#i have never even eaten more meat than pork chicken and beef NOTHING ELSE????? LIKE AFAIK NOTBING ELSE. NOT DEER DOG CAT DUCK WHAFEVER

[histrynerdss]

EXCUSE ME

i haven’t been here long and my aunt already made a throwaway comment about koreans eating dogs :(

OUGH SENDING YOU GOOD LUCK SHE SOUNDS LIKE A BITCH

[pickalilywrites]

happy halloween! i wrote this lil thing after watching this trailer for this show called Zombie Detective! I haven’t actually watched it so idk much about it beyond the premise, but i worked parts of it into this lil au ^^ hopefully you guys think it’s fun! the idea is that it’ll be a series but idk when i’ll get back to it, haha, but i do have future plans for it! also, can you believe this is my second erejean? crazy! i thought i would have written for them more haha

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How To Disguise Yourself As a Human Being

EreJean. Zombie Detective AU. 

How to Be a Zombie series. 

10108 words. 

Read on AO3!

I’m alive. 

It doesn’t occur to Eren, after digging through six feet of dirt, that this isn’t entirely true. While it’s true that he’s alive, it would be more accurate to say that he’s alive again. Then again, it doesn’t quite hit him - as he breathes in his first breath of fresh air in what feels like months - that he had died in the first place. 

To be fair, this isn’t how Eren had pictured himself going out: knocked out in the middle of a midnight stroll through the forested hills that occupied the south of the small town he'd grown up in only to be choked to death, his strangled breaths unheard by the slumbering town. He had pictured himself going out with a bang, something like a gunshot and not snuffed out so easily like a candle. Preferably, it would be in his thirties (forties, if he were lucky), giving him enough time to make a noticeable mark on the world. But, of course, the universe is unpredictable, unjust, and, above all, a huge bitch. 

All Eren can think when he first crawls out of the earth is that the sunlight is so bright it’s practically blinding. He holds out a hand to shade his eyes only to realize something strange - his hand is frighteningly thin and pale and veiny. His tanned skin is now a sickening shade of gray and Eren can easily see the veins of purple and blue running underneath the thin layer of skin. He looks down at himself - his torn up clothing covered in dirt, his bare feet the same color as the rest of his sickly skin, and the dry brittle hair hanging from his head. Dried blood stains his clothing, the only bit of color on him. He realizes then, sitting next to the six-foot hole that was meant to be his grave, that he hadn’t just been attacked that night. He had been killed. Murdered. He was dead. And now he’s alive again. 

Nobody tells you how to deal with being a zombie. They tell you how to deal with a zombie but never what to do if you become one yourself. It turns out that humans are far more equipped to handle zombies than post-apocalyptic media would have you think. You could probably even make it if you were a senior citizen as long as you were able to raise your cane above your head. It’s only occasionally that a person gets eaten by a zombie now because fighting one off isn’t actually all that difficult. Eren knows the basics: aim for the head because the brain is what controls a zombie and their skulls are as soft as eggshells, zombies are slow creatures but you should still think fast, and never ever let a zombie bite you. 

The last rule has Eren salivating as he realizes that it’s been a while since he’s eaten anything. He lays down on the ground, hand on his stomach as it rumbles. He tries to will away the cannibalistic urge that’s eating away at him by thinking of anything except his desire to feast on human flesh. He wants to be hungry for human food: miso ramen with its rich, salty broth and succulent slices of char siu pork with sweet kernels of corn and a soft-boiled egg on the side, okonomiyaki batter sizzling on the grill and topped with shrimp and green onions, or even crispy karaage with a squeeze of lemon and dipped in mayo. But Eren doesn’t crave any of it. His stomach growls in dissatisfaction, banishing his thoughts of food and replacing them with more horrifying alternatives: human skin breaking between his teeth and salty on his tongue, soft tissue melting in his mouth, taut muscle chewed up and swallowed hungrily. Eren craves sustenance in a way he never has before. 

A bush rustles nearby and his eyes flicker over to it. Eren doesn’t move; staying still as a zombie is much easier than it ever was when he was a human. There is nothing but the wind sweeping up leaves in little gusts for a moment, and then, Eren sees it: a rabbit timidly making its way out of the bush. Its wide brown eyes stare at Eren, ready to scurry away at any sign of movement. The rabbit’s little pink nose twitches as it hops ever closer to the reanimated corpse that is Eren Jaeger. It’s such a tiny thing. This might even be its first time experiencing the fall - crisp autumn leaves underfoot, chilly morning air as the temperature cooled from summer to fall, and the sun setting earlier and earlier each night. It hasn’t lived nearly as long as it should, and yet Eren can’t help but salivate as the rabbit approaches him, imagining how satisfying it would be to plunge his teeth in its tender flesh. 

The rabbit stops where Eren sits, leaning down to sniff at the hole in the knee of his jeans. The poor thing didn’t stand a chance. 

Before he can even think, Eren grabs the animal in his grimy hands and bites into its neck. The sound of teeth digging into raw flesh is disgusting, but Eren can’t find it in himself to stop, taking bite after bite, moaning hungrily even as the rabbit struggles in his grasp and blood dribbles down his chin and onto his hand. Eren takes a bite from the rabbit's neck, blood spurting as his teeth tear at a vein, and feels the creature struggle uselessly until finally growing limp in his hands. He eats the rest of it - fur and flesh and blood and all - and feels it fill him like no meal ever has before. He doesn’t know how he had ever eaten before. In his previous life, he couldn’t imagine anything better than well-cooked meat: grilled, fried, roasted. He loved it marinated, covered in spices so that the different flavors could blend together and bring out the umami of the meat. Now, he realizes those extra flavors only masked the true taste of meat - gamey with a slightly sweet aftertaste - and cooking it destroyed its integrity. There’s something invigorating about eating raw meat, chewing through tender tissue and tough tendons, breaking flesh down, grinding it between his teeth. He’s had a taste and now he can’t imagine it any other way. 

The rabbit was a small meal, one that did well to satisfy his hunger for the time being but fed his desire to search for more flesh. Rabbits are lean - small creatures with soft tissue, its only tough muscle in its legs. Eren can only imagine what other animals would taste like. He wants the taste of deer on his tongue, its meat smooth and firm as he bites down into its flesh, its rich and earthy flavor melting in his mouth. Raw pork would be meatier, fattier, sweet and savory at the same time. Chicken should be lighter, not nearly as rich or pork or venison, but nice and juicy as Eren tears his teeth into it. Beef should be tender, thick and meaty and earthy all at once. And human flesh … 

Eren licks his lips at the thought of sinking his teeth into a human’s shoulder but quickly shakes his head as if that would be enough to banish the horrific thought. 

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stares at the smear of blood across his skin until he falls on his back with a heavy thud. Eren wants to feel disgusted at himself, to be ashamed at the monster he’s become, but his stomach grumbles. Even as he clutches at it in a helpless attempt to muffle the sounds of his hunger, all Eren can think about is how terribly dissatisfying his meal was and how he longs for something more. 

A moan escapes his lip, frustrated and lonely, and Eren wonders how he’ll ever be able to survive his second life. 

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Swapping from a traditional zombie diet to a vegetarian alternative, Eren discovers, is actually very easy if you’re able to distance yourself from humans. Well, it’s not really vegetarian if he’s still eating meat, but at least it’s not human meat. That has to count for something, right?

Eren had never really appreciated living in a small town until now. When he was in college, he had jumped at the chance to attend a college in the big city. It was fun; he got to have class with hundreds of kids instead of the normal ten or twenty and met a lot of new people. There were clubs and the chance to have an actual nightlife instead of just having a drink at the convenience store down the block because that was the only place that was open at night. Eren even enjoyed sharing an apartment with four other guys even if they could all barely pay rent and there was never a single clean spot in their shared space. Moving back home was a disappointment, but there really wasn't much else he could do when renting a place in the city was ridiculously expensive and, despite receiving his bachelor’s degree, he couldn’t land a decent job. His hometown was so quiet and dull in comparison, and some houses on the outskirts are so far apart that it takes fifteen minutes to get to the next one, but those are things that are actually very ideal for zombie life. 

In all of his time as a zombie, Eren has only encountered a handful of humans and only from a distance. He doesn’t dare go near the town. He doesn’t think he’s ready for it, at least not yet. He wants to go through more training - learn how to keep space between him and his desires while learning how to satisfy himself with the meals he can get. Camping in the hills at the side of town is helpful, Eren finds. Having grown up here, he knows exactly what places to keep clear of so that he doesn’t run into any innocent townspeople or tourists that have come for a leisurely stroll on the trail. Being at the edge of town also means that Eren’s close to the farm at the foot of the hills, which means he always has a source of alternative meat to feed on when he feels peckish. 

He used to hate the old farm. Even if he was on the other side of town, Eren swore he could still smell the stench of manure even if his mother told him it was ridiculous. Sometimes he would even hear the roosters crowing at the crack of dawn, which didn’t even make sense because Eren didn’t live anywhere near the farm or at least he lived far enough away that he shouldn’t hear roosters shrieking at an ungodly hour every single morning. The other townspeople adored the farm because it was a source of locally-sourced meat that they could trust, nothing like the imported beef and poultry from outside the town. Eren, not understanding the ethics in the meat industry, didn’t care for any of that at the time. He just knew that everything about the farm - its stench, its noises, its entire presence - annoyed him, so he once suggested that he and his friends go cow-tipping. All but one of his friends agreed and so they all sneaked out only to be stopped when they reached Armin, the only person who didn’t want to go. 

“You know you can’t actually go cow-tipping, right?” Armin yawned sleepily when they had snuck into his room to drag him out with them. 

“Why? ‘Cause it’s ‘bad’?” Eren asked, putting the word in quotes to show that he didn’t care and rolling his eyes for good measure. 

“Well, yeah. Not to mention we’d be trespassing,” Armin explained. “And, like, cows don’t even sleep standing up. Horses do that.” 

“Oh.” 

Needless to say, Eren’s plans for that night were thwarted and he had another reason to hate the farm. Now, Eren can’t imagine what he would do without it. 

Eren doesn’t eat at the farm, at least not at first. He keeps an eye on it, noting when the farmer’s truck is in, when it tends to disappear, and when the lights are on at night. When he dares to sneak into the farm, he takes a mental count of all the animals - cows, goats, pigs, chickens. Eren is certain he can get away with eating the chickens as long as he does so sparingly. Maybe he could eat one a day, but the dwindling population of poultry would be noticeable within a number of days. He takes a mental note of the days where the farmer lets the animals out to graze, especially the cows and the goats. The pigs, Eren thinks, are probably the easiest for him to eat. They’re far from hairless, but they’re not as annoyingly furry as cows and goats. Of course, they’re not nearly as tasty, too fatty and rich to Eren’s taste. He likes things with more muscle, something with a bit of chew to it, but disposing of bones is a hassle too. In the meantime, Eren feeds on rabbits and birds he manages to catch in the forest, all the while dreaming of something more satisfying to fill his belly. 

The first time Eren sneaks in to eat a chicken, the sight of the poultry in front of him is so horribly enticing that he devours it on sight. He doesn’t even think, just lunges for the nearest feathered fowl and bites into it even as it flaps its wings and tries to scratch at his face with its claws. One good bite to the neck - punctuated with a large crunch! - and the chicken was lifeless in his hands and he ate away, occasionally spitting out the feathers between bites, while the other chickens clucked noisily around him. It’s only when he’s finished off his meal, polished the meat off its bones, that Eren realizes the ruckus he’s made and, upon hearing footsteps approaching, flees from the scene and disappears into the forest. 

It’s the first time Eren makes that mistake, but it’s far from the last. Although he only makes the trips to the farmhouse only once or twice a week at most, he has too many close calls to count. There are traps the farmer begins to set up to catch the culprit. They’re harmless at first, just traps that set off an alarm when tripped to alert the farmer, but they grow more and more violent - little mouse traps that snap at Eren’s toes, vicious bear traps with jagged metal teeth, steel conibear traps meant to break his body in two - and yet Eren manages to evade every one. Being a zombie makes him slower, but it also makes him more careful, more perceptive of the things around him. Human Eren wouldn’t have stood a chance. 

He still dreams of being able to return to society and live like a normal human being, but it has a slim chance of becoming reality, Eren thinks mournfully as he chomps down on the leg of a goat he had mercilessly bitten into just moments ago. Sure, he hasn’t eaten a human since he had awakened from the dead, but who’s to say that he couldn’t if given the chance? His craving to bite into human flesh, to feel it melt on his tongue, to have it fill his belly, is still one that burns in the pit of his stomach every night, but he’s learned to ignore it so far. As much as he wanted to chase after every stray hiker that had happened to wander into his line of sight, Eren has never allowed the desire to consume him, instead running away and biting into the meat of his arm because he wanted something - anything - to sink his teeth into and the taste of his rotting flesh helped to banish any want for human meat. 

A sudden thump pulls Eren away from his train of thought and he realizes with horror that the farmer is pulling open the barn door. There’s no way to escape, so he has no choice but to hide. 

Cursing under his breath, Eren discards the rest of the goat, leaving its carcass behind as he scuttled to the pile of hay in the corner of the barn. It smelled of dried grass and the stench of the farm. He hoped it would be enough to mask his own putrid scent. 

The clomp, clomp, clomp of the farmer’s boots against the wooden floor grow closer as he comes to inspect the abandoned carcass of his half-eaten goat. Eren watches through the hay as the farmer kneels, pulling what’s left of the goat into his lap and mourns the loss of the poor creature. 

“Those goddamn wolves,” the farmer moans, his voice filled with grief. It’s not unlike the sound of an animal as it cries for mercy. It’s the same sad tone, desperate and confused. The thought of the farmer, his throat in Eren’s hands as he holds the farmer beneath him and bites into the man’s face, with a lonely cry of anguish escaping his lips as he breathes his last makes Eren salivate. 

“Pull yourself together, Jaeger,” Eren mutters under his breath, but his teeth continue to grind as he imagines the taste of the farmer on his tongue - a good mix of tender tissue and tough muscle, like beef but so much better. A hungry growl escapes his mouth before he can stop himself and he hastily shoves a fist inside his mouth, biting down hard until he tastes old rusted metal on his tongue and his tears sting at the taste of his bitter flesh. 

The sound is just enough to catch the farmer’s attention and the man looks up to where Eren is. He stares at the corner where Eren is hiding, eyes unknowingly gazing over the hay bale that conceals the zombie. He continues to look but, finding no other disturbance, returns to look mournfully at the goat in his lap. 

“We’re going to have to lock this place up better if they’re eating the damn goats too,” the farmer says with a shake of his head. With a sigh, he stands up, hoisting the goat’s remains over his shoulder and walking out of the barn. 

Eren breathes more easily when the door of the barn shuts with a hard thud. He crawls out of the hay bale, brushing off the bits of dried grass that stick to his clothing and hair. A little wistfully, his eyes rest on the bloody stain in the stall that had once housed the goat. He had gotten a good taste of it, but he was unable to finish his meal. Hunting for a rabbit in the dark to satisfy his hunger is going to be a pain in the ass. Still, it’s not all a loss. 

In all his time as a zombie, Eren has never been in such close proximity with a human, had never stayed that still in front of a human and not given in to his urge to run away lest he does the unfathomable. He had never trusted himself to not give in to his nature, but tonight is proof that he’s not a monster, at least not completely. At the very least, he’s capable of staying close to a human without eating them. 

Eren rubs at his mouth, wiping at the blood leftover from his last meal. He’s starting to think that reintegrating himself into society isn’t completely impossible but if he’s going to do this, he’s going to need a little help. 

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After careful deliberation, Eren realizes that there are really only a handful of people that are equipped to deal with his reanimation. His first thought was to return home because any mother would be overjoyed to discover that her son who had gone missing has suddenly reappeared, but the same cannot be said for a mother who discovers that her missing son has returned as a zombie. If anything, the shock of finding out her son is still alive - alive again, actually - might kill his mother, and that’s something that Eren wants to avoid. 

There are plenty of people in town who knew who Eren was when he was alive, but not very many people that Eren would consider close enough to turn to even if he were in dire need of help. He’s never been the most popular guy in town and he doubts showing up as a zombie will win over any hearts. Out of his friends, he’s probably closest to Armin, who he’s known since they were in kindergarten. Going to Armin for help wouldn’t actually be a bad idea. He’s hands down the most intelligent person Eren has ever met and the town pride for attending Sina University, one of the most difficult universities to be admitted to. He’s also the most loyal, surprising everyone except Eren when he eventually returned to their hometown to work as a civil service worker because he wanted to help improve their town. At first glance, Armin would be the most obvious choice to seek help from, but there’s also a very big issue with Armin: he’d probably faint at the sight of his best friend as a zombie and, well, Eren’s not sure he’d be able to handle himself if an unconscious body dropped in front of him just waiting to be feasted on. 

He goes down the rest of his list: Annie would be more equipped to handle a zombie. There’s no doubt that she’d easily kick Eren’s ass whether or not he was a zombie, but that in itself was an issue too. She’s the type of person to kick ass and ask questions later, and he doesn’t think he’d get too far if she smashed his head to pieces. Eren thinks he’d be able to negotiate with Reiner better, but he’s not sure his friend would be able to help him. Reiner would probably laugh his ass off after finding out Eren had somehow been turned into a zombie and, frankly, Eren isn’t in the mood to deal with that. Thus, after a month of careful planning, Eren finds himself at the front of Jean’s door praying that his friend still lives in this sorry excuse of an apartment. 

He reaches out and knocks on the door with a tentative rap of his knuckles, stepping back and swallowing nervously as he listens to the heavy footsteps on the other side of the door. Keeping his head down, he pulls his hood closer over his face, hoping to shield himself from any curious eyes that might notice him visiting Jean at four in the morning. 

“Who the fuck-?” Jean mumbles as he pulls open the door. A bat dangles from his hand, but he just scowls when he looks at Eren in the face. “Even if you aren’t a goddamn zombie, I will bash your head in.” He starts to lift the bat but Eren hurriedly lifts his hands to shield his face. 

“Wait, Jean!” Eren says. His voice is a lot more hoarse than it used to be. He doesn’t know if it’s because he hasn’t used it in god knows how long or if it’s because zombies don’t have the same vocal cords as humans. He clears his throat. “It’s me. It’s Eren.” 

“Eren?” Jean lowers his bat as he squints and takes a good look at Eren in his tattered hoodie, scraggly hair covering most of his face. He relaxes and then makes room for Eren to squeeze by. “Jesus, you look like hell.” 

Jean’s probably right, but it doesn’t mean Eren likes hearing it. It’s not as if Jean looks any better in his rumpled Yoda pajamas and bedhead. 

“Were you going to hit me over the head with that?” Eren asks, still eyeing the bat warily. 

“Yeah, I mean, zombies and everything,” Jean says with a shrug. He shuts the door behind Eren and gestures for him to take a seat at the dining table. The brunette takes a seat himself and yawns, not even bothering to cover his mouth. “But what about you? Nobody’s seen you in over, what, a year? Your mom cried about you the entire time, calling up everyone she knew every night just to see if anyone had seen or heard from you. Everyone thought you died.” 

“Oh, well …,” Eren says sitting there awkwardly. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, if he should put them on the table or fold them or what. They end up in his lap so he can stare at them and avoid making eye contact with Jean. “They wouldn’t be wrong. Er, at least not exactly.” 

Jean freezes and then his eyes widen, fully awake now. Slowly, he leans across the table and reaches out until his hand is on the hood of Eren’s sweatshirt. They stay there like that, staring at each other while Jean’s hand rests on Eren’s hood until Jean finally pulls it back and reveals Eren’s true appearance. 

“Fucking hell, Eren,” Jean says exasperatedly, burying his face in his hands. 

It’s not how Eren had imagined telling Jean, but it’s not like people made pamphlets for this stuff.

“It’s not like I planned this!” Eren whines, slumping down in his chair and pulling the hoodie over his head again. It’s kind of embarrassing to come out as a zombie. “I just … woke up one day like this.” 

“And you just decided to walk up to my door and let me know then? And then what? Eat me?” Jean hisses. 

Although Eren is grateful that Jean is keeping his voice down, he wishes his friend would stop rubbing his face in exasperation. He finds it so … distracting the way Jean rubs his rosy red cheeks, soft and squishy under his palms. If Eren could just take a bite out of them …

He shakes his head violently. “Stop!” Eren says more to himself than to Jean. He startles himself with his own voice, so he proceeds more calmly, his voice lowered. “I mean … no, that’s not what I’m here for. I’m kind of like a vegetarian anyway.”

“Oh, so if I plop a salad down in front of you you'll be happy eating that instead?” Jean sits back with a snort, arms crossed over his chest. His biceps flex, muscles bulging. Eren doesn’t remember if Jean was ever that toned before, but turning into a zombie has made him a lot more perceptive to these types of things. 

Eren sucks his cheeks in to keep from drooling. “No, I said kind of like a vegetarian. I still eat meat just not, you know, human meat.” It’s supposed to be a good thing, but he still winces as he says it. Not eating humans isn’t really an accomplishment. 

“Good for you,” Jean says dryly. He raises an eyebrow. “So what are you here for? Don’t tell me you want me to … to mercy kill you.” They’ve never been the best of friends but Jean still shudders at the thought of having to do such a thing. 

“No, no, nothing like that!” Eren says hastily. He wonders why those have to be his only options: killing people or being killed himself. Under his breath, he mumbles, “If I wanted someone to kill me, I probably would have asked Annie.” 

“Yeah, she probably would have done it without batting an eyelash. Maybe even without you having to ask,” Jean says and chuckles in spite of the situation. The sound of his laugh makes the atmosphere less tense and Eren relaxes in his chair. Across from him, Jean looks at him with an expression of curiosity rather than one of suspicion. “So if you’re not here to eat me and you don’t want me to kill you, then what are you here for, Jaeger?” 

