prevent this is to continually challenge ourselves to question our dietary standards, and to avoid dogmatism.

So where do we start? How can we make sure that we promote this diet in the most open, pragmatic, unobtrusive, and inclusive way? Here are some quick suggestions:

1. Don’t tell people that you “are Paleo”. Hell, don’t even tell them that you eat “Paleo”, because the use of labels is in itself exclusionary. Just tell them what you eat, and maybe what you don’t eat. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. Look at the Weston A. Price dietary guidelines. It’s very similar to the modern interpretation of the Paleo diet, and they don’t tell you what to avoid, even once. Focus on the whole foods, not on yet-to-be-completely-proven-as-evil grains, legumes, etc.

2. Don’t use flawed ideas or gray areas to promote the diet, because it calls the Paleosphere’s credibility into question. Don’t worship bacon, which is likely not good for you, even if it is (was) somewhat fashionable to “baconize” stuff. It’s a useful ingredient in cooking, but it’s not our flagship food. Don’t celebrate “Paleo versions” of sweets like Paleo brownies because that’s not helping people overcome their underlying food issues and if anything it’s guiding them towards failure. The last thing we should do is to set people on shaky foundations. Personally, I’m all about Dr. Kurt Harris’ incremental process, because it encourages folks to improve their health even when they’re not ready to dive into a full-blown Paleo eating orgy.

3. Avoid dogmatic thinking. Are potatoes evil? What about white rice? What about dairy? Aren’t we supposed to be eating low carb? Remember that human variance, health history, and gut flora are major factors in food tolerance, and macronutrient ratios are highly individualized. This diet is ever-changing (and it should be as scientific study helps enlighten our views on nutrition every day); be open to suggestion.

4. Try not to alienate others by flaunting an overbearing self-identification of “being Paleo.” You’re not a caveman, and you’re certainly not living like one, so why label yourself as one? If anything, I suggest embracing what we do have in common with our ancestors – the fact that we’re all on this planet. Go take a walk/hike. Watch a sunset. Spend a few days camping. That’s certainly closer to being a caveman than eating a pound of lean red meat straight out of a slow cooker after a hard day at the office and then blogging about it.

5. Bear in mind that everyone has their own burden. I’m pretty sure that most people simply cannot afford to eat fresh organic vegetables and grass-fed meats all the time. My family can’t afford it, despite the fact that a huge chunk of our income goes towards our groceries – nearly twice as much as before we switched our diet. Additionally, many people don’t have the resources to find out whether or not they have access to affordable grass-fed meats anyway – online resources are often outdated, and I’ll wager that many excellent farmers are out working and not updating their farm’s webpage and social networking fan pages. Many don’t have access to local, affordable health food markets. This is no reason to make people feel bad for having to make sacrifices to make ends meat meet; instead celebrate the steps that people are willing to take for their health that are within their means.

6. Avoid the fringe, and consider the power of prudence. What is the point of wearing t-shirts that say “Meat is awesome” or “Vegans suck”? Before shouting from the rooftops about how stuff like cold thermogenesis and eating butter straight out of the container is awesome, take a step back and think about how crazy that sounds to the average person. I’m not saying that any of those extreme elements are bad, but they might not be helping the Paleo movement along when that’s the stuff we get identified with. When it comes down to it, who better to police the Paleosphere than ourselves?

Lastly, please don’t take this as an insult to anyone that’s exhibited these behaviors. Dramatically improving your health through simple changes in diet is awesome, and exciting. I don’t fault you for telling people that “you’re Paleo”. My only purpose in writing this article is to help consider the fact that we need to do what we can to impact those that aren’t lucky enough to know much about sensible eating yet. As much as it may be fun to be part of a cool, elite club of Paleo dieters that share cool pictures and sayings amongst themselves, isn’t our energy better spent on refining the diet itself through scientific study and attracting people that haven’t been exposed to the diet yet?

This article was recently featured on the Highbrow Paleo blog. Russ Crandall also blogs at The Domestic Man where he posts many wonderful recipes with lots of high quality photos. Read about his amazing story here.

Update 3/12/14: This is a section reposted from a recent post.

The Ancestral Table: Traditional Recipes for a Paleo Lifestyle. Did Russ Crandall come out of nowhere? I’d never heard of him [guess I was wrong about that! -Ed]. He has a blog, The Domestic Man. When he emailed me and asked I take a look, there was a singular message he wanted to get across to me and it’s why I saved his book for last.

So, this is not going to be a one paragraph entry. To my knowledge, this is the very fist cookbook making any reference to Paleo, that doesn’t genuflect, kowtow, and get on its knees to pay homage to the ignorance of low-carb Paleo, as though there’s nothing else. Beginning in Chapter 4, Starches, here are the recipes over the next 30 pages.

• Basic Steamed Rice
• Steamed Basmati Rice
• Sticky Rice
• Dirty Rice
• Mexican Rice
• Fried Rice
• Congee
• Garlic Mashed Potatoes
• Colcannon
• Gnocchi
• Sweet Potato Poi
• Parsnip Puree
• Tostones
• Pão de Queijo
• Pizza

Accordingly, from here out, last mention I ever give to a Paleoish cookbook that doesn’t have recipes for common starches.

By the way? Fittingly, the forward to the cookbook is by Paul Jaminet, PhD; or, by one ground breaker, for another. Paul, of course, is the safe starch pioneer in our Ancestral/Paleo circles, making it harder by the day for strict low carb enthusiasts to breathe. He blogs at Perfect Health Diet, and he and Shou-Ching, PhD as well, are co-authors of Perfect Health Diet: Regain Health and Lose Weight by Eating the Way You Were Meant to Eat.

Go early or go home. Paleo is divorcing strict low carb and its waffling, feeling the pressure, now. Mark my words.