Eren purses his lips and looks at Jean, wondering exactly how close they are. He would never put him at the top of his friend list although there have been occasions where Jean has been the first name on his hit list. They’ve gone through far too many fights over everything and nothing over the course of their friendship - over copying homework back in middle and high school, over whether or not the other owed them money, over who accidentally left Armin behind, and things that are too trivial to remember now. Asking to disguise your zombie friend as a normal human being is probably the ultimate test of friendship. 

“I want you to help me.” 

Jean sighs but, Eren notes, it’s not a rejection. He gets up from the table and runs his hand through his hair. “It’s way too early for this. I need coffee.” He opens a cupboard and pulls out a pack of instant coffee. Pausing, he looks over at Eren. “Do zombies drink coffee?” 

Eren was never a fan of coffee even when he was alive. Now, the idea of drinking something so bitter makes him want to gag even more. Still, Eren shrugs. “Sure.” 

----------

After a conversation over some (very disgusting coffee), Eren and Jean have agreed to a couple of things. 

First is that, while they shouldn’t openly disclose the fact that Eren is a zombie, they should most definitely let a few people in the know because there’s only so much Eren and Jean can do on their own. Eren can’t have his mother knowing. It would probably break her poor heart to know. But they should at least let Armin know. Out of their friend group, he’s undeniable the smartest one. They’d have to break the news to him in a way that doesn’t frighten him, but Eren thinks that it’ll be manageable. They were debating on whether or not they should let Annie know - Jean was heavily against it but Eren was all for it - and agreed to let her know after consulting Armin for his opinion. They didn’t even want to think about Reiner and Bertholdt right now. 

Second is that Eren can no longer feed on wild animals, but Jean will provide him with a supply of raw meat. The idea of eating meat that’s gone through some processing isn’t ideal, but Eren will take what he can get. At least Jean promised to get him some pig blood to douse the meat in too or else it would be even less appealing. 

(“How do you even eat with those teeth of yours?” Jean asks, trying to peer into Eren’s mouth as the zombie scowls at him. “I mean, you have incisors and stuff, but your molars aren’t really ideal for tearing up food.” 

“Oh, well, it kind of just … gets everywhere,” Eren admits unhappily. 

“Disgusting.”) 

Third is that Eren has to have a makeover. 

“I can’t believe you still have that shitty job at the hair salon,” Eren mutters, referencing the hair salon in the center of town where everyone gets their hair cut. He stopped going there in middle school because he was tired of only having to choose between a buzz cut and a bowl cut, the only hairstyles that were offered to boys below the age of fifteen. 

“Yeah, well, be glad because you’re in desperate need of a haircut,” Jean replies. He pulls a sheet over Eren’s shoulders, holding it in back with a safety pin. He threads his fingers through Eren’s limp hair and frowns. “You can’t make a prolific career as a makeup artist here unless you’re super passionate about high school girls going to prom or brides and their bridesmaids coming in for the occasional wedding. At least cosmetology school covered how to hold scissors.” 

“Sorry,” Eren mumbles, suddenly feeling guilty. He’s felt unhappy and unfulfilled living in this small town, but he’s never really thought about how his friends have felt. Armin and Annie seemed more than content and Reiner enjoyed having his family nearby. Jean would complain every once in a while, but he never seemed too serious about it until now. He must feel as if his potential is wasted after getting a degree in cosmetology only to spend his days cutting hair for his neighbors down the street. 

“I don’t know why you’re apologizing. It’s really not that big of a deal just working here.” Jean takes out his water bottle and spritzes Eren’s hair before running a brush through it. He takes out a pair of clippers, opening and closing them with a few clicks as he approaches Eren. “Do you mind how much I hack off? It’s been a while since you had it cut short and it probably wouldn’t look as … greasy.” 

“Hack away.” 

Eren’s hair flutters to the floor with a few quick snips, the only sound that fills the room. 

“But you’re not like the other zombies,” Jean observes. After snipping most of Eren’s hair off, he trades his scissors for electric clippers that buzz to life with a monotone whir. 

“I hope you’re not going to ask me about it,” Eren murmurs, eyes closed as he feels the clippers shear off the hair at the back of his neck. The feeling of Jean’s finger running through his hair, fingers brushing against the newly stubbled hair, feels so pleasant that Eren can’t help but lean back into it a little bit. It’s been so long since he’s interacted with another human. He hadn’t realized how much he’s been longing for a simple conversation, a simple touch, until now. 

“Why not? You’re a zombie now, aren’t you?” Jean ruffles the top of Eren’s head, the part he hadn’t trimmed short, and retrieves his scissors again. He leans in front of Eren, brushing the hair forward. He’s meticulous about cutting hair, studying the way it falls in Eren’s face before making the first careful cut. 

“I’m a zombie now,” Eren repeats with a snort, “but that doesn’t make me an expert on this. I’m completely new to this, in case you forgot.” 

Jean’s right, though. Eren isn’t anything like the zombies they’ve seen before. Most of them are just sluggish monsters, feet trailing as they moan and groan out incomprehensible noises before they get their brains smashed in by whoever they managed to run into first - maybe the second-grader down the street or even the mailman going about their rounds. Eren, however, is completely coherent and his existence is very close to that of a normal human being aside from his decayed appearance. He’s not sure if he got lucky and rose up before the worms had gotten to him. 

“You’re not, like, actively rotting, right?” Jean asks suddenly after finishing up on Eren’s bangs. 

“What? No!” Eren says, mortified and offended at the same time. Is he really that disgusting? He wouldn’t dare consider himself handsome now - he probably wouldn’t have considered it even if he were alive - but he feels suddenly self-conscious at Jean’s question. Aside from his sickly gray skin and his slight loss of muscle, he hasn’t decayed much and he hadn’t noticed any further deterioration following his resurrection. And even if he were rotting, it’s not like he could control it. 

“I was just asking,” Jean mutters. 

“Whatever.” 

Eren watches as Jean does some fancy thing with his scissors, cutting away at Eren’s hair. It’s taking far longer than Eren had expected. He probably would have shaved his entire head and been done with it, but Jean has always been more patient when it comes to taking care of appearances. 

“Do I really look that bad?” Eren asks. He kind of wishes he hadn’t, but the words have already left his mouth. Jean can be brutal with his opinion at times. 

Jean pauses for a moment, taking a second to look at Eren. He doesn’t scrutinize Eren the way he sometimes scrutinizes celebrities and models on magazine covers, but the intensity of his gaze still makes the zombie squirm uncomfortably as he makes his analysis. “You’ve looked better,” Jean finally replies, “but you don’t look terrible.” 

“Oh.” It’s not the answer that Eren was expecting (although he’s not sure what kind of answer he wanted in the first place), but he’s content with it. 

His friend goes back to attending to Eren’s hair. “Believe it or not, you might actually look better than when you were dating Historia by the time we’re done.” 

“Historia?” At the mention of his girlfriend, Eren straightens his back, the movement startling Jean. The zombie grimaces apologetically when Jean shoots him a glare. He settles back to his original position and clears his throat, trying not to look too eager as he asks, “How is Historia?” 

“Oh, um,” Jean says. It’s difficult to tell if his delayed answer is because he’s reluctant to respond or if it’s because he’s currently trying to figure out what to do with this stray lock of hair that’s sticking up on Eren’s head. “She’s, ah, dating someone else now.” 

“She’s what?” 

“Stop moving or I’ll buzz off the rest of your hair and give you a mohawk,” Jean scowls, forcibly shoving Eren back into the chair. He cuts a little more hair but stops after seeing the frown on his friend’s face. He reaches out to brush off the hair on Eren’s shoulder and says with a sigh, “I mean, you can’t really blame her. You disappeared without a trace.” 

“Well, sorry for not leaving a message. If I knew I was getting murdered, I probably would have let someone know that I wasn’t coming home!” Eren sniffs. He sits back in his chair with a thud, arms folded across his chest. Historia dating someone else is the least of his problems right now, but he can’t help feeling a little miffed about the whole thing. 

It’s not like he loved Historia or anything super romantic like that, but he did like her a lot and he was certain she reciprocated those feelings. They met during their junior year of college through mutual friends and started dating towards the end of their senior year. Unlike Eren, she came from the bustling city of Sina, so it surprised him that someone from such a big city would take a liking to someone like him. She enjoyed photography, majored in it, and managed to find a job at a news company in the city. After failing to secure a job in the same city, Eren had thought that was the end of the relationship, but she had offered to try long-distance for a while. It worked a lot better than Eren thought it would. The distance between Shiganshina and Sina was too far for them to commute to each other every day, but they settled on seeing each other every other week. Sometimes Eren would come visit Historia, but more often than not she would come and visit him, claiming that the quaint little town had a charming and relaxing atmosphere that she could never find in the city. 

The last time he had seen Historia was a week before he had died. They went for a long walk around the town and he had taken her to the noodle shop he often frequented as a high schooler. She liked the broth and sent her compliments to the chef, an act that charmed the shop owner so much that a complimentary plate of dumplings was sent out to Historia and Eren. 

The last time Eren had spoken to Historia was the night before he died. They were speaking on the phone about the next visit - if Eren should travel to Sina or Historia to Shiganshina - before Eren excused himself to go on a nightly walk in the forest. He promised her he would call her later that night. And then he never did. Shit. 

“It’s not like she wasn’t worried about you,” Jean says. “I mean, she was pissed at first, but she looked for you when we all realized you were missing. We never found you, obviously, and it wasn’t like she was going to stay hung up on you forever. So she started dating someone else.” 

It’s true, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. 

“How long before she started dating someone else?” Eren asks. He probably shouldn’t ask - the answer will most likely make him feel worse than he’s already feeling - but he’s morbidly curious. 

Jean finishes cutting Eren’s hair and ruffles the top of the zombie’s head one last time. “I’m not sure. Maybe half a year? A little longer? It’s not like I saw her regularly after you were gone.” 

“I guess,” Eren mutters a little forlornly. He doesn’t even want to look at his reflection when Jean holds up a mirror, but his eyes flicker up anyway. He takes the mirror in his hand and looks unhappily at his reflection. A hand reaches up to play with his hair, still the same chestnut brown but a little more brittle than it used to be. The sides and back of his hair are shorn short in a neat undercut but the top of his hair is still long, long enough to be swept towards the front and hang in the way of his water, green eyes. Looking at his reflection, his hair is really the only nice-looking thing about him. The rest of him still looks sad and ugly and pale. 

“Let me do your makeup now,” Jean tells him, already opening up his makeup kit. 

“Fine,” Eren sighs. He sets the mirror facedown on the nearby table and frowns as Jean wipes off the dust and grime on his skin with a wet wipe. He doesn’t like how cold and damp it is as Jean cleans his face - as a zombie, Eren finds the cold to be unbearable - and shudders as the wet wipe brushes against his cheek. As Jean finishes up cleaning his face, Eren asks, “Is the person she’s dating … nice?” 

“I guess.” Jean inspects the tiny bottles of moisturizer in his kit before deciding on a small white container with a brand name in neat black print that Eren doesn’t recognize. It doesn’t smell like anything, but it’s cool as Jean gently pats the moisturizer into Eren’s skin. “Historia’s girlfriend actually lives here. She moved here after you disappeared though. Came here after getting a job for our local newspaper. They must have met during one of the searches we did for you and, well.” 

He’s thankful that Jean leaves the sentence unfinished. Eren’s imagination can fill in the blank. He should probably be happy that Historia hasn’t spent the last year worrying about him, but he isn’t thrilled to hear that she’s moved on either. 

“Hey, can you stop frowning?” Jean asks. He waves his hand in front of his face, imitating Eren’s expression in an exaggerated manner. “You’re giving yourself wrinkles and your skin is hard enough to work with already.” 

“Sorry,” Eren mumbles.

“‘s fine,” Jean assures. He screws the cap back onto the jar of moisturizers and plucks a makeup sponge, a brush, and a tube of primer. He squirts a little of the primer - a light yellow gel that comes out the size of a dime - before dabbing at it with his makeup sponge and begins to rub it across Eren’s face. “I’ve never had a zombie as a client. If you end up looking good, it means that all those years at cosmetology school weren’t a waste.” 

Even if Jean doesn’t do well and Eren ends up looking like a zombie in clown makeup, Eren doubts that it’ll be a full representation of his friend’s full talents. Jean had a knack for art when they were kids; he knew exactly how to blend colors and shade. He even won a few art contests here and there back in middle school and high school. His talents seemed to transfer naturally when he decided to become a makeup artist, not that he’s had the chance to display them after finishing cosmetology school. Jean’s gifts go pretty much unused now (except for on the few occasions that Annie decides she wants to go out with a little more intricate makeup), but those types of skills just don’t go away. Of course, Eren would never say any of these things to Jean’s face. He had never complimented Jean and he wasn’t going to start now just because he started a new life. 

Instead, Eren says, “You’re painting me yellow.” 

Jean clicks his tongue as he begins to smooth out the primer over Eren’s skin. He’s gentle as he does it and Eren has to wonder if he’s this careful with his other clients or if he’s just cautious because Eren’s zombie skin is more delicate than normal human skin. “It’s just to help with your complexion. It’s really pale now, so this is to help cover up all those veins that we can see and hide the dark circles under your eyes. I probably would have used a pink primer if you were normal. Or something to help moisturize and lighten your skin.” 

Eren hums. He always knew makeup was complicated, but it’s another thing to actually sit down and experience it for himself. He’d never be able to do this on his own. 

“I’m gonna look fresh to death,” Eren murmurs as Jean moves in to apply some foundation. “Drop dead gorgeous.” 

Jean rolls his eyes, pausing to say, “I’m very good at making people look amazing, but I can also make you look even worse if I wanted to.” 

“No, thank you,” Eren squeaks, shutting up immediately. 

Normally, Eren wouldn’t bother making these types of jokes. Puns and play on words is the kind of humor that Reiner usually resorts to. If anything, Eren and the rest of his friends try to avoid it lest they annoy Annie with such nonsensically stupid humor, but Eren feels as if he doesn’t have a choice but to resort to such simple jokes if only to distract himself from everything that’s happening in front of him. 

The thing about being a zombie is that everyone, no matter who they are, looks like an attractive piece of meat. This includes the drunk hikers that stumbled into the woods at night that Eren sometimes saw from a distance, the farmer that Eren never liked as a child because he always smelled of manure, and Jean, the very same Jean that Eren had once called horse-face back when they were kids. Jean has since grown into his exceptionally long face and is, at least what the mothers in town would call, handsome, an adjective that Eren and his zombified brain would heartily agree with. 

Jean is inches away from Eren’s face as he dabs in foundation and concealer - both far too dark to match Eren’s current skin tone but are very close to his original color - and Eren can get a good look at his brown eyes, his brow furrowed in concentration. People often said that Jean and Eren had similar eyes when they were children, something Eren didn’t really understand because his eyes were much bigger than Jean and also a completely different color. People would probably have a different opinion now because Eren’s eyes are now wet and watery all the time, but Jean’s brown eyes are bright, shining with intensity despite the dark bags under his eyes. Eren just wants to pluck them out and plop them in his mouth, crunch them between his teeth. They’d probably be as plump and juicy as an octopus ball. 

Up close, everything about Jean looks perfect. Even if Eren has never eaten a human in his life, Jean would probably be his ideal prey. He’s a decent size, tall with some lean muscle and not a lot of fat. Eren could probably feast on him for days. He can’t imagine Jean tasting like beef - he’s not muscular or meaty enough. He’d probably be more similar to the taste of venison: rich and earthy with a slightly sweet aftertaste. The texture would probably be the same too, Eren thinks hungrily, smooth and firm but juicier and more succulent than beef or even pork. 

Even Jean’s skin looks enticing. Eren had never been one to notice people’s skin. He didn’t care about blemishes or acne or anything like that. He still doesn’t care even though he’s sitting so close he can see every mole, every acne scar, every single pore on Jean’s skin. Those little imperfections hardly bother him. Those things won’t affect taste and texture, Eren is sure. He does, upon his close inspection of Jean’s skin, have a newfound appreciation for healthy skin. Jean’s is so shiny and clean that he’s practically glowing. It’s nice and tight pulled over smooth bone and firm muscle, keeping all this flesh nice and juicy. His lips look especially plump and pink, probably treated with some sort of lip care routine that Eren could never be bothered to make into a habit. Eren doesn’t remember if Jean’s lips were always that nice or if he’s just noticing it now. He kind of wants to lean over and have a taste, see if they’re as sweet as they look before he nibbles on them and rips them off, swallowing them whole. 

“You’re drooling,” Jean tells him, snapping Eren out of his ravenous reverie. 

“Sorry,” Eren mutters. He’d probably blush if zombies were capable of blushing. He reaches up to wipe the drool from his mouth but Jean hastily smacks his zombie hand away and wipes at the corner of Eren’s mouth with a wet wipe. 

He shouldn’t be having these thoughts about Jean. For one thing, he just promised Jean that he wouldn’t eat any people. As much as Eren wants to chomp on Jean’s face right now, eating his childhood friend would be very traumatic. He knows way too many things about Jean to eat him like he’s some poor rabbit right now. In fact, knowing so much about Jean should be a huge turn-off for Eren. Jean chews on the end of his writing utensils. He has terrible morning breath especially after he’s drunk coffee. He lets his dishes soak overnight before actually washing them. Why would Eren want to eat someone like that? Of course, it’s hard to remember all of that when Jean is sitting in front of Eren the way he is, his back hunched slightly and his brow furrowed in concentration while he nibbles on his bottom lip as he carefully applies some mascara to Eren’s eyelashes to make them look less sparse. 

Looking at Jean is definitely making Eren hungrier, so he squeezes his eyes shut hoping that not seeing Jean will make Eren forget just how delicious-looking his friend is. Unfortunately, that seems to make everything worse. Living by himself and hunting for his own food, becoming a predator to so many unsuspecting prey, has only heightened Eren’s other senses like smell and touch. 

Eren breathes in and his lungs are flooded with Jean’s scent. He smells sweet and earthy, like a mix of a freshly mowed lawn or rain-soaked soil. It overpowers the cold, sterile smell of makeup, all of them claiming to smell like flowers but really just smell like they’ve come out of a factory. Eren wants to bury his face in Jean’s scent, get lost in it as he presses his nose into Jean’s neck. It would probably be even better when he cuts Jean open, his fragrance mixing with the metallic smell of blood. 

God, Eren can just feel the saliva pooling at the back of his throat. He doesn’t want to get scolded for ruining his makeup again, so he tries to swallow it down only to choke on it. 

“You alright?” Jean asks. 

Eren chances a glance at his friend, cracking open an eye carefully. “I’m fine,” Eren manages even though he’s the complete opposite. 

“Okay, let me finish you up then.” Jean sets Eren’s makeup with a mist of some sort. (“It’s to help your makeup stay on,” the makeup artist explains. “I’ll probably have to redo some of it in the afternoon, but we’ll think about that later.”) He finishes it up by applying a nude lipstick to help cover up the cracks and the color of blue-gray lips. 

It’s difficult not to be fixated on Jean’s fingers, especially when they’re so close to Eren’s mouth. They’re long and slender, the type of fingers an artist has. Eren wants to wrap his lips around them and taste the salt on Jean’s skin. If he sucks hard enough, the fingers will probably detach with a deliciously clean pop! Jean’s hands actually remind Eren of the chicken feet he and his friends used to get at the dim sum place near their university whenever they felt like treating themselves at the end of the term. Chicken feet didn’t taste nearly as good when Eren was a zombie. They were all skin and bone, not to mention the claws that nearly cut Eren’s tongue every time he ate them. Jean’s hands look like a more elegant version of chicken feet, his skin smooth and fingers meatier than the bony digits of a chicken. 

“Purse your lips for me,” Jean says. 

Eyes still fixed on Jean’s hands, the zombie obeys, frowning at the waxy feeling on his lips. It turns him off to the idea of eating Jean a little bit. He’d probably ruin his makeup and all of Jean’s hard work would go to waste. 

Jean studies Eren for a moment before nodding, satisfied. “Good. Try not to touch your face when you go outside or else you’ll smudge everything.” He caps the lipstick and begins to pack everything away in his kit before he notices a hand mirror he’s placed face down beside the kit. Taking it, he hands it to Eren. “Here, take a look.” 

Hesitantly, Eren takes the mirror and gazes on his reflection. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to see. When he was a zombie, he only saw his reflection a handful of times in pools of water and in the sideview mirrors of the farmer’s truck whenever he passed by. Despite knowing his true form, seeing himself with such lifeless gray skin and scraggly hair hanging in his face, the light that was always in his eyes when he was alive absent, was such a shock that he vowed to never look at himself again. Eren’s done his best to avoid looking at his reflection since then, only catching a glimpse every now and then and flinching in horror every time. But looking at his reflection now…

His skin is no longer a dull, sickly gray but a healthy tan. It’s not the exact same shade he was back when he was alive - it’s probably a few shades lighter - but it’s definitely an improvement. His makeup isn’t too apparent, which he appreciates. It’s one thing to disguise himself as alive and another thing entirely to show up in town a year later looking like a model. He just has some light blush in his cheeks and his lipstick hides how ugly and chapped his lips were before he came to Jean. Eren’s hair looks more socially acceptable now that it’s not hanging in greasy strands around his face. The undercut on the sides makes him look younger, a little livelier, and his hair is long enough on top to cover some of his eyes. It’s not enough to obscure his sight but enough to distract anyone from seeing how watery and tired his eyes look. As long as people aren’t looking too closely at him, they might just think he hasn’t slept in a while. He looks good. Great even. Jean was probably joking, but he really did make Eren look better than he did when he was alive. 

“I think you might have done too good of a job,” Eren mumbles. He’s about to reach up and touch his face, but Jean latches onto his wrist and shakes his head. Ah, right. No touching. 

“Don’t underestimate yourself, Jaeger.” 

Eren wonders if that’s supposed to be a compliment. He’s about to ask Jean, but Jean is already disappearing into his room. 

“It took longer than I thought it would to do your makeup,” says Jean. There are sounds of him shuffling through his closet for something to wear. He pops out and throws Eren an old oversized hoodie and some dark jeans. “Wear those. Keep your hood up while we’re out. I don’t know if we should tell people you’re back, at least not yet. Let’s meet Armin first.” 

“Alright.” 

He stares at the hoodie in his hands, wondering if he should put it on. Should he strip? It feels weird to undress in Jean’s living room, but it’s not like Jean hasn’t seen him in a locker room before. Then again, that was back when Eren’s body wasn’t all … gross. Still, Jean was actually pretty considerate about Eren’s current appearance aside from the question about decomposing. Ah, fuck it. 

Eren begins to take off his worn-out shirt and jeans, leaving them discarded on the floor. He pulls on the sweater first, careful not to mess up his makeup in the process. As soon as he puts his head through the hoodie, he immediately regrets it. He’s met with Jean’s overwhelming scent - warm and comforting and absolutely delicious. He breathes it in a little too hard before realizing that it’ll be awkward explaining to Jean if he’s caught in the act. Hurriedly, he pulls the hoodie over his head and wiggles his arms through the holes. He’s in the process of pulling the jeans over his legs when Jean steps out of his room. 

“Do you need help?” Jean is changed out of his pajamas and into casual outerwear - khaki pants and an overcoat thrown over a button-up. He has a knitted scarf wrapped around his neck, probably something Armin made when he was stressed out the night before a council meeting. On his head rests a matching knitted beanie. He looks so nicely put together that Eren feels embarrassed standing in his living room half-dressed. 

“N-no,” Eren stammers as he tugs the jeans over his calves and then his thighs. He wasn’t sure they would fit. He and Jean weren’t exactly the same size; Jean was always long and lanky even before he had his growth spurt, but Eren must have lost a lot of muscle mass during the zombification process because the jeans are a little roomy around his thighs. At least the cuffs are too short, ending an inch above his ankles, so Eren hasn’t grown shorter while he was buried under the ground. He straightens out his clothes and pulls his hood up, looking at Jean expectantly. “Where are we going?” 

“To talk to Armin,” Jean replies. He glances at his phone and nods at a text message before tucking the phone back in his pocket. Plucking his keys and wallet from the drawer, he walks to the door and opens it, beckoning for Eren to follow him. “Come on. Let’s figure out what to do with you before you accidentally eat someone.” 

“Right,” Eren chuckles nervously, thankful that Jean isn’t able to see the nervous sweat that’s currently breaking out on the back of the zombie’s neck. He wants to keep his promise of not eating people to Jean, he really does. More than anything, he wants to keep it to at least prove that he’s nothing like the other mindless zombies that have been roaming around and getting their heads smashed in. There has to be some difference between him and them, Eren thinks, but it’s hard to believe when he’s busy staring at Jean’s backside and his long, long legs that seem to stretch on for days. It’s even more difficult when his eyes settle on Jean’s ass because his khakis hug his curves too well and it’s impossible for Eren to not look. Eren wants nothing more than to sink his teeth into Jean’s ass and taste that sweet, peachy flesh on his tongue. 

God, Eren thinks with a whimper as he pulls the hoodie over his face and forces himself to look at the ground so that he’s no longer tempted to eat his friend alive. This is going to be the death of me. 

[psychicreadsgirl]

Hi, could you do a reading on my weight loss? I used to play sports in my teens but I was never slim, I stopped and gained like 20lbs. Now Im trying to lose that weight - Dri

Your metabolism got worse over the years. This is normal as you get older, to be honest. It will continue to worsen so you have to eat healthily like vegetables, lean protein, enough carbs etc, and exercise consistently. You need to count your calories well. I suggest a calorie app/fitness app to track things. Fruits have a lot of sugar, so you have to be careful what type of fruit you ingest. Nuts are not so healthy tbh. They have healthy fat yes, but many people end up over-ingesting and forget that even with healthy fat, too much of it is still fat. Tofu isn’t as healthy as most people think; GMO soy beans used. You have to exercise at least 30 minutes - an hour a day and also drink lots of water. You have to be able to commit to a strict regimen if you want to lose 20 pounds. It is unlikely you will be able to follow such a strict exercise/diet plan given your personality. You are the type that will likely give in after a good two weeks and want to have 1 cheat day that turns into 2 and then 3 and then the whole week. You have to measure yourself at least once a week, minimum, preferably in the morning when you haven’t eaten. You wear close to nothing to measure so you get an accurate weight. You need to measure using a measuring tape too. Take measurements of your waist, in particular. 

You eat smaller portions than normal. You’ve been eating more than you need for your height. I recommend getting smaller sized bowls and taking longer to chew your food. At least 10 - 20 chews per mouthful. You can also use a different hand to use your fork/utensil to eat. That slows down how you eat. You can also drink 1 cup of water before you have your meal; often when you think you are hungry, you are actually thirsty. It also takes the stomach around 20 - 30 mins to realize that it’s actually full. You never should eat till you feel 100% stuffed. You should eat till around you feel 80% stuffed. You should never starve yourself either. Your meals should make you full enough that you don’t need to keep snacking unnecessarily in life.

In terms of healthy food, I recommend for meat, lean protein like turkey breast/chicken breast. Pork I don’t recommend so much. Beef in moderation. It’s best to eat food that’s unprocessed ie no additional manufacturing done. Sausages = real bad. Processed. For vegetables, you need a wide range. Mushrooms aren’t so good; many are GMO too or grown in factories. Organic meat is good. I don’t think it’s necessary to do organic vegetables unless you’re able to wash them very well. Many times they come with many insects, especially when ingested raw. 

For meals, you need to keep the dressing to a minimum. Salt and pepper. Healthy vegetable oil is good. Everything else you can cut out. When you order a salad, ask for no dressing. Don’t pick those ones with tons of nuts/seeds and dried cranberries. Cheese needs to be done in moderation; cheese is not so nutritionally beneficial. Yes it has calcium but the amt of fat per piece is real high and a lot of people break out from eating cheese.Say no to sweets like chocolate or candy. You can ingest a bit of dark chocolate with minimal sugar, but that’s very minimal. No marshmallows, no cakes, no cupcakes, or whatever. Sugar in that sense is not good for you. And these carbs are not worthy of anything. You also have to pick your exercises carefully. Has to be a mix of anaerobic and aerobic. Need also to use weights. You should see a nutritionist if you can to help with your diet plan. You cannot take diet pills or think some supplement will help you. You have to put in the hard work and the commitment to be able to lose weight in a healthy manner, or else you will just rebound or end up skinny fat/skinny but many health issues that will arise.  

I also don't recommend becoming vegetarian or vegan. As humans, we are born as omnivores, meaning we need both meat and vegetables to survive. It’s very, very hard to maintain the right nutrients, especially by being vegan. Vegetarian - you can still ingest eggs, but vegan . . . a bit too extreme for the body. If you do choose these two routes, you really need to consult a dietician/nutritionist who can help you get enough of your nutrients. It’s useless being skinny if you’re doing it the unhealthy way. It’ll show in the long term with your skin, teeth, complexion, hair, and later on give you other health problems. Many vegetarians/vegans I know end up suffering from malnutrition and then have to see their doctor to be told they lack this or that. 

You’ll need a good 4 - 6 months to lose at least 10 pounds. I’m more into losing weight slowly than a rapid drop in weight loss. Usually those fast weight loss methods are fads (Esp the ones that celebrities do). Totally unhealthy and you end up losing muscle more so than fat. However, most humans like to see results fast so they just take the shortcut for short term profits. Then they end up with bad health later on, but that’s okay to them because they look “skinny”. To each their own.

[chocolatechubby]

Morph (Part 2)

Devin was beautiful. His fat face and ample double chin were exactly as Ben had sculpted. His porcine fingers fluttered nervously, as he fumbled with the Twix bar melting in his chubby palms. He took a bite…then another before he spoke.

 His voice was soft—almost child-like when he finally said, “Hello Benny.” Ben was speechless. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. “I know, I know…” Devin started “…I look a little different—well a LOT different from the last time you saw me.” 

“You’ve put on a little weight” was Ben’s startled response. “A little weight?” guffawed Chucky; “He could take on the entire front line of the Dallas Cowboys!” Devin blushed. “But it looks good on you Devin!” Chucky smiled, softening his first comment. “Finally got some meat on them bones!” “Wouldn't hurt you to get some of that on you, Ben!” Ben did a double take on that comment. What was Chucky implying? Before he could ask, Devin spoke. "I-I-came in to find you, Benny.” 

Devin smiled. His face had the cherubic innocence with which Ben had fallen in love. Except now, what Ben had cherished on the inside, seemed to have manifested itself on the outside as well. All of the shit that swirled around his relationship with Devin was melting like the candy bar in his hand. Ben tried to hold on to the pain and embarrassment that the relationship had elicited, but staring at this image of a Hawaiian god was too much. He was immediately back in love.

"Can we go somewhere and talk?” Devin's voice was a tinkle of bells on a soft breeze. "Uhhhh…" was all Ben could get out. "Chucky told me of some places we could get a bite to eat…" Devin offered. Somehow, Ben knew Devin would never be satisfied with simply a "bite" ever again.

Moments later, Ben found himself walking towards The Bloated Belly with Devin. Well, it was more like walk…stop…walk…stop. Devin was a sight. He was still learning how to maneuver his new girth. He would arch his back, slightly twist his ballooning torso, and send his huge arms swinging behind him. This would give him momentum enough to lurch forward and land with a resounding "thud" about a foot from where he had begun. His entire body would quiver lusciously with the effort. He would repeat this process three or four times in succession before stopping, his round face glistening with sweat and fatigue. His poor t-shirt was no match for such movement, and would constantly ride up over his massive belly-exposing his brown flesh to the world. It was beautiful. 

Ben was having a hard time walking as well—forcing his hard-on into submission as he watched his former lover make his way up the street. Of course, the freaked-out eyes of onlookers only served to fuel his desire. 

Chucky had pushed them both out of the Computer Cove saying, "Go on you two. I know you've got a lot to tell each other. It should be quite a meeting!” There was a twinkle in Chucky's eyes when Ben turned to protest. The innuendo in his statement suggested that he knew about his and Devin's relationship. It was time he found out. As he opened his mouth to ask Chucky what he knew, as if reading his mind Chucky added: "I'll be here if you need to talk to me afterward, Ben-you all go and have a good time!”

It was the second time in as many days that Chucky's parting words to Ben had caused him to pause. He'd left the shop quietly, still trying to fathom the events that had taken place since he had gotten to work that morning. Before he could give himself more time to ponder, Devin tugged on his sleeve and pointed to the sign in front of them…The Bloated Belly.

Ben had often been in this part of the city, but he couldn't remember ever seeing this restaurant before. However, this was a day of seeing things he had never seen. As they were about to open the door, two rotund men in suits pushed it from the other side. Both were over 350lbs and were having their own trouble walking. However, their difficulty was not from unaccustomed size, but from gorging. Each man was smiling, rubbing his overly distended belly buttons struggling to keep the fabric together. Between burps, Ben heard one of the big boys say "This place just keeps getting better and better!" before they both waddled off down the street.

As they entered the restaurant, the reasons for the fat gentleman's delight became quite clear. The Bloated Belly was one of the biggest buffet eateries Ben had ever seen. The tables were on the other side of the buffet-one had to cross between carts and carts of delectable selections in order to sit down. Like other buffets, The Bloated Belly was divided into sections: meats, entrees, vegetable dishes, salad, seafood, etc. Unlike most buffets, the selection was enormous-the meat section spanned three aisles, and included every kind of meat imaginable: tender roast beef and lamb, steaks, pork chops, and ribs--exotic meats from as far off as Africa.

The same was true with each of the other sections-it was a big man's dream come true. Each area had a conveyor belt system that allowed heavier patrons to rest (and eat) as they moved from place to place. Ben could hear Devin's breath increasing. "Thanks for picking up the tab for this…" Devin said as they walked towards the dessert aisle "…it seems as if I've eaten myself past my budget.” Devin's mouth was watering. "No problem" Ben replied. It wasn't the first time he had been in charge of paying for things in their relationship. This time, however, it was different. Not only did Devin seem softer (literally!), he knew he was about to get his money's worth by watching the big man eat.

Once they were seated, and their drink orders taken by a lovely young African American college student, Devin took off. Along with the extremely fat clientele, Devin worked his way from section to section, piling his plates higher and higher. Patrons could secure a rolling cart so that they could prepare more than one plate at a time. By the time Devin got back to the table, he had fourteen plates. Ben helped him arrange them around their large table and then prepared for the show.

At first, Devin tried to carry on a conversation. He asked Ben how he was, and confessed how sorry he was for what he had put him through. "It hasn't been the same without you. Nobody understands me like you do Benny.” Devin said as he bit into his first piece of steak. However, with that first bite, a true conversation was out. The meat melted in his mouth, and he let out a moan so sensual that it made Ben's penis jump and caused him to look around to see how the other patrons had reacted. He needn't have worried. As he turned, he noticed several other men and women having similar reactions as Devin's to their meals. "My god…" Ben thought, "…This is like a brothel! People come in here for lunch to get off!” The thought both excited and repulsed him.

As he turned back to Devin, he realized that his former lover now was so engrossed in eating that nothing else existed. He called out softly "Devin?” Devin grunted and his eyes rolled back in his head. That was as much as Ben could get. Devin's fat cheeks puffed out to impossible dimensions as he worked to get as much food in as he could. It was one of the most beautiful sights Ben had ever seen. 

Devin worked his pudgy hands from plate to plate-seizing bread and sopping up any stray bites he couldn't scrape off with utensils. Ben began moving empty plates out of the way and pushing full ones toward his huffing, puffing masterpiece. Devin nodded thanks as he strained past his belly to reach the next entrée. There was such power in Devin's progress—stuffing and swallowing with gusto and abandon. Even his burps were erotic and strong. A part of Ben longed to be able to do that himself, however, he was never able to put away much food, and therefore remained slight of build.

Around the tenth plate, Devin began to slow. "I think I've had it" was his muffled reply through the spinach au gratin and curried goat. "No, baby…" was Ben's ardent reply "…you've got four more plates, plus the dessert aisle. You just need some help.” 

Ben moved closer to his former lover, took his double chin in his hands, and opened his mouth. He spooned some sauce from the honey chicken onto a piece and brought it to Devin's mouth. He took his other hand and placed them on Devin's fat thighs, sliding it gently towards the big man's groin. Devin moaned softly and took the chicken. As he chewed, Ben discreetly massaged Devin's already massive hard on. This continued with each bite, then each plate. Devin's appetite was more voracious than ever. For an hour, they continued this way, both sweating and panting until Ben spooned the last of the coq au vin into Devin's mouth and the entire restaurant erupted in appreciative applause. 

Devin sat heavily back, spent. To Ben's delight, Devin said, "Could you get me some dessert baby? One of everything will do for starters.” 

“Anything you want Devin." 

Ben got up and walked towards the dessert aisle. As he did, he turned to look at Devin again. He was beautiful. He had always been Ben's icon of physical black perfection…but now…he was a perfect-at least 400lbs of man fat all created by that wondrous software! As he chose pastry after pastry and piled whipped cream onto pies and cakes, he realized how happy he was. His life would get back to normal. He began imagining his life with this new, kinder, gentler Devin. He knew they would spend more time together, if for no other reason because Devin couldn't move around as much. He started thinking about all of the projects that they would do together—including outfitting an apartment with devices to handle Devin's newfound bulk. He created five plates of scrumptious confections and headed back to the table still daydreaming.

He was aroused from his reverie by the commotion going on at his table. The lovely young college student was standing at their table sobbing. As tears rolled down her cheek she stuttered, "I'm so sorry sir.” "What's going on here?” Ben asked as he rolled the dessert cart up to Devin. "This stupid twit got our drink orders wrong!” Devin shouted. "How difficult is it to remember Vodka martini and Strawberry Daiquiri? That's what's wrong with Black People today! Black People don't listen. I don't know what they're teaching you in college. But you need to get your money back!” The girl simply nodded her head down, quietly sobbing.

 Ben looked at this man in horror. Even surrounded by the new layers of beautiful fat, it was the same old Devin. 

"Do something about this bitch, Benny!” Devin snapped, "I would, but I can't move right now.” "I certainly will.” Ben calmly replied. He reached over to the first plate of confections: a huge fudge brownie that Ben had piled high with hot fudge, whipped cream, nuts, sprinkles and a cherry. He lifted it high over Devin's head, turned it over, and brought it to rest on top. 

"What the--?" was Devin's startled reply. Ben then took the bread pudding and seven-layer cake and smeared it on the wide area of Devin's exposed stomach. The waitress stared wide-eyed and then began to laugh. "Here's a tip honey,” Ben said, as he placed a fifty-dollar bill in her hand. "…And here's another one: if it looks like an asshole, walks like an asshole, and sounds like an asshole...it's an asshole.” 

With that, he turned and left the restaurant, and Devin, for good.

Next: The Conclusion

Copyright 2003 by FBC. All rights reserved.

[jeroldlockettus]

The Future of Meat (Ep. 367)

Over 40 percent of the land in the contiguous U.S. is used for cow farming. Can scientists build a more sustainable burger? (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty)

Global demand for beef, chicken, and pork continues to rise. So do concerns about environmental and other costs. Will reconciling these two forces be possible — or, even better, Impossible

?

Listen and subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

*      *      *

Let’s begin with a few basic facts. Fact No. 1: a lot of people, all over the world, really like to eat meat — especially beef, pork, and chicken.

Jayson LUSK: If you add them all together, we’re actually higher than we’ve been in recent history.

That’s Jayson Lusk.

LUSK: I’m a professor and head of the agricultural economics department at Purdue University. I study what we eat and why we eat it.

DUBNER: In terms of overall meat consumption per capita in the U.S., how do we rank worldwide?

LUSK: We’re the king of meat eaters. So, compared to almost any other country in the world, we eat more meat per capita.

DUBNER: Even Brazil, Argentina, yes?

LUSK: Yes, and part of that difference is income-based. So, if you took Argentina, Brazil, and adjusted for income, they would probably be consuming more than us, but we happen to be richer, so we eat a little more.

The average American consumes roughly 200 pounds of meat a year. That’s an average. So, let’s say you’re a meat eater and someone in your family is vegetarian: you might be putting away 400 pounds a year. But, in America at least, there aren’t that many vegetarians.

LUSK: I probably have the largest data set of vegetarians of any other researcher that I know.

DUBNER: Really? Why?

LUSK: I’ve been doing a survey of U.S. food consumers every month for about five years, and one of the questions I ask is, “Are you a vegan or a vegetarian?” So, over five years’ time and about 1,000 people a month, I’ve got about 60,000 observations.

DUBNER: Wow. And is this a nationwide data survey?

LUSK: It is. Representative in terms of age and income and education. I’d say on average, you’re looking at about three to five percent of people say “yes” to that question. I’d say there’s a very slight uptick over the last five years.

So, again, a lot of meat-eating in America. What are some other countries that consume a lot of meat? Australia and New Zealand, Israel, Canada, Russia, most European countries. And, increasingly, China.

LUSK: One of the things we know is that when consumers get a little more income in their pocket, one of the first things they do is want to add high-value proteins to their diets.

DUBNER: What is the relationship generally between G.D.P. and meat consumption?

LUSK: Positive, although sort of diminishing returns, so as you get to really high income levels, it might even tail off a little bit. But certainly at the lower end of that spectrum, as a country grows and adds more G.D.P., you start to see some pretty rapid increases in meat consumption.

Meat consumption is of course driven by social and religious factors as well; by health concerns, and animal welfare: not everyone agrees that humans should be eating animals at all. That said, we should probably assume that the demand for meat will continue to rise as more of the world keeps getting richer. How’s the supply side doing with this increased demand? Quite well. The meat industry is massive and complicated — and often heavily subsidized. But, long story short, if you go by the availability of meat and especially what consumers pay, this is an economic success story.

LUSK: So prices of almost all of our meat products have declined pretty considerably over the last 60 to 100 years. And the reason is that we have become so much more productive at producing meat. If you look at most of the statistics, like the amount of pork produced per sow. And we’ve taken out a lot of the seasonal variation that we used to see, as these animals have been brought indoors. And you look at poultry production, broiler production: the amount of meat that’s produced per broiler has risen dramatically — almost doubled, say — over the last 50 to 100 years, while also consuming slightly less feed.

That’s due largely to selective breeding and other technologies. The same goes for beef production.

LUSK: We get a lot more meat per animal, for example, on a smaller amount of land.

As you can imagine, people concerned with animal welfare may not celebrate these efficiency improvements. And then there’s the argument that, despite these efficiency improvements, turning animals into food is wildly inefficient.

Pat BROWN: Because the cow didn’t evolve to be meat. That’s the thing.

Pat Brown is a long-time Stanford biomedical researcher who’s done groundbreaking work in genetics.

BROWN: The cow evolved to be a cow and make more cows and not to be eaten by humans. And it’s not very good at making meat.

Meaning: it takes an enormous amount of food and water and other resources to turn a cow or a pig into dinner — much more than plant-based foods. And as Pat Brown sees it, that is not even the worst of it.

BROWN: The most environmentally destructive technology on earth: using animals in food production. Nothing else even comes close.

Not everyone agrees that meat production is the environment’s biggest enemy. What’s not in dispute is that global demand for meat is high and rising. And that the production of meat is resource-intensive and, at the very least, an environmental challenge, with implications for climate change. Pat Brown thinks he has a solution to these problems. He’s started a company—

BROWN: —a company whose mission is to completely replace animals as a food production technology by 2035.

The meat industry, as you can imagine, has other ideas:

Kelly FOGARTY: We want to keep the term “meat” to what is traditionally harvested and raised in the traditional manner.

Today on Freakonomics Radio: everything you always wanted to know about meat, about meatless meat, and where meat meets the future.

*      *      *

What determines which food you put in your mouth every day? There are plainly a lot of factors: personal preference, tradition, geography, on and on.

LUSK: So, take something like horse consumption. It’s almost unheard of to even think about consuming a horse in the United States.

Jayson Lusk again, the agricultural economist.

LUSK: Whereas, you go to Belgium or France, it would be a commonly consumed dish.