“We have no demands to present to you, no terms to bargain about, no compromise to reach. You have nothing to offer us. We do not need you.” — John Galt (Atlas Srugged, by Ayn Rand)

My last post being 10 days ago, this has got to be the longest stretch of “time off” since my first few years of blogging. I don’t think I’ve gone more than a few days without a post since going paleo-ish.

So what’s up? Well, a few things, roughly outlined as follows:

1. I’m going through major changes in my professional life. After 20 years as an entrepreneur, building a successful company, etc., I decided some months ago to do something else…and because I care about our clients, was unwilling to attempt to “sell” them. So, we stopped taking new clients last October and I’m shutting things down deliberately via client attrition. As far as what’s next, I’m pursuing management / systems / change consulting gigs at the moment. Here’s my Linkedin profile for anyone interested in networking in that regard (still a work in progress).
2. My far more flexible style of eating—moderate carb, fat, protein…basically—combined with simplicity, and perhaps aspects of #1, seems to have had a number of behavioral effects in me. I’m simply not as interested in “slaying the dragons” as I used to be, or in maintaining my exclusive role as “Angry Dick” in the Paleosphere…and I’m happy to relinquish that role to others—but they better do it right, or I’ll have to come back.
3. I have increasing misgivings about the whole direction of the Paleosphere.

In terms of #3, where do I begin? First of all, I have to first point the finger at myself for encouraging things to go where I now feel uncomfortable with the whole deal. While I lashed out at dietitian morons, slammed know-nothing celebrities, bashed grant whores and made fun of various fringe and extreme groups like vegans, I never did it, in my mind, to move people in the direction of being a fringe, extremist, exclusive, whack job paleo cult—but simply to provide some laughs, entertainment…some form of identity and yea, even a bit of a sense of superiority.

But it seems to me that the whole thing has really gone tribal, with virtually all the trappings of tribalism, including which faction of the meta-tribe one belongs to, identified by which t-shirt and style of Vibrams they wear. As an aside, I designed an FTA t-shirt early on, and when I got mine, found myself unable to wear it in public. So I took it off the blog after a short while. I’m just not a team spirit kinda guy.

Anyway, I’ll have more to say on this later, of course, and I’m working on getting a guest post in here that speaks to these issues—but at this point don’t know if that will work out. [Update: we’re all set and the post will be up tomorrow.]

What I want to do going forward is to take a sensible, thoughtful, skeptical, and flexible approach to this whole thing. I’m not prepared to “slam paleo” or excise it from my writing vocabulary; but instead, continue to seek out synthesis among various approaches to a decent diet and exercise regimen. For instance, I’m not sure when it was that Anthony Colpo updated his The Fat Loss Bible, but I do believe it must have been pretty recently, because Chapters 11 and 12 read like one of the best short introductions to paleo eating I’ve ever seen. Combined with his “calories count” and quantitative approach to fat loss and lean sparing, that book is a real gem in my view. Most particularly, his emphasis on nutrient density are very much in line with my own, when I posted my nutritional density challenges for liver vs. fruit and liver or salmon vs. bread.

He’s not the only one, but those I find myself most in line with while not feeling a need to agree with everything, don’t really wear a paleo badge, nor extend the secret handshake. Paul Jaminet. Martin Berkhan. Stephan Guyenet. Kurt Harris. Melissa McEwan. Chris Masterjohn. Even Lyle McDonald. While none of these guys call themselves paleo, they all care about good nutrition, quality food, and a fat loss approach that doesn’t amount to the equivalent of: eat as much fat as you can and magic will happen…with the caveat that there’s no such thing as too much bacon; and oh, by the way, have you tried the “paleo” brownies, pancakes & cookies?

And here’s another thing. They all maintain modest looking blogs that are content rich and low on flashy design. I dunno, but some of the efforts at style over substance and monetization out there just leave me with a bad taste in my mouth.

But maybe it’s just me. And what say you?

Here’s just a few things I’ve put together over the last week or so. I’m trying to keep things simple, basic, and quick. For example, to make mashed taters, I toss the whole potato in the microwave for 5-7 minutes, the skin easily slides right off, a bit of butter, heavy cream or sour cream, sal pepper and you’ve got mashed potatoes.

Let it cool a bit, add in an egg, mix it up and you can do some potato pancakes. With bacon. With tomato. With egg. Like this.

All the images can be clicked for the hi-res versions.

Gratuitous Bacon Shot

To the potato and egg mixture I dust it with just a bit of coconut flour which makes for easy to do patties. Alternatively, just drop it in like pancake batter and let it spread out. I cooked the pancakes in the bacon fat.

Potato Pancakes

Then it was a big slice of beefsteak tomato, some mayo, the bacon, all topped with an egg.

Over Easy Version for Beatrice

Sunny Up Version for Me

There below is an example of a baked potato mashed up. Works great, and it’s fast. No more peeling, boiling, draining. The flank steak is from Marin Sun Farms and I just pan fried it in cast iron. As it was resting, I deglazed the pan with red wine, let it reduce, couple of pats of butter, some beef stock, let reduce and then a couple dashes of balsamic vinegar at the end. Fabulous and you have dinner in about 10 minutes, tops.

Flank Steak & Taters

I had three pounds of pastured pork, also from Marin Sun Farms, and so yesterday I tossed them all in a big pot with 3 quarts of stock, half beef, half chicken. Then I braised it slowly for a couple of hours or so and once fork tender, added a large chopped onion, three chopped carrots and 2 large potatoes. Takes about a half an hour for the potatoes and carrots to soften up. What’s below is the entirety of what was left after five us us dug in last night. This was my breakfast.

Pork Stew & Eggs

Be careful out there.