But there’s another big factor that determines who eats what: technology. Technology related to how food is grown, preserved, transported. But also: technology that isn’t even related to the food itself. Consider the case of mutton. Mutton is the meat of an adult sheep. The meat of a young sheep is called lamb. I am willing to bet that you have not eaten mutton in the last six months, probably the last six years. Maybe never. But if we were talking 100 years ago? Different story.

LUSK: It’s certainly the case that back in the 1920’s and 30’s that mutton was a much more commonly consumed product.

Mutton was a staple of the American diet; one of the standard items shipped to soldiers during World War II was canned mutton. But shortly after the war, mutton started to disappear. What happened?

LUSK: A sheep is not just meat. These are multi-product species and they’re valuable not just for their meat but for their wool.

Oh yeah, wool. And unlike leather, which can be harvested only once from an animal, you can shear wool from one sheep many times, over many years.

LUSK: So anything that affects the demand for wool is also going to affect the underlying market for the rest of the underlying animal.

And what might affect the demand for wool? How about synthetic substitutes? Nylon, for instance, was created by DuPont in 1935, and became available to the public in 1940. A year later, polyester was invented.

LUSK: So, you know, any time you had new clothing technologies come along, that’s going to affect the underlying demand for sheep and make them less valuable than they would have been otherwise.

So an increase in synthetic fabrics led to a shrinking demand for wool — which meant that all those sheep that had been kept around for shearing no longer needed to be kept around. Also, wool subsidies were repealed. And America’s sheep flock drastically shrank: from a high of 56 million in 1942 to barely 5 million today.

LUSK: It is amazing. I’ve worked at several agricultural universities across the U.S. now, and often the largest sheep herds in those states are at the university research farms.

And fewer sheep meant less mutton for dinner. Is it possible Americans would have stopped eating mutton without the rise of synthetic fabrics? Absolutely: if you ask a room full of meat-eaters to name their favorite meat, I doubt one of them will say “mutton.” Still, this is just one example of how technology can have a big effect on the meat we eat. And if you talk to certain people, it’s easy to believe that we’re on the verge of a similar but much larger technological shift.

BROWN: My name is Pat Brown. I’m currently the CEO and founder of Impossible Foods, whose mission is to completely replace animals as a food production technology.

Brown grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., as well as Paris and Taipei — his father worked for the C.I.A. He studied to be a pediatrician and in fact completed his medical residency, but he switched to biochemistry research.

BROWN: I had the best job in the world at Stanford. My job was basically to discover and invent things and follow my curiosity.

Brown did this for many years and was considered a world-class researcher. One of his breakthroughs was a new tool for genetic mapping; it’s called the D.N.A. microarray—

BROWN: —that lets you read all the words that the cell is using and effectively kind of start to learn the vocabulary, learn how the genome writes the life story of a cell, or something like that. It also has practical applications, because — what it’s doing, in a sort of a deterministic way, specifies the potential of that cell, or if it’s a cancer cell.

Some people think the DNA microarray will win Pat Brown a Nobel Prize. When I bring this up, he just shakes his head and smiles. It’s clear that his research was a deep passion.

BROWN: For me, this was the dream job, it was like in the Renaissance, having the Medicis as patrons or something like that.

But after many years, Brown wanted a change. He was in his mid-50’s; he took a sabbatical to figure out his next move.

BROWN: It started out with stepping back from the work I was doing and asking myself, “What’s the most important thing I could do? What could I do that would have the biggest positive impact on the world?” And looking at what are the biggest unsolved problems in the world? I came relatively quickly to the conclusion that the use of animals as a food-production technology, is by far. And I could give you endless reasons why that’s true, but it is absolutely true. By far the most environmentally destructive thing that humans do.

There is indeed a great deal of evidence for this argument across the entire environmental spectrum. The agricultural historian James McWilliams, in a book called Just Food, argues that “every environmental problem related to contemporary agriculture … ends up having its deepest roots in meat production: monocropping, excessive applications of nitrogen fertilizer, addiction to insecticides, rain-forest depletion, land degradation, topsoil runoff, declining water supplies, even global warming — all these problems would be considerably less severe” if people ate meat “rarely, if ever.”

LUSK: You know, there’s no doubt that meat production has environmental consequences. To suggest that it’s the most damaging environmental thing we do is, I think, a pretty extreme overstatement.

But what about the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with raising meat — especially in the U.S., which is the world’s largest beef producer?

LUSK: Our own E.P.A. — Environmental Protection Agency — suggests that all of livestock contributes about 3 percent of our total greenhouse-gas emissions. So, I mean, 3 percent is not nothing, but it’s not the major contributor that we see. That number, I should say, is much higher in many other parts of the world. So the carbon impacts per pound produced are so much smaller here than a lot of the world that when you tell people, “the way to reduce carbon emissions is to intensify animal production,” that’s not a story a lot of people like to hear.

DUBNER: Because why not, it sounds like it’s against animal welfare?

LUSK: Well, two reasons: Exactly, one is there are concerns about animal welfare, particularly when you’re talking about broiler chickens, or hogs — less so about cattle — and the other one is, there are concerns about when you concentrate a lot of animals in one place you can get all this waste in a location, that you have to think about creative ways to deal with that don’t have some significant environmental problems.

DUBNER: So, the E.P.A. number, livestock contributing three percent, does that include the entire production chain, though? Because, some of the numbers that I see from environmental activists is much, much higher than that.

LUSK: The U.N. estimate that you often hear from — originally was created in this report called “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” is something around 19 percent. But that 19 percent, roughly, number, is a global number. Actually, there was a study that came out pointing out some flaws in that, so they reduced it somewhat.

In any case, there is a growing concern in many quarters over the externalities of meat production.

LUSK: Over the last 5–10 years, there’s been a lot of negative publicity — stories about environmental impacts, about carbon emissions, about animal welfare. And if you just look at the news stories, you would think, “Boy, people must be really cutting back, given the sort of frightful stories that you see on the front pages of the newspapers.” But if you look at the data itself, demand looks fairly stable. And that suggests to me it’s hard to change people’s preference on this.

There’s something about meat consumption. Some people would argue that we’re evolved to like meat, that it’s a protein-, vitamin-packed, tasty punch that we’ve grown to enjoy as a species. There are some people that even argue that it’s one of the reasons we became as smart as we did, the vitamins and nutrients that were in that meat allowed our brains to develop in certain ways that it might have not otherwise.

Pat Brown saw that same strong preference for meat when he decided that the number-one scientific problem to solve was replacing animals as food.

BROWN: And it’s a problem that nobody was working on in any serious way. Because everybody recognized that most people in the world, including most environmental scientists and people who care about this stuff, love the foods we get from animals so much that they can’t imagine giving those up.

Brown himself was a longtime vegan.

BROWN: I haven’t eaten meat for decades, and that’s just a personal choice that I made long before I realized the destructive impact of that industry. That was a choice I made for other reasons. And it wasn’t something that I felt like I was in a position to tell other people to do. And I still don’t feel like there’s any value in doing that.

Brown makes an interesting point here. Many of us, when we feel strongly about something — an environmental issue or a social or economic issue — we’re inclined to put forth a moral argument. A moral argument would appear to be persuasive evidence of the highest order: you should do this thing because it’s the right thing to do. But there’s a ton of research showing that moral arguments are generally ineffective; people may smile at you, and nod; but they won’t change their behavior. That’s what Brown realized about meat.

BROWN: The basic problem is that people are not going to stop wanting these foods. And the only way we’re going to solve it is not by asking them to meet you halfway and give them a substandard product that doesn’t deliver what they know they want from meat or fish or anything like that. The only way to do it is, you have to say, “We’re going to do the much harder thing,” which is we’re going to figure out how to make meat that’s not just as delicious as the meat we get from animals, it’s more delicious and better nutritionally and more affordable and so forth.

In other words: a marginal improvement on the standard veggie burger would not do.

BROWN: It’s been tried. It just doesn’t work. It’s a waste of effort.

So Brown start fooling around in his lab.

BROWN: Doing some kind of micro experiments just to convince myself in a way that this was doable.

Those early experiments were fairly encouraging.

BROWN: I felt like, okay, there’s a bunch of things I thought could be useful, and then I felt like I could just go in with a little bit more confidence to talk to the investors.

“The investors” meaning venture capitalists. Remember, Brown’s at Stanford, which is next door to the biggest pile of venture capital in the history of the world.

BROWN: And basically my pitch them was very naive from a fundraising standpoint, in the sense that basically I mostly just told them about how there’s this absolutely critical environmental disaster that needs to be solved and—

DUBNER: And they’re probably expecting to hear something now about carbon capture, or—

BROWN: Yeah, that’s the thing. And most people still are. So I just told these guys, “Look, this is an environmental disaster. No one’s doing anything about it. I’m going to solve it for you.”

So how does the almost-pediatrician-who-became-a-freewheeling-biochemist build a better meat from the ground up? That amazing story after the break:

BROWN: Okay, bingo, this is how we’re going to do it.

*      *      *

It’s estimated that more than half of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with all animal agriculture comes from cows.

LUSK: And that is due to the fact that beef are ruminant animals.

The Purdue economist Jayson Lusk again.

LUSK: Their stomachs produce methane. It comes out the front end, not the back, as a lot of people think. And as a consequence — we look at carbon consequences — it’s mainly beef that people focus on, not pork or chicken, because they don’t have the same kind of digestive systems.

There has been progress in this area. For instance, it turns out that adding seaweed to cattle feed drastically reduces their methane output. But the scientist Pat Brown is looking for a much bigger change to the animal-agriculture industry.

BROWN: If I could snap my fingers and make that industry disappear right now — which I would do, if I could, and it would be a great thing for the world.

It is very unlikely to disappear any time soon; it is a trillion-dollar global industry, supported in many places by government subsidies, selling a product that billions of people consume once, twice, even three times a day. Pat Brown’s desire would seem to be an impossible one; the company he founded is called Impossible Foods. It’s essentially a tech startup, and it’s raised nearly $400 million to date in venture capital.

BROWN: So, we’ve only been in existence for about seven years and we have about 300 people. We started by basically building a team of some of the best scientists in the world to study how meat works, basically. And by that, I mean to really understand at a basic level the way, in my previous life, when I was a biomedical scientist, we might be studying how, you know, a normal cell of this particular kind becomes a cancer cell, understanding the basic biochemical mechanisms.

In this case, what we wanted to understand was: what are the basic biochemical mechanisms that account for the unique flavor chemistry and the flavor behavior and aromas and textures and juiciness and all those qualities that consumers value in meat? And we spent about 2.5 years just doing basic research, trying to answer that question, before we really started working on a product. And then decided for strategic reasons that our first product would be raw ground beef made entirely from plants.

DUBNER: Because burger is what people want?

BROWN: Well, there’s a lot of reasons why I think it was a good strategic choice: the largest single category of meat in the U.S., it’s probably the most iconic kind of meat in the U.S., it seemed like the ideal vehicle for communicating to consumers that delicious meat doesn’t have to come from animals, because it’s sort of the uber-meat for a lot of people.

DUBNER: Uber, lower-case “u.”

BROWN: With a lower-case, yes.

DUBNER: People are not hailing burgers, riding them around?

BROWN: No, thank God. And beef production is the most environmentally destructive segment of the animal agriculture industry. So, from an impact standpoint, it made sense as a choice.

So Pat Brown set about repurposing the scientific wisdom he’d accrued over a long, fruitful career in biomedicine. A career that may improve the health and well-being of countless millions. And now he got to work on a truly earth-shaking project: building a better burger. A burger that doesn’t come from a cow. An Impossible burger. So how did that work? What ingredients do you put in an Impossible burger?

BROWN: That’s an interesting aspect about the science, which is that we didn’t look for, “What are the precisely specific choices of ingredients that would work?” We studied, “What are the biochemical properties we need from the set of ingredients?” And then we did a survey of things available from the plant world that matched those biophysical properties of which there were choices.

So what are the main components of this burger?

BROWN: I can tell you what it’s made of right now. What it’s made of right now is different from how it was made two years ago, and that was different from how it was made two and half years ago and the next version we’re going to launch is a quite different set of ingredients.

We first interviewed Brown several months ago. The main ingredients at the time included:

BROWN: A protein from wheat; a protein from potatoes — not a starch from potatoes, but a protein from potatoes, it’s a byproduct of starch production. Coconut oil is the major fat source. And then we have a bunch of other small molecules, but they’re all familiar things: amino acids, vitamins, sugars. Nutrients.

But all these ingredients did not make Pat Brown’s plant-based hamburger meat taste or act or look like hamburger meat. It was still missing a critical component. A component called heme.

BROWN: Heme is found in essentially every living thing and heme in plants and human animals is the exact same molecule, okay? It’s just one of the most ubiquitous and fundamental molecules in life on Earth, period. The system that burns calories to produce energy uses heme as an essential component, and it’s what carries oxygen in your blood. And it’s what makes your blood red.

And none of this we discovered — this has been known for a long time and — so animals have a lot more heme than plants. And it’s that very high concentration of heme that accounts for the unique flavors of meat that you would recognize something as meat. It’s the overwhelmingly dominant factor in making the unique taste of meat and fish.

DUBNER: Is it involved in texture and mouthfeel and all that as well, or just taste?

BROWN: Just taste. Texture and mouthfeel are really important and there’s a whole other set of research around that. Super important — it kind of gets short shrift, because people think of the flavor as sort of the most dramatic thing about meat. But you have to get that other stuff right, too.

Brown and his team of scientists, after a couple years of research and experimentation, were getting a lot of that stuff right. But without heme — a lot of heme — their meatless meat would never resemble meat.

BROWN: So there is one component of a certain kind of plant that has a high concentration of heme, and that is in plants that fix nitrogen, that take nitrogen from the air and turn it into fertilizer. They have a structure called the root nodule, where the nitrogen fixation takes place and for reasons that are too complicated to explain right now they, that has a high concentration of heme and I just happened to know this from way back.

And if you slice open the root nodules of one of these plants:

BROWN: They have such a high concentration of heme that they look like a freshly cut steak, okay? And I did a calculation about the concentration of that stuff — soy leghemoglobin is the protein, which is virtually identical to the heme protein in muscle tissue, which is called myoglobin — that there was enough leghemoglobin in the root nodules of the U.S. soybean crop to replace all the heme in all the meat consumed in the U.S. Okay? So, I thought, “Genius, okay. We’ll just go out and harvest all these root nodules from the U.S. soybean crop and we’ll get this stuff practically for free.” Well, so I raised money for the company and we spent half the money trying to figure out how to harvest these root nodules from soybean plants, only basically to finally convince ourselves it was a terrible idea.

But if you’re a veteran scientist like Brown, a little failure is not so off-putting.

BROWN: You know you’re going to be doing things that are pushing the limits and trying entirely new things and a lot of them are going to fail. And if you don’t have a high tolerance for that and realize that basically, the way you do really really important, cool stuff is by trying a lot of things and not punishing yourself for the failures, but just celebrating the successes, you know, you’re not going to accomplish as much.

And the idea of buying up all the root nodules of the U.S. soybean crop wasn’t a complete failure.

BROWN: I mean, we got enough that we could do experiments to prove that it really was a magic ingredient for flavor. But then we had to start all over, and then what we did was: we said, ”Okay, we’re going to have to engineer a microorganism to produce gobs of this heme protein. Okay”? And since now we weren’t bound by any natural source, we looked at three dozen different heme proteins, everything from, you know, paramecium to barley to Hell’s Gate bacteria, which is like this —

DUBNER: That’s a plant? Hell’s Gate?

BROWN: It’s a bacteria that lives in deep sea vents near New Zealand that survive with temperatures above the boiling point of water that we mostly just looked at for fun, but funny thing about that, the reason we rejected it is that it’s so heat-stable that you can cook a burger to cooking temperature and it still stays bright red, because it doesn’t unfold. But anyway — and then we pick the best one, which turned out to be, just coincidentally, soy leghemoglobin, which is the one we were going after—

DUBNER: So your terrible idea was actually pretty good.

BROWN: It wasn’t really a brilliant idea, it accidentally turned out to be the right choice.

Through the magic of modern plant engineering, Pat Brown’s team began creating massive stocks of heme. And that heme would help catapult the Impossible burger well beyond the realm of the standard veggie burger — the mostly unloved veggie burger, we should say. The Impossible Burger looks like hamburger meat — when it’s raw and when it’s cooked. It behaves like hamburger meat. Most important, it tastes like hamburger meat.

Alison CRAIGLOW: I would like the American with an Impossible Burger.

WAITER: And how would you like that cooked?

CRAIGLOW: Oh, I didn’t realize — I’ll have it medium … medium. Is it pink in the middle when it’s … it is?

The Freakonomics Radio team recently ate some Impossible burgers in a restaurant near Times Square.

Zack LAPINSKI: I mean, I actually can’t taste the diff —

CRAIGLOW: It tastes like a burger

Ryan KELLY: Good day for the Impossible Burger

Greg RIPPIN: Yeah, approved by Freakonomics.

Their meal happened to coincide with the release of Impossible Burger 2.0 — an updated recipe that uses a soy protein instead of a wheat protein and has a few more tweaks: less salt, sunflower oil to cut the coconut oil, and no more xanthan gum and konjac gum. In my own tasting experience: Impossible Burger 1.0 was really good but a little slushy; 2.0 was burger-tastic.

These are of course our subjective observations. Here’s some actual evidence: Impossible Burgers are already being served in roughly 5,000 locations, primarily in the U.S. but also Hong Kong and Macau. These include very high-end restaurants in New York and California as well as fast-food chains like Umami Burger and even White Castle. This year, Impossible plans to start selling its burger meat in grocery stores.

BROWN: We’ve grown in terms of our sales and revenue about 30-fold in the past year. And our goal is to completely replace animal as a food technology by 2035. That means we have to approximately double in size and impact every year for the next 18 years.

DUBNER: Are we to understand that you are taking aim at pigs and chickens and fish as well?

BROWN: Yes, of course. So when we first started out, we were working on a technology platform and sort of the know-how about how meat works in general; we were working on understanding dairy products and cheeses and stuff like that. And then we decided, okay, we have to pick one product to launch with, and then we have to, from a commercialization standpoint, just go all in on it for a while.

DUBNER: As the scientist, or as a scientist, were you reluctant to kind of narrow yourself for that commercial interest, or did you appreciate that this is the way in this world things actually happen?

BROWN: Both. I mean, let’s put it this way: I would like to be able to pursue all these things in parallel, and if I had the resources I would. But if we launched another product right now, we’d just be competing against ourselves for resources for commercialization, so just doesn’t make any sense.

We put out an episode not long ago called “Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet.” It featured the science journalist Charles Mann.

MANN: How are we going to deal with climate change? There have been two ways that have been suggested, overarching ways, that represent, if you like, poles on a continuum. And they’ve been fighting with each other for decades.

The two poles are represented by what Mann calls, in his latest book, The Wizard and the Prophet. The prophet sees environmental destruction as a problem best addressed by restoring nature to its natural state. The wizard, meanwhile, believes that technology can address environmental dangers. This is, of course, a typology, a shorthand; a prophet doesn’t necessarily fear technology any more than a wizard fears nature. That said: if there were ever an embodiment of the wizard-prophet hybrid, a person driven by idealism and pragmatism in equal measure, I’d say it’s Pat Brown. Which means his invention has the capacity to upset people all across the spectrum.

The consumers and activists who might cheer a meatless meat are often the same sort of people who are anti-G.M.O. — genetically modified organisms. And the Impossible Burger would not have been possible without its genetically modified heme — which, by the way, the F.D.A. recently declared safe, after challenges from environmental groups like Friends of the Earth. Another group that might object to Impossible Foods? The meat industry. You know, the ones who use actual animals to raise food.

FOGARTY: My name is Kelly Fogarty and I serve as the executive vice president for the United States Cattlemen’s Association. And I am a fifth- generation beef cattle rancher here in Oakdale, California.

DUBNER: I’m just curious, as a woman, do you find yourself ever wishing the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association would change their name or are you okay with it?

FOGARTY: You know, it’s funny you mention that. There’s always a little bit of a notion there in the back of my mind of, you know, of course being in the industry for so long. I take it as representing all of the livestock industry. But you know, definitely having a special nod to all the female ranchers out there would be nice to have as well.

DUBNER: And what is the primary difference between the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association?

FOGARTY: As the United States Cattlemen’s Association, we are made up primarily of cattle producers. So your family ranches. You know, cow-calf operations run by producers and kind of for producers is what U.S.C.A. was built on. Whereas National Cattlemen’s Beef Association does include some more of packer influences as well as you know some of the processing facilities as well.

DUBNER: Can you just talk generally for a moment: how big of a threat does the beef industry see from alternative, “meat”?

FOGARTY: So from our end you know, in looking at the “meat” — and I appreciate you using those quotes around that term — from our end, we’re not so much seeing it as a threat to our product. What we are really looking at is not a limit on consumer choice or trying to back one product out of the market. It’s really to make sure that we’re keeping the information out there accurate and that what is available to consumers and what is being shown to consumers on labels is accurate to what the product actually is.

In 2018, Fogarty’s organization filed a petition with the U.S.D.A. to prevent products from being labeled as “beef” or “meat” unless they come from a cow.

DUBNER: Does that mean that your organization thinks that consumers are confused by labeling? Is that the primary objection?

FOGARTY: So the primary objection from the United Cattlemen’s Association is that we want to keep the term “meat” to what is traditionally harvested and raised in the traditional manner. And so when we see the term “meat” being put on these products that is not derived from that definition, what our producers came to us and really wanted us to act on was what we saw happened in other industries, specifically when you look at the dairy industry and where the term “milk” has now been used.

“Almond milk,” for instance. Which comes from almonds, not animals. Which led the National Milk Producers Federation to argue that it should not be sold as “almond milk.” The FDA agreed; its commissioner pointed out that “an almond doesn’t lactate.” There are important differences between so-called “milk” that doesn’t come from animals and so-called “meat” that doesn’t come from animals. Almond milk has very different nutritional content than cow’s milk; the Impossible Burger, meanwhile, has a similar nutritional profile to hamburger — including the iron content, which vegans can have trouble getting enough of. That’s another reason why Kelly Fogarty and the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association might not want the Impossible Burger to be labeled “meat.”

DUBNER: I am just curious about the mental state of your industry because I was looking at your Facebook page and one post the other day led with the following: “Eat or be eaten. Be at the table or on the menu. Fight or be forgotten.” So that sounds — it would make me believe that the future of meat is one in which cattle ranchers feel a little bit like an endangered species or at least under assault.

FOGARTY: I think that speaks to a lot of misconceptions that are out there regarding the U.S. beef industry. Whether it be in terms of you know nutrition, environment, animal welfare. We’ve really been hit from a lot of different angles over the years.

DUBNER: Okay, well, according to some scientific research, meat production and/or cattle ranching are among the most environmentally damaging activities on earth, between the resource-intensiveness, land but especially water, and the externalities, the runoff of manure and chemicals into groundwater.

FOGARTY: I think one of the first points to make is that cattle are defined as what is termed as upcyclers, and cattle today, they’re turning plants that have little to no nutritional value just as-is into a high-quality and a high density protein. And so when you look at where cattle are grazing in the U.S., and then also across the world, a lot of the land that they are grazing on are land that is not suitable for crops or it would be you know kind of looking as a highly marginal type of land. And the ability of livestock to turn what is there into something that can feed the world is pretty remarkable.

Fogarty believes her industry has been unfairly maligned; that it’s come to be seen as a target for environmentalist groups and causes.

FOGARTY: I would absolutely say, the livestock industry and to that matter, the agriculture industry as a whole I think has really been at the brunt of a lot of disinformation campaigns.

Fogarty points to that U.N. report claiming that the global livestock industry’s greenhouse-gas emissions were shockingly high. A report that was found to be built on faulty calculations.

FOGARTY: So, it was really an inequitable and grossly inflated percentage that really turned a conversation.

The inflated percentage of around 18 percent was really around 14.5 percent — so, “grossly” inflated may be in the eye of the aggrieved. Fogarty says that even though the error was acknowledged, and a revised report was issued.

FOGARTY: Folks have not forgotten it as much as we wish. It’s still something that it’s hard to have folks kind of un-read or un-know something that they initially saw.

The fact is that the agricultural industry is massive and massively complex. Without question, it exacts costs on the environment; it also provides benefits that are literally the stuff of life: delicious, abundant, affordable food. As with any industry, there are tradeoffs and there is friction: activists tend to overstate their claims in order to encourage reform; industry defenders tend to paper over legitimate concerns.

But in the food industry especially, it’s clear that a revolution is underway — a revolution to have our food be not just delicious and abundant and affordable but sustainable too, with fewer negative externalities. Some startups, like Impossible Foods, focus on cleverly engineering plant matter to taste like the animal flesh so many people love. Other startups are working on what’s called lab-grown meat, using animal stem cells to grow food without animals. This is still quite young technology, but it’s very well-funded. I was curious to hear Kelly Fogarty’s view of this.

DUBNER: One of the investors in the lab “meat” company Memphis Meats is Cargill, which is a major constituent of the big meat industry. I mean, another investor, for what it’s worth, is Bill Gates. But I’m curious what’s your position on that. Because the way I think about this long-term, presumably a firm like Cargill can win the future with alternative “meat” in a way that a cattle rancher can’t. So I’m curious what the position is of ranchers on this kind of investment from a firm like Cargill or other firms that are sort of hedging their bets on the future of meat.

FOGARTY: You know it’s a really interesting point, and it’s been a bit of a tough pill for producers to swallow, the fact that some of the big three, some of these big processing plants that have been so obviously heavily focused and have been livestock-dominant are now kind of going into this alternative and sometimes the cell-cultured lab meats, alternative proteins. And it really has been a point of contention among a lot of producers who are kind of confused, unsure, feel a little bit — I don’t want to say betrayed by the industry, but a little bit so…

Others may soon feel betrayed as well. A company called Modern Meadows is using similar technology to grow leather in the lab, without the need for cattle. The Israeli company SuperMeat is focused on growing chicken. And then there’s a company called Finless Foods.

Mike SELDEN: Finless Foods is taking the seafood back to basics and creating real fish meat entirely without mercury, plastic, without the need for antibiotics or growth hormones, and also without the need for fishing or the killing of animals because we grow the fish directly from stem cells.

That’s Mike Selden, the co-founder and C.E.O. of Finless. He’s 27 years old; he started out as a cancer researcher. Like Pat Brown, you could call him a wizard-prophet hybrid. He does take issue with the idea of “lab-grown” food.

SELDEN: The reality is, labs are by definition experimental and are not scalable. So this won’t be grown in a lab at all. It’s prototyped in a lab in the same way that snacks are prototyped in a lab. Doritos are prototyped in a lab by material scientists looking at different dimensions of like crunch and torsion and all these other sort of mechanical properties. So what our facility will look like when we’re actually at production scale is something really a lot closer to a brewery. Big steel tanks that are sort of allowing these cells space in order to divide and grow into large quantities of themselves, while accessing all of the nutrients that we put inside of this nutritional broth.

The fishing industry, like the meat industry, exacts its share of environmental costs. But like Pat Brown, Mike Selden does not want his company to win on goodwill points.

SELDEN: So, the goal of Finless Foods is not to create something that competes on ethics or morals or environmental goals. It’s something that will compete on taste, price, and nutrition — the things that people actually care about.

Right now, everybody really loves whales and people hate when whales are killed. What changed? Because we used to kill whales for their blubber in order to light lamps. It wasn’t an ethical movement, it wasn’t that people woke up one day and decided, “Oh, killing whales is wrong.” It was that we ended up using kerosene instead. We found another technological solution, a supply-side change that didn’t play on people’s morals in order to win. We see ourselves as something like that. You know, why work with an animal at all if you don’t need to?

Indeed: you could imagine in the not-so-distant future a scenario in which you could instantly summon any food imaginable — new foods, new combinations, but also foods that long ago fell out of favor. How much fun would that be? I asked the agricultural economist Jayson Lusk about this.

DUBNER: If we had a 3D printer, and it, let’s say, had, just, we’ll be conservative, 100 buttons of different foods that it could make me. Does anyone press the mutton button?

LUSK: Well, you know, one of the great things about our food system is that it’s a food system that, yes, makes food affordable, but also has a whole awful lot of choice for people who are willing to pay it. And I bet there’s probably at least one or two people out there that will push that will mutton button.

I also asked Lusk for his economic views on the future of meat, especially the sort of projects that inventors like Mike Selden and Pat Brown are working on.

LUSK: I have no problems with what Dr. Brown is trying to do there, and indeed I think it’s very exciting, this technology. And I think ultimately it’ll come down to whether this lab-grown meat can compete on the merits. So, there’s no free lunch here. In fact, the Impossible Burger — I’ve seen it on menus — it’s almost always higher-priced than the traditional beef burger. Now as an economist, I look at that and say, “Those prices, to me, should be signaling something about resource use.” Maybe it’s imperfect; maybe there’s some externalities. But they should reflect all the resources that were used to go in to produce that product. It’s one of the reasons that beef is more expensive than, say, chicken — it takes more time, more inputs, to produce a pound of beef than a pound of chicken.

So, why is it that the Impossible Burger is more expensive than the regular burger? Now, it could be that this is just a startup, and they’re not working at scale; and once they really scale this thing up, it’ll really bring the price down. It could be they’re also marketing to a particular higher-income consumer who is willing to pay a little more. But I think if the claims about the Impossible Burger are true over time, one would expect these products to come down significantly in price and be much less expensive than beef production. You know, this is not going to make my beef friends happy, but if they can do that, good for them; and consumers want to pay for, this product, they like the way it tastes and it saves some money, which means it’s saving some resources; I think in that sense, it’s a great technology.

Whether or not you eat meat; whether or not you’re interested in eating these alternative meats, from plant matter or animal stem cells — it’s hard not to admire the creativity that someone like Pat Brown has exercised: the deep curiosity, the ability to come back from failure, the sheer cleverness of putting together disparate ideas into a coherent scientific plan.

*      *      *

Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Zack Lapinski. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rippin, and Harry Huggins; we had help this week from Nellie Osborne. Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune,” by the Hitchhikers; all the other music was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Pat Brown, founder and c.e.o. of Impossible Foods.

Kelly Fogarty, executive vice president for the United States Cattlemen’s Association.

Jayson Lusk, economist at Purdue University.

Mike Selden, co-founder and c.e.o. of Finless Foods.

RESOURCES

“Tackling Climate Change Through Livestock,”  Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (2013).

Just Food by James McWilliams (Little, Brown, 2009).

“Changes in the Sheep Industry in the United States,” The National Academies (2008).

EXTRA

“Two (Totally Opposite) Ways to Save the Planet,” Freakonomics Radio (2018).

The post The Future of Meat (Ep. 367) appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/meat/

[rjptalk]

I have an abscess. It’s on the gum above what the dentist calls my upper number two tooth. The number one on that side was already pulled years ago. That was the one where they couldn’t even do a root canal because I had been doing some serious tooth grinding. It had split the tooth all the way down through the root. It was my first lost tooth, but not the last. Since then, I have developed a lot of gum amidst my teeth. Somehow, I manage to eat corn on the cob and even steak, though I’m really losing my taste for beef. I’m also not thrilled with chicken.

Honestly? I’m not passionate about flesh. Part of it is hating the idea of slaughtering animals. It has always bothered me, but I was better at ignoring it when I was younger. Now, I see the meat and I think of those happy cows grazing along the Blackstone and me, putting camera aside, patting those sweethearts on their nicely horned heads. It’s hard to reconcile that with chomping down on pieces of their body.

I’m tired of our usual food. We were suffering from gastronomical ennui before the pandemic, but now? Steak in the expensive meat section at the grocery is about as tender as one of Garry’s old belts. Sometimes it looks great, but you can’t chew it. It just gets bigger the more you chew it. The pork is even worse and no amount of marinating tenderizes it. Bacon is good. Pity they have to get it by slicing up a pig.

So tonight, I made dessert for dinner. It isn’t really dessert. It’s usually served hot as part of a (much) larger dinner, but if you chill it, it’s definitely a dessert. There’s no meat in it. There are many eggs, ricotta cheese and sour cream, sugar, dried fruit or really, any fruit including canned fruit cocktail, a bit of vanilla, a good shaking of nutmeg, with cinnamon on top. Also, it’s very easy to leave out the sugar, add spices and vegetables rather than fruit, and make it a great vegetable dish.

I didn’t take pictures. I meant to take pictures. That’s why I didn’t post this recipe the last time I made it. Lack of photographic evidence. Sadly, we have eaten heartily from it and while more than half of it is left, it isn’t pretty anymore. This is a dish intended to feed a lot of people and probably more than once. The recipe says will feed eight to nine people, but that would be some serious eaters. I used to make this for special (Jewish) occasions if I knew I’d have a lot of people at the table.

Times have changed and big dinners are few and far between. Friends have scattered. Some died. Others moved to wherever their children are living. This was done in expectation of seeing these same kids more frequently only to discover they STILL never see them. Other stragglers eat their special occasion dinners at their kids’ houses where they don’t have to do the cooking, a dining enhancement I can really get my head behind. In fact, Owen here at home, Owen cooks the Big Dinners.

Garry doesn’t cook. I’m sure he never will. It’s why I can’t die of tooth decay. Garry would starve to death or live entirely on spam and pizza. I think that’s an awful lot like starving to death, just more slowly.

This is a recipe for (in Yiddish) “Lokshen Kugel” which translates to Noodle Pudding. Kugel means pudding. Lokshen means noodles. What you put in it is … well … whatever you like, really. It can be made savory or sweet, but more often is sweet, thus serving as a secondary dish with a dairy (Kosher!!) dinner or as dessert (chilled). For us, we just eat the pudding because there’s no room left after we’ve tanked down half a lasagna pan of Kugel. This was a specialty of my father, who was amidst all his wickedness, a really good cook. He made a fruit and brandy sauce that I thought could be eaten alone, forget the Kugel. I don’t make a sauce because I never got that recipe and besides, Garry and I don’t drink. Not even a little bit.

In Israel because of the Kashrut complexities, we often made it without cheese or any dairy. We used oil or non-butter margarine, eggs, sugar, raisins, and bread crumbs. The amount? Whatever you threw in, It was always fine. A friend of mine got mixed up and used cumin instead of cinnamon — and it STILL came out delicious. This really is a “whatever” dish. Since I’m not Kosher and not tied to the dairy vs. meat issue, if you are trying to overfeed a lot of people at the same time, Kugel is the way to go. And just as a note, for reasons no one can explain, this dish is typically served on Shavuot, a week-long harvest festival in the autumn.

Here’s my recipe. After you make it the first time, you can make up your own recipes.

Boil the noodles. You can use anything from 12 oz. to 1 lb. of wide noodles (eggs or not), boiled however long the bag says to boil them.

6 beaten eggs. Today I used seven eggs because I had 7 eggs in the carton. I refused to save the whole box for a single egg. I broke all the eggs directly into the Kitchenaid beater, turned it to 2 or 3 and went off to let them beat while I collected the rest of the stuff. You can also do this by hand. That’s how I did it last time and this was a lot easier, even with cleaning up the mixer.

15-oz. container ricotta (or cottage) cheese. I like ricotta better, but traditionally, it’s supposed to be cottage cheese. It doesn’t matter. Either will do the job.

16-oz. container of sour cream. The real thing, not reduced fat (yuk). Without the fat, it won’t thicken up in the oven. Also, it won’t taste right. NOTE: You can use a block of real (not whipped or low fat) cream cheese instead of sour cream. Let it soften before you add it to the mixture.

1 cup sugar. I’ve used white sugar. I’ve used light brown sugar. I’ve used dark brown sugar. I’ve used whatever I had in the cupboard. I haven’t tried using maple syrup, or golden syrup, but that would probably work too.

4 tablespoons melted butter

1 teaspoon (more or less) of real (not the fake stuff) vanilla. Or almond flavoring. Whatever. Flavoring. You can use more flavoring if you prefer. You’re going to eat it, after all.

A thorough sprinkling of nutmeg.

Turn on the beater, then assemble the fruit. Before I started everything else, I put the raisins in a cup of hot (tap) water to plump up. Other dried fruit you can use? Dried pineapple, cranberries, lingonberries, dried cherries. I’d really love to use chopped crystalized ginger, but not everyone loves it as much as I do. It’s a gamble. Then, I drain a 14-oz. can of fruit cocktail. I throw all the fruit, whatever it is, into the mixer with the cheese, eggs, and butter. Whatever you use, you need about three cups of fruit of whatever type. I thought about chopped prunes, but decided it might have unexpected side effects.

By now, the noodles should be draining in a colander in the sink. Put the noodles back into the pot unless you have a really huge mixing bowl. Pour all the stuff from the mixer into the noodles. Mix with a big spoon. Wood is good.

Spray a lasagna pan with oil, EVEN if it’s nonstick. Just to be safe. Pour the contents into the pan, Shake cinnamon over the top.

Bake for 1 hour at 350 F (177 C). Set a timer for 1/2 hour and put a layer of aluminum foil over the top for the rest of the baking unless you like it super crispy. I like it softer, so I’m pro foil. 

The result should be soft, but not runny and have the consistency of pudding. Which it is. If you have a big dinner planned, serve it with the roast or the turkey or (how non Jewish can you get?) baked ham. Or, chill it and serve it as dessert.

We eat it AS dinner. There’s so much of it, even if everyone eats until kugel is coming out of their ears, more than half of it will be left-over. For this you will need two big covered plastic containers which you will store in your refrigerator. You can use it as a side dish with whatever you are eating the next day, give one of the containers to kugel-worthy friends, or wait until you just can’t eat any more of it and toss it.

The Duke strongly objects to any form of disposal unless he is the disposal unit.

Meanwhile I’ve got a bad tooth, a fever, I ache everywhere because my pain meds combined with the antibiotics aren’t a great combination, and I’m not planning to die yet. Oh, and loperamide is dangerous taken with clindamycin so if my stomach totally gives up on me, there’s nothing I can take. We got into a quibble about calories and kugel. I say it’s no more fattening than any other pasta-based dish. I have no proof that this is true, bui that’s what I think and I’m sticking with it.

LOKSHEN KUGEL (NOODLE PUDDING) FOR DINNER, DESSERT, SNACKS, WHATEVER I have an abscess. It's on the gum above what the dentist calls my upper number two tooth.

[healthyeating43-blog]

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

New Post has been published on https://dietguideto.com/awesome/paleo-diet-beginner-guide-7-things-you-should-know-before-eating-like-a-caveman/

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

So you wanna learn about the Paleo Diet, aka” the Caveman Diet ,” eh?

This is one of the most popular diets on the planet right now( up there with the Keto Diet ), and I bet you have questions.

Well I got answers, sucka!

And lots of LEGO photos.

In this massive guidebook, I’m going to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the Paleolithic Diet( click each link to go right to that section ):

What is the Paleo Diet and how does it run ? Will I lose weight on the Paleo Diet ? What can I eat on the Paleo Diet ? What foods CAN’T I eat on the Paleo Diet ? Can I eat grains on the Paleo Diet ? Can I eat dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I eat cheese on the Paleo Diet ? Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of foods on the Paleo Diet What does a typical day look like on the Paleo Diet ? Is the Paleo Diet dangerous ? Paleo Recipes& Paleo Resource . Who shouldn’t do the Paleo Diet ? How to do the Paleo Diet safely .

Now, this guide is SUPER long, we are therefore took the liberty of converting it into a nicely designed guidebook for easy consumption( not literal intake, unless you print it on bacon ).

Grab your Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet free when you sign on in the box below: Get the FREE eBook! The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Paleo!

Discover if Paleo is for you

The one simple trick to know if your food is Paleo-friendly

Easy Paleo recipes for beginners to get you started

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

As the great Mr. Flintstone once said, “Yabadabadooooo!”

What is the Paleo Diet and How does it Work?

Oh lord, another “diet.”

I know, it sounds like a fad/ marketing gambit, but The Paleo Diet isn’t really a “diet,” and it’s actually quite logical when you think about it.

It’s also the most time-tested diet ever.

Here’s the ENTIRE diet in a nutshell :P TAGEND

” If a cave person didn’t eat it, neither should you .”

As the theory runs, tens of thousands of years ago, before Nike, Cap’n Crunch, and Healthy Choice snacks, our ancient ancestors thrived as hunter-gatherers.

Although it’s been a really long time, our genetics haven’t changed that much since then.

And yet…these days we’re overweight, out of shape, stressed out, unhappy, sleep deprived and dying from far too many preventable diseases due to lifestyle choices.

So what the hell happened?

Agriculture!

And then delivery and Netflix.

A few thousand years ago, humans discovered farming, the agricultural revolution took off, and we advanced from hunter-gatherers to farmers.

We resolved down, formed societies, and the human race progressed to what we are today. Which is obviously great for a number of reasons :P TAGEND

Not get eaten by wild animals Electricity Automobiles Nintendo

The problem is that our bodies never adjusted properly to eating all the grains and sugar that we’re now consuming.

As paleo guru Robb Wolf sets it, think of a 100 -yard football field :P TAGEND

The first 99.5 yards are how long Homo-Sapiens spent as hunter-gatherers. As they became Really good at hunting and collecting our bodies adapted to that lifestyle over thousands of years.

That last half-yard represents our species after the agricultural revolution, where our diet has changed( but our genetics haven’t ).

So, instead of loading up on meat, vegetables and seasonal fruit, we’ve become a species “dependent” upon grains- bread, pasta, rice, corn, and so on.

66% of us are overweight, 33% are considered obese, and those numbers are only getting worse.[ 1 ]

Clearly something’s not right, and we need to fix it.

The Paleo Diet is an effort to go back to our ancestral roots.

To start eating how we’re biologically designed to eat, allowing us to tap into our genetic potential and start living healthier immediately.

To recap the rules of the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Only feed foods a caveman would eat See Rule# 1

Note that it doesn’t mention calorie counting or meal period or macro tracking. That’s part of the popularity of this diet: feed paleo approved foods when you’re hungry, and that’s it.

Will I Lose Weight on the Paleo Diet?

This is the question we get above all else :P TAGEND

” Will the Paleo Diet assistance me lose weight ?”

Probably. If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

It’s helped many people attain jaw-dropping transformations, including my friend Saint,( whose narrative you can read here ):

Or Staci from Team NF, our lead female trainer in our 1-on-1 Coaching Program ):

The Paleo Diet will work for you, if you do it right.

You need to have the right mindset, you need to focus on the right foods, and you need to structure your environment so that you’re not tempted to backslide and abandon the Paleo Diet after a few days.

However, it has nothing to do with what Fred Flintstone ate or didn’t eat.

It comes down to science and thermodynamics.

As I point out in our article on How to Lose Weight: What’s the Perfect Diet( For me ?), if you want to lose weight :P TAGEND

Eat fewer calories than you burn every day. Wishing to also be healthy? Eat mostly real food.

Want to KEEP the weight off?

Add# 3: Do those two things consistently for a decade.

Here’s WHY you’ll lose weight on the Paleo Diet:

You’re merely eating meat, fish, veggies, fruit, and nuts. These are foods that are full of nutrients, will build you feel full, but don’t have nearly as many calories as junk food. You are completely eliminating calorie-dense, often nutritionally insufficient, unhealthy foods. This means no grains( pasta, bread, rice ), no dairy , no beans. It also means no soda , no candy , no sugar.

And yup. When you merely eat real food and avoid all unhealthy food, you’re more likely than not going to run a caloric deficit- and thus lose weight.

Let me share a really obvious example.

200 calories of broccoli get you enough to fill up an entire plate :P TAGEND

Or … 200 calories will get you exactly 1/2 a Snickers bar :P TAGEND

Look at that: nobody can eat that much broccoli, and nobody merely fees half a candy bar!

My point is this: by eating Paleo-approved foods, you’re more likely than not to eat fewer calories than you did in the past automatically, which can lead to weight loss.

I dig into this in even greater detail in” Why can’t I lose weight ?” but it all comes down to” calories in, calories out .”

So YES, the Paleo Diet MIGHT help you lose weight.

You just need to eat fewer calories than you burn every day( Here’s how to calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure ). And that is easier when you are eliminating foods that people tend to overeat :P TAGEND

Candy Soda Pasta Bread Dairy

But that’s all about what we’re eliminating. What are we maintaining !?

what Can I eat on The Paleo diet?

In order to follow the Paleo Diet Lifestyle, here are the foods that are Paleo endorse :P TAGEND

Meat*- steak, ham, pork, bison, boar. Organs- liver, kidneys, heart. Marrows- considering a theme here? Eat ALL parts of the animal! Fowl- chicken, duck, hen, turkey…things with wings that( try to) fly. Fish- cod, tuna, salmon, and so on. Eggs- Look for omega-3 enriched cage-free eggs. Veggie- spinach, broccoli, kale, carrots, peppers, zucchini, onions, etc. Petroleum- minimally processed, derived from plants: olive oil, coconut petroleum, avocado petroleum. Fats: ghee, lard, or other animal fats. Fruits- apples, pears, bananas, grapes, strawberries. Nuts- almonds, walnuts, cashews, and their respective butters( almond butter is so good !) Tubers- Sweet potatoes and yams.

* If you can, aim for grass-fed beef and organic fruits and vegetables. But don’t go break the bank with your food purchases. Merely do the best you can.

As the Paleo Diet explains: Pick any of the foods from that listing and feed as much as you want of them.

You might have noticed that a lot of the foods above are loaded with fat. And depending on what your mom told you growing up, you might suppose fat is the devil.

So let me address that right away…

Do Eating Fat Make You Fat?

If you’re cut back on carbs, that means you’ll need to fill the void in your diet with the most controversial macronutrient :P TAGEND

Fat!

It’s gotten a bad rap over the past number of decades, so companies have been doing everything possible to stimulate everything low fat and “healthy! ”( while adding all sorts of preservatives, chemicals, and sugar ).

Yup…cut out the fat, increase the carbs….and appear where THAT has get us.

Why has fat been vilified? Rather than get into the politics of it myself, I’ll let Gary Taubes, writer of the incredibly thorough and well-researched Good Calories, Bad Calories take over.

As he discusses in an article he wrote for the New York Times a decade ago: [ 2 ]

These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of hour.

In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980′ s, and that this was coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma.( Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period .)

They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and real life to be dismal failings, and that on top of it all, the percentage of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades.

Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as would be expected.” That is very disconcerting ,” Willett says.” It suggests that something else bad is happening .”

” Low fat” foods were created to follow conventional wisdom that fat induce you fat( which as stated in the above article doesn’t stand up to scrutiny ).

When a company makes a low fat food, they remove the fat and have to replace the flavor with something.

That “something” is usually sugar( and often more calories ).

Crap.

So, according to Taubes and Paleo folks, fat has been vilified and the real focus should have been on sugar and carbs all along.

Because healthy fats are valuable additions to our diet.

Here are some examples of Paleo-Approved Healthy Fats :P TAGEND

Avocados Almond( and almond butter) Fatty cuts of meat Walnuts Coconut oil Olive oil

In the Paleo Diet, fat constructions up a large portion of one’s diet.

If you’re worried about consuming fat and how it will affect your cholesterol, read our Full Guide to Cholesterol

WhAT Foods Can’t I eat On the Paleo Diet?

If you are looking to strictly follow the Paleo Diet, then you can’t eat foods that did not exist back in” Caveman times .”

Why?

Because- as those in favour of the diet point out- cavemen couldn’t eat those foods because they didn’t exist. There was no way to create cereal and candy – you could only eat what you detected or hunted.

So, that’s what the Paleo Diet advocates as the reason for avoiding these foods. And it serves as a good mental model to check with yourself: “Could a caveman have eaten this dinner? ”

And when you start to answer this question, you specifying the foods that you’re not allowed to eat on the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Grains like pasta, cereal bread, and rice Dairy like milk and cheese Candy, cookies, ice cream, and other processed foods

The Paleo Diet also almost completely eliminates sugar outside of fruit. No candy. No soda. No powdered donuts. Yup, even the mini white ones from the grocery store where you can eat like 100 of them( accidentally, of course ).

Many studies have shown that an incredible number of diseases and lifestyle issues is also available reversed by cutting out sugar and processed foods.[ 3 ]

But I understand grains and dairy are a bit more complex.

Let me explain :P TAGEND Can I Eat Grains on the Paleo Diet?

Unfortunately , nope.

The Caveman reason why: Grain require some amount of processing, and thus Cavemen would not have feed them.

The science and psychological reason why: we have a tendency to overeat grains and the other ” no no” foods on the Paleo Diet. They are calorically dense, nutrient insufficient, and they can wreak havoc on some people’s blood sugar levels.

This leads to a sugar rushed be accompanied by a crash, which can lead to more emotional or hungry overeating…and the process starts again.

Rather than me explain that part with thousands of words, just watch this three-minute video-” Why You Got Fat :”

Let’s get into some more reasons Paleo proponents indicate avoiding grains: most contain gluten and lectins.

What are they and what’s wrong with them? I’m so glad you asked :P TAGEND

Gluten is a protein found in things like rye, wheat, and barley. It’s now being said that much of our population may be gluten-intolerant( hence all the new “gluten-free! ” items popping up everywhere ). Over time, those people who have gluten intolerant can develop a dismal array of medical conditions from ingesting gluten: dermatitis, joint pain, reproductive problems, acid reflux, and more.[ 4 ] Lectins are natural toxins that are present in grains to defend against consumption! Yup. Grain have evolved to keep themselves from being feed by us. These lectins are not a fan of our gastrointestinal tract, and they prevent the tract from repairing itself from normal wear and tear. This can cause all kinds of damage.

Long story short: many people cannot process grains properly, and they are usually the food that causes people to eat too many calories. So by eliminating grains from your diet, you’re more likely than not going to eat fewer calories without counting calories.

That’s a Paleo win!

Do I Need to Avoid Carbs on the Paleo Diet?

Not necessarily.

That depends on your goals and your body – you are a special snowflake!

Some people function well on a high fat, low carb diet.

Others function better on a high carb, low fat diet.

Personally, I function better on a higher carb, lower fat diet( which is how I lost 22 pounds in 6 months ).

I will say the Paleo Diet is USUALLY a Low Carb diet, and large quantities of carbs are not required for somebody to be healthy regular diet.[ 5 ].

After all, carbs aren’t evil- they’re just…carbs.

Here is the logic and psychology behind why the Paleo Diet is low carb :P TAGEND

On a typical Western diet, we ingest plenty o’ carbs, and our bodies convert those carbs to a sugar called “glucose.” This is our body’s preferred method of fueling itself.

In the absence of carbs to create glucose to fuel our bodies, we have to do a few other things instead :P TAGEND

Transform stored fat into glycerol and fatty acids( this process is called lipolysis ). Burn fatty acids for energy or transform the fatty acids into glucose for energy( this is called gluconeogenesis) In the absence of glucose( through fasting or following a Keto Diet ), your body are generating ketones for fuel( called “ketogenesis” ).

We’re going to focus on the forms of weight loss NOT related to ” ketogenesis .” Unless you are avoiding all carbohydrates while running Paleo, or you are doing long fasts, you most likely won’t be in ketosis while running Paleo.

We do cover Paleo vs Keto: Which is Better if you’re deciding between the two.

Back to weight loss and Paleo: when you cut back on carbs, and thus most likely Also cut back on total calories devoured, you are creating a caloric deficit in your body.

And eat a consistent deficit over a long enough time period, BOOM caveman weight loss.

So, fewer carbs= less glucose in your system, less sugar accidents, less “hangry” moments and smaller opportunity of overeating= fewer calories devoured on average.

If you’re worried about adherence to the diet, I understand – it’s the toughest part of Paleo- sticking with it!

Knowing what to eat is part of it, but following this fairly restrictive lifestyle in a modern surrounding surrounded by cookies and candy and bagels and pasta is really difficult!

If this whole” Paleo, Carbs, and Weight Loss” thing is stressing you out, you’re not alone!

In fact, people like you are the reason we created our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program!

We work with busy people like you to structure a complete life overhaul: handcrafted workout routines, accountability, mindset alters, and nutritional strategies.

Can I eat Dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I feed Cheese On the Paleo Diet?

This also depends. Strict Paleo folks tend to stay away from it- a portion of the world is lactose intolerant, and those that aren’t usually have at least some type of an aversion to it.

Why? Because hunter-gatherers didn’t lug cows around with them while traveling- milk was ingested as a baby through breast milk from their mother, and that was it.

So as Paleo-stans will tell ya, our bodies weren’t designed for massive dairy consumption.

There is evidence that some adaptation to dairy has taken place throughout the years, specifically with people with pedigree in herding cultures, but this is not the majority of the population.[ 6 ]

Paleo purists will avoid dairy like the plague, while other paleo-ish people have found that eating dairy in its various sorts work for their genetics, objectives, and lifestyle.

“What about Cheese? Can I eat cheese on the Paleo Diet? ”

You do you, boo. But if you’re going Strict Paleo, then unfortunately cheese is OUT too.

If you’re just looking to lose some weight while following a “mostly Paleo” lifestyle, then adding some high quality cheese into some of your dinners can be okay.

Some cheese will tend to have lower amounts of lactose or casein- the parts of dairy that can cause digestion challenges.

So, if you’re not sure your body is processing dairy properly, remove dairy from your diet and only introduce it back in when you’re ready to see how your body responds.

If you’re not losing weight while eating a” Paleo+ Dairy” Diet, you’re still eating too many calories.

Consider cutting out dairy and see how your body responds.

Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of Food on the Paleo Diet

Because I like you as person or persons, I’ve generated a printable Paleo Diet Shopping List PDF you can bring with you to the grocery store to help you decide what to buy and what to avoid.

Simply right click on the image below and save as :P TAGEND

Feel free to publish this out and bringing it with you to the grocery store. If you happen to run into somebody else who has ALSO printed out this sheet, feel free to high five each other while singing Baltimora!

What is a Typical Day Like on the Paleo Diet?

Here is an example of a typical day on “The Paleo Diet” :P TAGEND

Breakfast: Omelet with spinach with fresh fruit. Lunch: Grilled chicken, kale, and avocado salad with vinegar and olive oil. Snack: Apple slicings and almond butter. Dinner: Steak with asparagus and sweet potato fries. Dessert: Strawberries and a piece of 85% darknes chocolate.

That doesn’t sound so bad, right?

Make sure you check out our Paleo Diet Recipes and Resources section too for more options.

Start with a good protein source with each dinner( eggs, steak, chicken, fish, pork) and then add a vegetable or fruit.

That’s it.

If you feel hungry constantly, understand that changing up a diet can cause a body a few weeks of adjustment.

Remember, your body is learning to operate on both fewer calories AND fewer carbs- depending on how low carb you go this could be a DRAMATIC change.

And this is often referred to as “carb flu, ” and it can be miserable! Your body might take multiple weeks to adjust to these new habits.

Going from a processed, high sodium diet to a paleo diet you will very often end up eating too little sodium, which is an essential nutrient.

So if you’re feeling tired all the time, try adding some salt to your food or consider an electrolyte supplement- this is what we recommend with our Keto readers too.

Is the Paleo Diet Dangerous?

The dismissive criticisms of the Paleo Diet generally fall into one of three categories :P TAGEND

Cavemen had short lifespans. So there. A recent article said that cavemen feed grains. So there. Eating that much meat is unhealthy. So there.

As I said at the beginning of this article, it doesn’t matter what cavemen or cavewomen ACTUALLY ate.

The reason this diet works has nothing to do with what our bodies are designed to eat or what cavemen feed 1,000 s of years ago.

The Paleo Diet CAN help you lose weight because it gets you to cut out junk food, focus on eating real food, and gives you a framework to evaluate speedily every food selection :P TAGEND

” Did a caveman eat this? Yes or no .”

That’s it!

By following this ONE rules, you’re likely to eat fewer calories than you used to, and thus you’re likely to end up healthier than before.

I personally don’t follow a Paleo Diet, but I do appreciate the fact that it’s easy to comprehend and gets people to take a more active approach in their food!

So, disregarding the fear mongering, tenet, and anthropological criticisms of what cavemen actually ate, what are the ACTUAL critiques of the Paleo Diet?

# 1)” Why is the Paleo Diet expensive ?”

Admittedly, while I recommend eating organic fruits and veggies, free-range chicken, and grass-fed beef whenever possible, these products can be more expensive in conventional stores due to the processes needed to get them there.

However, farmers’ marketplaces often have well-priced meat, eggs, fruits, and vegetables that are locally grown and incredibly healthy.

Even if you’re spending a little more money than before, when you factor in your overall health, spending a few extra bucks on healthier food now is a wiser investment than thousands later on costly medical expenses.

Also, if you’re really short on cash, feeing the non-organic or grain-fed version of a meat, vegetable, or eggs is still better than feeing bread, pasta, fast food, and the like.

Most people simply compare the cost of a paleo snack with ramen noodles or pasta and bread and determine Paleo is prohibitively expensive.

Sure, it’s more expensive than those foods, but if you are smart with your money you can eat a much healthier snack and do so pretty inexpensively. Check out this guide on” How to Eat Healthy Without Breaking the Bank” for some tip-off and tricks.

( This doesn’t even factor in the whole” if you eat inexpensive unhealthy food now, you’ll pay thousands in medical bills and hospital visits and drugs later” argument which is valid too ).

# 2)” But cavemen had short lifespans! Of course they don’t have the diseases we do. We live way longer now .”

I agree with you here, but only because you don’t have to deal with the dangers of living back then. Again we don’t really care to live like cave people!

This is SIMPLY a construct that can help many build more informed food choices.

# 3)” Plenty of societies around the world consume grains and aren’t fat and unhealthy like us .”

Awesome- it seems like those people have found a solution that works for them. Have you read our big ass guidebook to eating a Plant-Based Diet?

The China Study is frequently cited when blaming the Paleo Diet- are concentrated on a vegetarian diet and consuming rice is healthier than the Paleo Diet. I respectfully disagree with the conclusions drawn from that book but that’s awesome if you want to go plant-based! [ 7 ] I’ll leave you to induce your own conclusions based on your own self-experimentation.

You’re here to learn about the Paleo Diet though, so let’s keep the focus there.

# 4)” But this is just a meat diet, and eating all meat is bad !”

First of all, consider your sources and do your research before jumping to the conclusions.

Next, this is not an all meat diet like the Carnivore Diet or uber-low carb diets like Keto or Atkins. The biggest component of the Paleo Diet?

Vegetables!

Every meal in a true Paleo diet has a moderate amount of healthy( properly raised chicken, grass-fed beef, hormone free, etc .) meat combined with nutritious veggies or a moderate sum of fruit.

# 5)” The Paleo Diet is too restrictive and I can’t live like this .”

This is the most valid criticism I personally have of the diet, as the best diet plan is the one you actually stick with and be adhered to on! The goal shouldn’t be to go” full paleo” for a few weeks merely going to go to how you were eating before.

Instead, the goal here should be to rethink your relationship with food and develop a strategy that you can live with permanently.

There’s nothing worse than going on diets and gaining and losing the same 20 pounds over and over. The Paleo Diet, like other diets, WORKS ONLY IF YOU STICK WITH IT PERMANENTLY!

This attains sense after all: stimulate temporary changes, get temporary results, right?

# 6)” Steve, I hate veggies. How do you construct veggies taste better? HALP .”

I got you. Heres how to start liking vegetables and how to attain veggies savour better.

We know this all too well, and we have helped thousands of people slowwwwly transition their diet over a long period of time to make change less scary, more permanent, and thus attain the weight loss permanent too!

If you’re overwhelmed or scared of changing too much, or maybe you’re just sick of dieting and want to find a solution that works for your busy lifestyle and situation, schedule a bellow with us to gain a better understanding of our 1-on-1 coaching program :P TAGEND

Paleo Recipes and Paleo Resources

Here’s our full list of Nerd Fitness Paleo/ Healthy recipes, and here are my three favorites :P TAGEND

10 Minutes of Prep, 10 Easy Meals Paleo spaghetti: freaking delicious, I promise How to Make Mini Paleo Pizzas .

I’ve also compiled a list of my favorite sites and recipe books in various regions of the internet that can help you get started :P TAGEND

# 1) Nom Nom Paleo -~ ATAGEND Michelle Tam and her husband Henry are amazing people, and their Paleo Blog is absolutely phenomenal. Great photos. Well written. Organized intelligently.

Their “Nom Nom Paleo” cookbook is a fun resource too, and a great place to get started with cooking for your Paleo lifestyle. Oh, what’s that? You have children and a spouse and you’re all trying to eat healthier too? This book is perfect for that as well!

# 2) Mark’s Daily Apple– Easily the most comprehensive resource on the internet for the Paleo Diet- Mark writes an article every weekday about everything Paleo, and it usually blows me away. Some of the posts can get overwhelming, so I indicate starting with his Primal Blueprint 101.

The Primal Blueprint– If you want to read about this stuff in a volume rather than on a computer screen, Mark’s book The Primal Blueprint is a great place to get started on not only what to eat, but why you should be eating it.

It’s educational, funny, real-world applicable, and teaches you how to primalize( just made that up) the rest of your life too.

# 3) Robb Wolf– Another great resource, and a guy I’ve already referenced in this article multiple times. Check out his site for a comprehensive FAQ on all things Paleo, a shopping list pdf( right-click and save ), and plenty of humor.

The Paleo Solution– This article would have been finished 3 hours earlier, but before I wrote it, I read ALL of Robb’s new volume. It severely had me laughing out loud at certain phases- not bad for a book on diet!

This book is a little less forgiving than Mark’s book above, but it’s still a great read.

# 4) Loren Cordain– Loren is considered the leading expert on the Paleo Diet- Robb is actually one of his students/ disciples/ Padawans.

Dr. Cordain is probably the foremost authority on this type of eating, which is why I actually enjoyed read both of his volumes.

MORE RECIPE RESOURCES :P TAGEND

Ready or Not! 150 Make Now Recipes– The newer book from Michelle Tam of Nom Nom Paleo. It’s super fun. Plus she’s wearing a Nerd FItness t-shirt in some of her photos in the book, so I might be sliiiightly biased Mark’s Daily Apple– Although he sells the cookbook on Amazon, Mark also lists over 100 free primal recipes on his site. Pick something on the list, run buy the ingredients, and follow the instructions! So easy even a caveman can do it. Everyday Paleo– Great images, easy to follow recipes, and pretty interesting combinations. Click on FOOD in the Nav bar, and the meals are broken down into breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

If you’re curious about The Paleo Diet’s recent popularity and thus it’s criticisms, we’ve written two other pieces on Nerd Fitness that might be of interest :P TAGEND

” The Paleo Diet Debunked ??” where I address a few of the more recent criticisms that have popped up.

” In Defense of a Paleo-Ish Diet” where I encompass how to live a mostly Paleo lifestyle but still enjoy the modern benefits of society.

Who Should and Who Shouldn’t Do the Paleo Diet?

I’m a fan of the Paleo Diet for the RIGHT person:

I love mental models that help us make sense of the world, and I guess for SOME people, the Paleo Diet has certainly help them cut down on overeating.

I personally do NOT follow a Paleo Diet, but I do have regulations that I follow.

Do whatever makes you happy and fits in your schedule. I like this kind of stress-free eating.

Regardless of whether or not grains should be vilified, I love this diet because I know it WORKS. I know people that have lost incredible amounts of weight and changed their lives within a matter of months.

People like Staci :P TAGEND

Regardless of how you feel about grains, we can all agree that eating more natural foods and less processed foods is better for you.

YOU SHOULD DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

You struggle with section control( entailing you can’t eat merely one cookie, or you tend to keep feeing even when you’re full ). You can stick with the changes you’re making permanently! Remember, temporary changes create temporary outcomes. You don’t mind eliminating some of your favorite foods completely.

YOU SHOULD NOT DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

The notion of giving up non-paleo foods makes you want to cry. You don’t mind learning about calories and want to track your food. Another diet sounds like a better fit for you!

Consider some of these other options instead:

The Mediterranean Diet which still includes portions of things like pasta or bread( note: I said PORTIONS , not platefuls )! Our guide on healthy eating and slowly adjust your nutrition- which would be my recommendation. My paleo-ish dietary philosophy that holds me healthy and happy.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to attain permanent adjustments to your nutrition.

If you don’t see yourself being able to permanently follow a Paleo Diet, I would advise a more’ wade in from the shallow aim‘ approach to dietary change!

How to Do the Paleo Diet Safely

Maybe you’re ready to try out this Paleo lifestyle, but you can’t commit fully. There are certain foods you refuse to give up, or you can’t afford to buy grass-fed beef at the moment.

That’s okay!

If you can even make a few small changes here and there( cut out liquid calories, switching out your rice for steamed vegetables, cut back on bread, etc .) you’ll start to see some changes.

Remember, 20% healthier is better than 0% healthier- as you get more comfy with the changes you can increase that percentage.

After all, I know how tough it is to stay loyal to a strict diet, especially without a plan to follow. It’s why we created free resources that can help you reach your goals faster without you also going crazy.

Get rid of the temptation: if you’re gonna go at this thing with a full head of steam, remove all the junk food from your house.

It’s going to take a few weeks for your body to adjust to burning fat instead of glucose, and you might want to eat poorly here and there. If there’s no food in your house to tempt you, it will be much easier to stay on target.

Now, it’s your turn.

Have you tried the Paleo Diet yet? What was your experience like? Have a criticism of the diet that I didn’t cover before? Do you have a favorite paleo resource?

Remember, one of the major Rules of the Rebellion is to question everything!

I hope this article gives you some food for thought( terrible pun, I know ), and gives you permission to question conventional wisdom and start addressing the issues in your diet!

In addition to this Beginner Paleo Guide, I hope you consider checking our 1-on-1 Coaching Program as well.

We have designed this program from the ground up to help people like you change their lives and fix their nutrition in a way that doesn’t suck.

Now, go forth. And feed like a caveman.

-Steve

PS: I’ll leave you with a mention of the Nerd Fitness Academy– it essentially gamifies your experience in transitioning into a Paleo lifestyle and diet, and provides you with specific instruction, snack plans, workouts, and a supportive community.

###

photo sources: cavemen elephant hunt, caveman cooking over flame, cavemen hunt paleo bear, milk truck logo, darth vader vendor, storm trooper tomato, lego cook, chef and lego pig, lego explorer, lego muffin, lego bread and carbs, frozen caveman grok lego, lego clock, lego caveman forge for food, caveman with wheel, darth vader and ostrich lego, easing into water lego, lego man with pasta

Footnote( returns to text)

Adult Obesity Prevalence Map CDC.gov

What if its all Been a Big Fat Lie ? Take a look at this time magazine article on cancer patients who switched to a zero-sugar diet and assured positive results. You can read our full guide on Gluten check out the Inuit Paradox for a great read on societies that exist without almost any carbohydrates If you want to nerd out about this stuff, go wild with this study This is the most well-researched critique I’ve determine of the China Study: Denise Menger- China Study- Fact or Fallacy

Read more: nerdfitness.com

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Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

New Post has been published on https://computerguideto.com/awesome/paleo-diet-beginner-guide-7-things-you-should-know-before-eating-like-a-caveman/

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

So you wanna learn about the Paleo Diet, aka” the Caveman Diet ,” eh?

This is one of the most popular diets on the planet right now( up there with the Keto Diet ), and I bet you have questions.

Well I got answers, sucka!

And lots of LEGO photos.

In this massive guide, I’m going to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the Paleolithic Diet( click each link to go right to that section ):

What is the Paleo Diet and how does it work ? Will I lose weight on the Paleo Diet ? What can I eat on the Paleo Diet ? What foods CAN’T I eat on the Paleo Diet ? Can I feed grains on the Paleo Diet ? Can I feed dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I feed cheese on the Paleo Diet ? Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of foods on the Paleo Diet What does a typical day look like on the Paleo Diet ? Is the Paleo Diet dangerous ? Paleo Recipes& Paleo Resources . Who shouldn’t do the Paleo Diet ? How to do the Paleo Diet safely .

Now, this guide is SUPER long, so we took the liberty of converting it into a nicely designed guidebook for easy consumption( not literal intake, unless you print it on bacon ).

Grab your Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet free when you sign on in the box below: Get the FREE eBook! The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Paleo!

Discover if Paleo is for you

The one simple trick to know if your food is Paleo-friendly

Easy Paleo recipes for beginners to get you started

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

As the great Mr. Flintstone once said, “Yabadabadooooo!”

What is the Paleo Diet and How does it Work?

Oh lord, another “diet.”

I know, it sounds like a fad/ marketing ploy, but The Paleo Diet isn’t really a “diet,” and it’s actually quite logical when you think about it.

It’s also the most time-tested diet ever.

Here’s the ENTIRE diet in a nutshell :P TAGEND

” If a cave person didn’t eat it, neither should you .”

As the theory runs, tens of thousands of years ago, before Nike, Cap’n Crunch, and Healthy Choice meals, our ancient ancestors flourished as hunter-gatherers.

Although it’s been a really long time, our genetics haven’t changed that much since then.

And yet…these days we’re overweight, out of shape, stressed out, unhappy, sleep deprived and dying from far too many preventable cancers due to lifestyle choices.

So what the hell happened?

Agriculture!

And then delivery and Netflix.

A few thousand years ago, humans detected farming, the agricultural revolution took off, and we advanced from hunter-gatherers to farmers.

We settled down, formed societies, and the human race progressed to what we are today. Which is obviously great for a number of reasons :P TAGEND

Not get eaten by wild animals Electricity Automobiles Nintendo

The problem is that our bodies never adjusted properly to eating all the grains and sugar that we’re now consuming.

As paleo guru Robb Wolf sets it, should be considered a 100 -yard football field :P TAGEND

The first 99.5 yards are how long Homo-Sapiens spent as hunter-gatherers. As they became Genuinely good at hunting and meeting our bodies adapted to that lifestyle over thousands of years.

That last half-yard represents our species after the agricultural revolution, where our diet has changed( but our genetics haven’t ).

So, instead of loading up on meat, vegetables and seasonal fruits, we’ve become a species “dependent” upon grains- bread, pasta, rice, corn, and so on.

66% of us are overweight, 33% are considered obese, and those numbers are only getting worse.[ 1 ]

Clearly something’s not right, and we need to fix it.

The Paleo Diet is an effort to go back to our ancestral roots.

To start eating how we’re biologically designed to eat, allowing us to tap into our genetic potential and start live healthier immediately.

To recap the rules of the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Only eat foods a caveman would eat See Rule# 1

Note that it doesn’t mention calorie counting or snack day or macro tracking. That’s part of the popularity of this diet: feed paleo approved foods when you’re hungry, and that’s it.

Will I Lose Weight on the Paleo Diet?

This is the question we get above all else :P TAGEND

” Will the Paleo Diet help me lose weight ?”

Probably. If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

It’s helped many people achieve jaw-dropping transformations, including my friend Saint,( whose narrative you can read here ):

Or Staci from Team NF, our leading female trainer in our 1-on-1 Coaching Program ):

The Paleo Diet will work for you, if you do it right.

You need to have the right mindset, you need to focus on the right foods, and you need to structure your environment so that you’re not seduced to backslide and abandon the Paleo Diet after a few days.

However, it has nothing to do with what Fred Flintstone ate or didn’t eat.

It comes down to science and thermodynamics.

As I point out in our article on How to Lose weight: What’s the Perfect Diet( For me ?), if you want to lose weight :P TAGEND

Eat fewer calories than you burn every day. Wishing to also be healthy? Eat mostly real food.

Want to KEEP the weight off?

Add# 3: Do those two things consistently for a decade.

Here’s WHY you’ll lose weight on the Paleo Diet:

You’re only feeing meat, fish, veggies, fruits, and nuts. These are foods that are full of nutrients, will make you feel full, but don’t have nearly as many calories as junk food. You are altogether eliminating calorie-dense, often nutritionally insufficient, unhealthy foods. This entails no grains( pasta, bread, rice ), no dairy , no beans. It also entails no soda , no candy , no sugar.

And yup. When you only feed real food and avoid all unhealthy food, you’re more likely than not going to run a caloric deficit- and thus lose weight.

Let me share a really obvious example.

200 calories of broccoli get you enough to fill up an entire plate :P TAGEND

Or … 200 calories will get you exactly 1/2 a Snickers bar :P TAGEND

Look at that: nobody can eat that much broccoli, and nobody only fees half a candy bar!

My point is this: by eating Paleo-approved foods, you’re more likely than not to eat fewer calories than you did in the past automatically, which can lead to weight loss.

I dig into this in even greater detail in” Why can’t I lose weight ?” but it all comes down to” calories in, calories out .”

So YES, the Paleo Diet MIGHT help you lose weight.

You simply need to eat fewer calories than you burn every day( Here’s how to calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure ). And that is easier when you are eliminating foods that people tend to overeat :P TAGEND

Candy Soda Pasta Bread Dairy

But that’s all about what we’re eliminating. What are we keeping !?

what Can I eat on The Paleo diet?

In order to follow the Paleo Diet Lifestyle, here are the foods that are Paleo approved :P TAGEND

Meat*- steak, ham, pork, bison, boar. Organs- liver, kidneys, heart. Marrow- find a topic here? Eat ALL parts of the animal! Fowl- chicken, duck, hen, turkey…things with wings that( try to) fly. Fish- cod, tuna, salmon, and so on. Eggs- Look for omega-3 enriched cage-free eggs. Vegetable- spinach, broccoli, kale, carrots, peppers, zucchini, onions, etc. Petroleum- minimally processed, derived from plants: olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil. Fats: ghee, lard, or other animal fats. Fruit- apples, pears, bananas, grapes, strawberries. Nut- almonds, walnuts, cashews, and their respective butters( almond butter is so good !) Tubers- Sweet potatoes and yams.

* If you can, aim for grass-fed beef and organic fruits and veggies. But don’t go break the bank with your food buys. Merely do the best you can.

As the Paleo Diet explains: Pick any of the foods from that listing and eat as much as you want of them.

You might have noticed that a lot of the foods above are loaded with fat. And depending on what your mom told you growing up, you might believe fat is the devil.

So let me address that right away…

Does Eating Fat Make You Fat?

If you’re cut back on carbs, that means you’ll need to fill the void in your diet with the most controversial macronutrient :P TAGEND

Fat!

It’s gotten a bad rap over the past number of decades, so companies have been doing everything possible to induce everything low fat and “healthy! ”( while adding all sorts of preservatives, chemicals, and sugar ).

Yup…cut out the fat, increase the carbs….and look where THAT has gotten us.

Why has fat been vilified? Rather than get into the politics of it myself, I’ll let Gary Taubes, writer of the unbelievably thorough and well-researched Good Calories, Bad Calories take over.

As he discusses in an article he wrote for the New York Times a decade ago: [ 2 ]

These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of day.

In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980′ s, and that this was coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma.( Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period .)

They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and real life to be dismal failings, and that on top of everything is, the percentage of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades.

Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as would be expected.” That is very disconcerting ,” Willett says.” It suggests that something else bad is happening .”

” Low fat” foods were created to follow conventional wisdom that fat hit you fat( which as stated in the above article doesn’t stand up to scrutiny ).

When a company makes a low fat food, they remove the fat and have to replace the flavor with something.

That “something” is usually sugar( and often more calories ).

Crap.

So, according to Taubes and Paleo folks, fat has been vilified and the real focus should have been on sugar and carbs all along.

Because healthy fats are valuable additions to our diet.

Here are some examples of Paleo-Approved Healthy Fats :P TAGEND

Avocados Almond( and almond butter) Fatty cuts of meat Walnuts Coconut oil Olive oil

In the Paleo Diet, fat constructions up a large portion of one’s diet.

If you’re worried about consuming fat and how it will affect your cholesterol, read our Full Guide to Cholesterol

WhAT Foods Can’t I eat On the Paleo Diet?

If you are looking to strictly follow the Paleo Diet, then you can’t eat foods that did not exist back in” Caveman day .”

Why?

Because- as those in favour of the diet point out- cavemen couldn’t eat those foods because they didn’t exist. There was no way to create cereal and candy – you could only eat what you discovered or hunted.

So, that’s what the Paleo Diet advocates as the reason for avoiding these foods. And it serves as a good mental model to check with yourself: “Could a caveman have eaten this meal? ”

And when you start to answer this question, you identify the foods that you’re not allowed to eat on the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Grains like pasta, cereal bread, and rice Dairy like milk and cheese Candy, cookies, ice cream, and other processed foods

The Paleo Diet also almost completely eliminates sugar outside of fruit. No candy. No soda. No powdered donuts. Yup, even the mini white ones from the grocery store where you can eat like 100 of them( accidentally, of course ).

Many studies have shown that an incredible number of diseases and lifestyle issues can be reversed by cutting out sugar and processed foods.[ 3 ]

But I understand grains and dairy are a bit more complex.

Let me explain :P TAGEND Can I Eat Grains on the Paleo Diet?

Unfortunately , nope.

The Caveman reason why: Grains require some amount of processing, and thus Cavemen would not have consume them.

The science and psychological reason why: we have a tendency to overeat grains and the other ” no no” foods on the Paleo Diet. They are calorically dense, nutrient insufficient, and they can wreak havoc on some people’s blood sugar levels.

This leads to a sugar rush followed by a accident, which can lead to more emotional or hungry overeating…and the process starts again.

Rather than me explain that part with thousands of words, just watch this three-minute video-” Why You Got Fat :”

Let’s get into some more reasons Paleo proponents indicate avoiding grains: most contain gluten and lectins.

What are they and what’s wrong with them? I’m so glad you asked :P TAGEND

Gluten is a protein found in things like rye, wheat, and barley. It’s now being said that much of our population may be gluten-intolerant( hence all the new “gluten-free! ” items popping up everywhere ). Over time, those people who have gluten intolerant can develop a dismal array of medical conditions from ingesting gluten: dermatitis, joint ache, reproductive problems, acid reflux, and more.[ 4 ] Lectins are natural toxins that are present in grains to defend against consumption! Yup. Grains have evolved to keep themselves from being feed by us. These lectins are not a fan of our gastrointestinal tract, and they avoid the tract from repairing itself from normal wear and tear. This can cause all kinds of damage.

Long story short: many people cannot process grains properly, and they are usually the food that causes people to eat too many calories. So by eliminating grains from your diet, you’re more likely than not going to eat fewer calories without counting calories.

That’s a Paleo win!

Do I Need to Avoid Carbs on the Paleo Diet?

Not necessarily.

That depends on your goals and your body – you are a special snowflake!

Some people function well on a high fat, low carb diet.

Others function better on a high carb, low fat diet.

Personally, I function better on a higher carb, lower fat diet( which is how I lost 22 pounds in 6 months ).

I will say the Paleo Diet is USUALLY a Low Carb diet, and large quantities of carbs are not required for somebody to be healthy regular diet.[ 5 ].

After all, carbs aren’t evil- they’re just…carbs.

Here is the logic and psychology behind why the Paleo Diet is low carb :P TAGEND

On a typical Western diet, we ingest plenty o’ carbs, and our bodies convert those carbs to a sugar called “glucose.” This is our body’s preferred method of fueling itself.

In the absence of carbs to create glucose to fuel our bodies, we have to do a few other things instead :P TAGEND

Transform stored fat into glycerol and fatty acids( this process is called lipolysis ). Burn fatty acids for energy or transform the fatty acids into glucose for energy( this is called gluconeogenesis) In the absence of glucose( through fasting or following a Keto Diet ), your body can create ketones for fuel( called “ketogenesis” ).

We’re going to focus on the forms of weight loss NOT related to ” ketogenesis .” Unless you are avoiding all carbohydrates while running Paleo, or you are doing long fasts, you most likely won’t be in ketosis while going Paleo.

We do cover Paleo vs Keto: Which is Better if you’re deciding between the two.

Back to weight loss and Paleo: when you cut back on carbs, and thus most likely ALSO cut back on total calories ingested, you are creating a caloric deficit in your body.

And eat a consistent deficit over a long enough time period, BOOM caveman weight loss.

So, fewer carbs= less glucose in your system, less sugar crashes, less “hangry” moments and smaller chance of overeating= fewer calories consumed on average.

If you’re worried about adherence to the diet, I understand – it’s the toughest part of Paleo- sticking with it!

Knowing what to eat is part of it, but following this fairly restrictive lifestyle in a modern environment surrounded by cookies and candy and bagels and pasta is really difficult!

If this whole” Paleo, Carbs, and Weight Loss” thing is stressing you out, you’re not alone!

In fact, people like you are the reason we created our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program!

We work with busy people like you to structure a complete life overhaul: handcrafted workout routines, accountability, mindset alters, and nutritional strategies.

Can I feed Dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I eat Cheese On the Paleo Diet?

This also depends. Strict Paleo folks tend to stay away from it- a portion of the world is lactose intolerant, and those that aren’t usually have at least some type of an aversion to it.

Why? Because hunter-gatherers didn’t lug cows around with them while traveling- milk was ingested as a baby through breast milk from their mother, and that was it.

So as Paleo-stans will tell ya, our bodies weren’t designed for massive dairy consumption.

There is evidence that some adaptation to dairy has taken place throughout the years, specifically with people with ancestry in herding cultures, but this is not the majority of the population.[ 6 ]

Paleo purists will avoid dairy like the beset, while other paleo-ish people have found that ingesting dairy in its various forms work for their genetics, goals, and lifestyle.

“What about Cheese? Can I feed cheese on the Paleo Diet? ”

You do you, boo. But if you’re going Strict Paleo, then unfortunately cheese is OUT too.

If you’re just looking to lose some weight while following a “mostly Paleo” lifestyle, then adding some high quality cheese into some of your snacks can be okay.

Some cheeses will tend to have lower sums of lactose or casein- the parts of dairy that can cause digestion challenges.

So, if you’re not sure your body is processing dairy properly, remove dairy from your diet and only introduce it back in when you’re ready to see how your body responds.

If you’re not losing weight while feeing a” Paleo+ Dairy” Diet, you’re still feeing too many calories.

Consider cutting out dairy and see how your body responds.

Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of Foods on the Paleo Diet

Because I like you as person or persons, I’ve created a printable Paleo Diet Shopping List PDF you can bring with you to the grocery store to help you decide what to buy and what to avoid.

Simply right click on the image below and save as :P TAGEND

Feel free to publish this out and bring it with you to the grocery store. If you happen to run into somebody else who has ALSO printed out this sheet, feel free to high five each other while singing Baltimora!

What is a Typical Day Like on the Paleo Diet?

Here is an example of a typical day on “The Paleo Diet” :P TAGEND

Breakfast: Omelet with spinach with fresh fruit. Lunch: Grilled chicken, kale, and avocado salad with vinegar and olive oil. Snack: Apple slicings and almond butter. Dinner: Steak with asparagus and sweet potato fries. Dessert: Strawberries and a piece of 85% darknes chocolate.

That doesn’t audio so bad, right?

Make sure you check out our Paleo Diet Recipes and Resource section too for more options.

Start with a good protein source with each dinner( eggs, steak, chicken, fish, pork) and then add a vegetable or fruit.

That’s it.

If you feel hungry constantly, understand that changing up a diet can cause a body a few weeks of adjustment.

Remember, your body is learning to operate on both fewer calories AND fewer carbs- depending on how low carb you go this could be a DRAMATIC change.

And this is often referred to as “carb flu, ” and it can be miserable! Your body might take multiple weeks to adjust to these new habits.

Going from a processed, high sodium diet to a paleo diet you will very often end up eating too little sodium, which is an essential nutrient.

So if you’re feeling tired all the time, try adding some salt to your food or consider an electrolyte supplement- this is what we recommend with our Keto readers too.

Is the Paleo Diet Dangerous?

The dismissive criticisms of the Paleo Diet generally fall into one of three categories :P TAGEND

Cavemen had short lifespans. So there. A recent article said that cavemen feed grains. So there. Eating that much meat is unhealthy. So there.

As I said at the beginning of this article, it doesn’t matter what cavemen or cavewomen ACTUALLY ate.

The reason this diet runs has nothing to do with what our bodies are designed to eat or what cavemen ate 1,000 s of years ago.

The Paleo Diet CAN help you lose weight because it gets you to cut out junk food, focus on eating real food, and gives you a framework to evaluate speedily every food choice :P TAGEND

” Did a caveman eat this? Yes or no .”

That’s it!

By following this ONE rules, you’re likely to eat fewer calories than you used to, and thus you’re likely to end up healthier than before.

I personally don’t follow a Paleo Diet, but I do appreciate the fact that it’s easy to comprehend and gets people to take a more active approach in their food!

So, disregarding the fear mongering, tenet, and anthropological criticisms of what cavemen actually ate, what are the ACTUAL criticisms of the Paleo Diet?

# 1)” Why is the Paleo Diet expensive ?”

Admittedly, while I recommend eating organic fruits and veggies, free-range chicken, and grass-fed beef whenever possible, these products can be more expensive in conventional stores due to the processes needed to get them there.

However, farmers’ marketplaces often have well-priced meats, eggs, fruits, and vegetables that are locally grown and unbelievably healthy.

Even if you’re spending a little more money than before, when you factor in your overall health, spending a few extra bucks on healthier food now is a wiser investment than thousands later on costly medical expenses.

Also, if you’re really short on cash, feeing the non-organic or grain-fed version of a meat, vegetable, or eggs is still better than eating breads, pasta, fast food, and the like.

Most people simply compare the cost of a paleo meal with ramen noodles or pasta and bread and determine Paleo is prohibitively expensive.

Sure, it’s more expensive than those foods, but if you are smart with your fund you can eat a much healthier snack and do really pretty inexpensively. Check out this guide on” How to Eat Healthy Without Breaking the Bank” for some tip-off and tricks.

( This doesn’t even factor in the whole” if you feed cheap unhealthy food now, you’ll pay thousands in medical bills and hospital visits and medications later” argument which is valid too ).

# 2)” But cavemen had short lifespans! Of course they don’t have the diseases we do. We live style longer now .”

I agree with you here, but merely because you don’t have to deal with the dangers of living back then. Again we don’t really care to live like cave people!

This is SIMPLY a construct that can help many attain more informed food choices.

# 3)” Plenty of societies around the world consume grains and aren’t fat and unhealthy like us .”

Awesome- it seems like those people have found a solution that works for them. Have you read our big ass guidebook to eating a Plant-Based Diet?

The China Study is frequently cited when blaming the Paleo Diet- are concentrated on a vegetarian diet and ingesting rice is healthier than the Paleo Diet. I respectfully disagree with the conclusions drawn from that volume but that’s awesome if you want to go plant-based! [ 7 ] I’ll leave you to induce your own conclusions based on your own self-experimentation.

You’re here to learn about the Paleo Diet though, so let’s keep the focus there.

# 4)” But this is just a meat diet, and eating all meat is bad !”

First of all, consider your sources and do your search before jumping to the conclusions.

Next, this is not an all meat diet like the Carnivore Diet or uber-low carb diets like Keto or Atkins. The biggest component of the Paleo Diet?

Vegetables!

Every meal in a true Paleo diet has a moderate amount of healthy( properly raised chicken, grass-fed beef, hormone free, etc .) meat combined with nutritious veggies or a moderate quantity of fruit.

# 5)” The Paleo Diet is too restrictive and I can’t live like this .”

This is the most valid criticism I personally have of the diet, as the best diet plan is the one you actually stick with and be adhered to on! The goal shouldn’t be to go” full paleo” for a few weeks merely to go back to how you were eating before.

Instead, the goal here should be to rethink your relationship with food and develop a strategy that you can live with permanently.

There’s nothing worse than going on diets and gaining and losing the same 20 pounds over and over. The Paleo Diet, like other diets, WORKS ONLY IF YOU STICK WITH IT PERMANENTLY!

This attains sense after all: stimulate temporary alterations, get temporary results, right?

# 6)” Steve, I hate vegetables. How do you induce veggies savour better? HALP .”

I got you. Heres how to start liking vegetables and how to construct veggies savour better.

We know this all too well, and we have helped thousands of people slowwwwly transition their diet over a long period of time to make change less scary, more permanent, and thus construct the weight loss permanent too!

If you’re overwhelmed or scared of changing too much, or maybe you’re just sick of dieting and want to find a solution that works for your busy lifestyle and situation, schedule a bellow with us to gain a better understanding of our 1-on-1 coaching program :P TAGEND

Paleo Recipes and Paleo Resource

Here’s our full list of Nerd Fitness Paleo/ Healthy recipes, and here are my three favourites :P TAGEND

10 Minutes of Prep, 10 Easy Meals Paleo spaghetti: freaking delicious, I promise How to Make Mini Paleo Pizzas .

I’ve also compiled a list of my favorite sites and recipe books around the internet that can help you get started :P TAGEND

# 1) Nom Nom Paleo -~ ATAGEND Michelle Tam and her husband Henry are amazing people, and their Paleo Blog is absolutely phenomenal. Great photos. Well written. Organized intelligently.

Their “Nom Nom Paleo” cookbook is a fun resource too, and a great place to get started with cooking for your Paleo lifestyle. Oh, what’s that? You have kids and a spouse and you’re all trying to eat healthier too? This volume is perfect for that as well!

# 2) Mark’s Daily Apple– Easily the most comprehensive resource on the internet for the Paleo Diet- Mark writes an article every weekday about everything Paleo, and it usually blows me away. Some of the posts can get overwhelming, so I suggest starting with his Primal Blueprint 101.

The Primal Blueprint– If you want to read about this stuff in a volume rather than on a computer screen, Mark’s book The Primal Blueprint is a great place to get started on not only what to eat, but why you should be eating it.

It’s educational, funny, real-world applicable, and teaches you how to primalize( just made that up) the rest of your life too.

# 3) Robb Wolf– Another great resource, and a guy I’ve already referenced in this article multiple times. Check out his site for a comprehensive FAQ on all things Paleo, a shopping list pdf( right-click and save ), and plenty of humor.

The Paleo Solution– This article would have been finished 3 hours earlier, but before I wrote it, I read ALL of Robb’s new book. It severely had me chuckling out loud at certain points- not bad for a volume on diet!

This book is a little less forgiving than Mark’s book above, but it’s still a great read.

# 4) Loren Cordain– Loren is considered the leading expert on the Paleo Diet- Robb is actually one of his students/ followers/ Padawans.

Dr. Cordain is probably the foremost authority on this type of eating, which is why I really enjoyed reading both of his books.

MORE RECIPE Resource :P TAGEND

Ready or Not! 150 Make Now Recipes– The newer book from Michelle Tam of Nom Nom Paleo. It’s super fun. Plus she’s wearing a Nerd FItness t-shirt in some of her photos in the book, so I might be sliiiightly biased Mark’s Daily Apple– Although he sells the cookbook on Amazon, Mark also lists over 100 free primal recipes on his site. Pick something on the list, go buy the ingredients, and follow the instructions! So easy even a caveman can do it. Everyday Paleo– Great paintings, easy to follow recipes, and pretty interesting combinations. Click on FOOD in the Nav bar, and the meals are broken down into breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

If you’re curious about The Paleo Diet’s recent popularity and thus it’s criticisms, we’ve written two other pieces on Nerd Fitness that might be of interest :P TAGEND

” The Paleo Diet Debunked ??” where I address a few of the more recent criticisms that have popped up.

” In Defense of a Paleo-Ish Diet” where I cover how to live a largely Paleo lifestyle but still enjoy the modern benefits of society.

Who Should and Who Shouldn’t Do the Paleo Diet?

I’m a fan of the Paleo Diet for the RIGHT person:

I love mental models that help us make sense of the world, and I suppose for SOME people, the Paleo Diet has certainly help them cut down on overeating.

I personally do NOT follow a Paleo Diet, but I do have rules that I follow.

Do whatever builds you happy and accommodates in your schedule. I like this kind of stress-free eating.

Regardless of whether or not grains should be vilified, I love this diet because I know it WORKS. I know people that have lost incredible amounts of weight and altered their lives within a matter of months.

People like Staci :P TAGEND

Regardless of how you feel about grains, we can all agree that eating more natural foods and less processed foods is better for you.

YOU SHOULD DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

You struggle with portion control( entailing you can’t eat just one cookie, or you tend to keep eating even when you’re full ). You can stick with the changes you’re making permanently! Remember, temporary alters make temporary results. You don’t mind eliminating some of your favorite foods entirely.

YOU SHOULD NOT DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

The idea of giving up non-paleo foods makes you want to cry. You don’t mind learning about calories and want to track your food. Another diet sounds like a better fit for you!

Consider some of these other options instead:

The Mediterranean Diet which still includes portions of things like pasta or bread( note: I said Sections , not platefuls )! Our guide on healthy eating and slowly adjust your nutrition- which would be my recommendation. My paleo-ish dietary philosophy that maintains me healthy and happy.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to make permanent adjustments to your nutrition.

If you don’t see yourself being able to permanently follow a Paleo Diet, I would advise a more’ wade in from the shallow end‘ approach to dietary change!

How to Do the Paleo Diet Safely

Maybe you’re ready to try out this Paleo lifestyle, but you can’t commit fully. There are certain foods you refuse to give up, or you can’t afford to buy grass-fed beef at the moment.

That’s okay!

If you can even make a few small changes here and there( cut out liquid calories, switching out your rice for steamed veggies, cut back on bread, etc .) you’ll start to see some changes.

Remember, 20% healthier is better than 0% healthier- as you get more comfortable with the changes you can increase that percentage.

After all, I know how tough it is to stay loyal to a strict diet, especially without a plan to follow. It’s why we created free resources that can help you reach your goals faster without you also going crazy.

Get rid of the temptation: if you’re gonna go at this thing with a full head of steam, remove all the junk food from your house.

It’s going to take a few weeks for your body to adjust to burning fat instead of glucose, and you might want to eat poorly here and there. If there’s no food in your house to tempt you, it will be much easier to stay on target.

Now, it’s your turn.

Have you tried the Paleo Diet yet? What was your experience like? Have a criticism of the diet that I didn’t cover before? Do you have a favorite paleo resource?

Remember, one of the major Rules of the Rebellion is to question everything!

I hope this article gives you some food for thought( terrible pun, I know ), and gives you permission to question conventional wisdom and start addressing the issues in your diet!

In addition to this Beginner Paleo Guide, I hope you consider checking our 1-on-1 Coaching Program as well.

We have designed this program from the ground up to help people like you change their lives and fix their nutrition in a way that doesn’t suck.

Now, go forth. And feed like a caveman.

-Steve

PS: I’ll leave you with a mention of the Nerd Fitness Academy– it essentially gamifies your experience in transitioning into a Paleo lifestyle and diet, and provides you with specific instruction, meal plans, workouts, and a supportive community.

###

photo sources: cavemen elephant hunt, caveman cooking over flame, cavemen hunt paleo bear, milk truck logo, darth vader vendor, storm trooper tomato, lego cook, chef and lego pig, lego explorer, lego muffin, lego bread and carbs, frozen caveman grok lego, lego clock, lego caveman forge for food, caveman with wheel, darth vader and ostrich lego, easing into water lego, lego man with pasta

Footnotes( returns to text)

Adult Obesity Prevalence Map CDC.gov

What if its all Been a Big Fat Lie ? Take a look at this time magazine article on cancer patients who switched to a zero-sugar diet and considered positive results. You can read our full guide on Gluten check out the Inuit Paradox for a great read on societies that exist without almost any carbohydrates If you want to nerd out about this stuff, go wild with this study This is the most well-researched criticism I’ve receive of the China Study: Denise Menger- China Study- Fact or Fallacy

Read more: nerdfitness.com

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Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

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Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

So you wanna learn about the Paleo Diet, aka” the Caveman Diet ,” eh?

This is one of the most popular diets on the planet right now( up there with the Keto Diet ), and I bet you have questions.

Well I got answers, sucka!

And lots of LEGO photos.

In this massive guidebook, I’m going to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the Paleolithic Diet( click each link to go right to that segment ):

What is the Paleo Diet and how does it run ? Will I lose weight on the Paleo Diet ? What can I eat on the Paleo Diet ? What foods CAN’T I eat on the Paleo Diet ? Can I eat grains on the Paleo Diet ? Can I feed dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I feed cheese on the Paleo Diet ? Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of foods on the Paleo Diet What does a typical day look like on the Paleo Diet ? Is the Paleo Diet dangerous ? Paleo Recipes& Paleo Resource . Who shouldn’t do the Paleo Diet ? How to do the Paleo Diet safely .

Now, this guide is SUPER long, we are therefore took the liberty of converting it into a nicely designed guidebook for easy consumption( not literal intake, unless you publish it on bacon ).

Grab your Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet free when you sign up in the box below: Get the FREE eBook! The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Paleo!

Discover if Paleo is for you

The one simple trick to know if your food is Paleo-friendly

Easy Paleo recipes for beginners to get you started

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

As the great Mr. Flintstone once said, “Yabadabadooooo!”

What is the Paleo Diet and How does it Work?

Oh lord, another “diet.”

I know, it sounds like a fad/ marketing gambit, but The Paleo Diet isn’t really a “diet,” and it’s actually quite logical when you think about it.

It’s also the most time-tested diet ever.

Here’s the ENTIRE diet in a nutshell :P TAGEND

” If a cave person didn’t eat it, neither should you .”

As the hypothesi goes, tens of thousands of years ago, before Nike, Cap’n Crunch, and Healthy Choice snacks, our ancient ancestors flourished as hunter-gatherers.

Although it’s been a really long time, our genetics haven’t altered that much since then.

And yet…these days we’re overweight, out of shape, stressed out, unhappy, sleep deprived and dying from far too many preventable illness due to lifestyle choices.

So what the hell happened?

Agriculture!

And then delivery and Netflix.

A few thousand years ago, humans detected farming, the agricultural revolution took off, and we advanced from hunter-gatherers to farmers.

We determined down, formed societies, and the human race progressed to what we are today. Which is obviously great for a number of reasons :P TAGEND

Not getting eaten by wild animals Electricity Automobiles Nintendo

The problem is that our bodies never adjusted properly to eating all the grains and sugar that we’re now consuming.

As paleo guru Robb Wolf sets it, should be considered a 100 -yard football field :P TAGEND

The first 99.5 yards are how long Homo-Sapiens spent as hunter-gatherers. As they became Really good at hunting and collecting our bodies adapted to that lifestyle over thousands of years.

That last half-yard represents our species after the agricultural revolution, where our diet has shifted( but our genetics haven’t ).

So, instead of loading up on meat, vegetables and seasonal fruits, we’ve become a species “dependent” upon grains- bread, pasta, rice, corn, and so on.

66% of us are overweight, 33% are considered obese, and those numbers are only getting worse.[ 1 ]

Clearly something’s not right, and we need to fix it.

The Paleo Diet is an effort to go back to our ancestral roots.

To start eating how we’re biologically designed to eat, allowing us to tap into our genetic potential and start live healthier immediately.

To recap the rules of the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Only feed foods a caveman would eat See Rule# 1

Note that it doesn’t mention calorie counting or meal period or macro tracking. That’s part of the popularity of this diet: feed paleo approved foods when you’re hungry, and that’s it.

Will I Lose Weight on the Paleo Diet?

This is the question we get above all else :P TAGEND

” Will the Paleo Diet assist me lose weight ?”

Probably. If you can actually apply the rules of the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

It’s helped many people attain jaw-dropping transformations, including my friend Saint,( whose narrative you can read here ):

Or Staci from Team NF, our result female trainer in our 1-on-1 Coaching Program ):

The Paleo Diet will work for you, if you do it right.

You need to have the right mindset, you need to focus on the right foods, and you need to structure your environment so that you’re not seduced to backslide and abandon the Paleo Diet after a few days.

However, it has nothing to do with what Fred Flintstone ate or didn’t eat.

It comes down to science and thermodynamics.

As I point out in our article on How to Lose Weight: What’s the Perfect Diet( For me ?), if you want to lose weight :P TAGEND

Eat fewer calories than you burn every day. Want to also be healthy? Eat mostly real food.

Want to KEEP the weight off?

Add# 3: Do those two things consistently for a decade.

Here’s WHY you’ll lose weight on the Paleo Diet:

You’re merely feeing meat, fish, veggies, fruit, and nuts. These are foods that are full of nutrients, will construct you feel full, but don’t have nearly as many calories as junk food. You are altogether eliminating calorie-dense, often nutritionally insufficient, unhealthy foods. This means no grains( pasta, bread, rice ), no dairy , no beans. It also entails no soda , no candy , no sugar.

And yup. When you only feed real food and avoided all unhealthy food, you’re more likely than not going to run a caloric deficit- and thus lose weight.

Let me share a really obvious example.

200 calories of broccoli get you enough to fill up an entire plate :P TAGEND

Or … 200 calories will get you exactly 1/2 a Snickers bar :P TAGEND

Look at that: nobody can eat that much broccoli, and nobody only fees half a candy bar!

My point is this: by eating Paleo-approved foods, you’re more likely than not to eat fewer calories than you did in the past automatically, which can lead to weight loss.

I dig into this in even greater detail in” Why can’t I lose weight ?” but it all comes down to” calories in, calories out .”

So YES, the Paleo Diet MIGHT help you lose weight.

You simply need to eat fewer calories than you burn every day( Here’s how to calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure ). And that is easier when you are eliminating foods that people tend to overeat :P TAGEND

Candy Soda Pasta Bread Dairy

But that’s all about what we’re eliminating. What are we maintaining !?

what Can I eat on The Paleo diet?

In order to follow the Paleo Diet Lifestyle, here are the foods that are Paleo endorse :P TAGEND

Meat*- steak, ham, pork, bison, boar. Organs- liver, kidneys, heart. Marrow- insuring a topic here? Eat ALL parts of the animal! Fowl- chicken, duck, hen, turkey…things with wings that( try to) fly. Fish- cod, tuna, salmon, and so on. Eggs- Look for omega-3 enriched cage-free eggs. Veggie- spinach, broccoli, kale, carrots, peppers, zucchini, onions, etc. Petroleum- minimally processed, derived from plants: olive oil, coconut oil, avocado petroleum. Fats: ghee, lard, or other animal fats. Fruits- apples, pears, bananas, grapes, strawberries. Nuts- almonds, walnuts, cashews, and their respective butters( almond butter is so good !) Tubers- Sweet potatoes and yams.

* If you can, aim for grass-fed beef and organic fruits and vegetables. But don’t go break the bank with your food purchases. Merely do the best you can.

As the Paleo Diet explains: Pick any of the foods from that listing and eat as much as you want of them.

You might have noticed that a lot of the foods above are loaded with fat. And depending on what your mom told you growing up, you might believe fat is the devil.

So let me address that right away…

Does Eating Fat Make You Fat?

If you’re cutting back on carbs, that means you’ll need to fill the void in your diet with the most controversial macronutrient :P TAGEND

Fat!

It’s gotten a bad rap over the past number of decades, so companies have been doing everything possible to make everything low fat and “healthy! ”( while adding all sorts of preservatives, chemicals, and sugar ).

Yup…cut out the fat, increase the carbs….and appear where THAT has gotten us.

Why has fat been vilified? Rather than get into the politics of it myself, I’ll let Gary Taubes, author of the incredibly thorough and well-researched Good Calories, Bad Calories take over.

As he discusses in an article he wrote for the New York Times a decade ago: [ 2 ]

These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of period.

In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980′ s, and that this was coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma.( Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period .)

They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and real life to be dismal failings, and that on top of it all, the percentage of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades.

Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as expected to be completed.” That is very disconcerting ,” Willett says.” It suggests that something else bad is happening .”

” Low fat” foods were created to follow conventional wisdom that fat construct you fat( which as stated in the above article doesn’t stand up to scrutiny ).

When a company makes a low fat food, they remove the fat and have to replace the flavor with something.

That “something” is usually sugar( and often more calories ).

Crap.

So, according to Taubes and Paleo folks, fat has been vilified and the real focus should have been on sugar and carbs all along.

Because healthy fats are valuable additions to our diet.

Here are some examples of Paleo-Approved Healthy Fats :P TAGEND

Avocados Almond( and almond butter) Fatty cuts of meat Walnuts Coconut oil Olive oil

In the Paleo Diet, fat constructions up a large portion of one’s diet.

If you’re worried about consuming fat and how it will affect your cholesterol, read our Full Guide to Cholesterol

WhAT Foods Can’t I feed On the Paleo Diet?

If you are looking to strictly follow the Paleo Diet, then you can’t eat foods that did not exist back in” Caveman day .”

Why?

Because- as those in favour of the diet point out- cavemen couldn’t eat those foods because they didn’t exist. There was no way to create cereal and candy – you could only eat what you observed or hunted.

So, that’s what the Paleo Diet advocates as the reason for avoiding these foods. And it serves as a good mental model to check with yourself: “Could a caveman have eaten this snack? ”

And when you start to answer this question, you specifying the foods that you’re not allowed to eat on the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Grains like pasta, cereal bread, and rice Dairy like milk and cheese Candy, cookies, ice cream, and other processed foods

The Paleo Diet also almost completely eliminates sugar outside of fruit. No candy. No soda. No powdered donuts. Yup, even the mini white ones from the grocery store where you can eat like 100 of them( accidentally, of course ).

Many studies have shown that an incredible number of diseases and lifestyle issues can be reversed by cutting out sugar and processed foods.[ 3 ]

But I understand grains and dairy are a bit more complex.

Let me explain :P TAGEND Can I Eat Grains on the Paleo Diet?

Unfortunately , nope.

The Caveman reason why: Grains require some amount of processing, and thus Cavemen would not have feed them.

The science and psychological reason why: we have a tendency to overeat grains and the other ” no no” foods on the Paleo Diet. They are calorically dense, nutrient deficient, and they can wreak havoc on some people’s blood sugar levels.

This leads to a sugar rush be accompanied by a crash, which can lead to more emotional or hungry overeating…and the process starts again.

Rather than me explain that part with thousands of words, just watch this three-minute video-” Why You Got Fat :”

Let’s get into some more reasons Paleo proponents indicate avoiding grains: most contain gluten and lectins.

What are they and what’s wrong with them? I’m so glad you asked :P TAGEND

Gluten is a protein found in things like rye, wheat, and barley. It’s now being said that much of our population may be gluten-intolerant( hence all the new “gluten-free! ” items popping up everywhere ). Over period, those people who have gluten intolerant can develop a dismal array of medical conditions from consuming gluten: dermatitis, joint pain, reproductive problems, acid reflux, and more.[ 4 ] Lectins are natural toxins that are present in grains to defend against consumption! Yup. Grains have evolved to keep themselves from being eaten by us. These lectins are not a fan of our gastrointestinal tract, and they prevent the tract from repairing itself from normal wear and tear. This can cause all kinds of damage.

Long story short: many people cannot process grains properly, and they are usually the food that causes people to eat too many calories. So by eliminating grains from your diet, you’re more likely than not going to eat fewer calories without counting calories.

That’s a Paleo win!

Do I Need to Avoid Carbs on the Paleo Diet?

Not inevitably.

That depends on your goals and your body – you are a special snowflake!

Some people function well on a high fat, low carb diet.

Others function better on a high carb, low fat diet.

Personally, I function better on a higher carb, lower fat diet( which is how I lost 22 pounds in 6 months ).

I will say the Paleo Diet is USUALLY a Low Carb diet, and large quantities of carbs are not required for somebody to be healthy regular diet.[ 5 ].

After all, carbs aren’t evil- they’re just…carbs.

Here is the logic and psychology behind why the Paleo Diet is low carb :P TAGEND

On a typical Western diet, we devour plenty o’ carbs, and our bodies convert those carbs to a sugar called “glucose.” This is our body’s preferred method of fueling itself.

In the absence of carbs to create glucose to fuel our bodies, we have to do a few other things instead :P TAGEND

Transform stored fat into glycerol and fatty acids( this process is called lipolysis ). Burn fatty acids for energy or transform the fatty acids into glucose for energy( this is called gluconeogenesis) In the absence of glucose( through fasting or following a Keto Diet ), your body are generating ketones for gasoline( called “ketogenesis” ).

We’re going to focus on the forms of weight loss NOT related to ” ketogenesis .” Unless you are avoiding all carbohydrates while running Paleo, or you are doing long fasts, you most likely won’t be in ketosis while going Paleo.

We do cover Paleo vs Keto: Which is Better if you’re deciding between the two.

Back to weight loss and Paleo: when you cut back on carbs, and thus most likely ALSO cut back on total calories ate, you are creating a caloric deficit in your body.

And eat a consistent deficit over a long enough time period, BOOM caveman weight loss.

So, fewer carbs= less glucose in your system, less sugar crashes, less “hangry” moments and smaller chance of overeating= fewer calories consumed on average.

If you’re worried about adherence to the diet, I understand – it’s the toughest part of Paleo- sticking with it!

Knowing what to eat is part of it, but following this fairly restrictive lifestyle in a modern environment surrounded by cookies and candy and bagels and pasta is really difficult!

If this whole” Paleo, Carbs, and Weight Loss” thing is emphasizing you out, you’re not alone!

In fact, people like you are the reason we created our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program!

We work with busy people like you to structure a complete life overhaul: handcrafted workout routines, accountability, mindset changes, and nutritional strategies.

Can I feed Dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I feed Cheese On the Paleo Diet?

This also depends. Strict Paleo folks tend to stay away from it- a portion of the world is lactose intolerant, and those that aren’t usually have at least some type of an aversion to it.

Why? Because hunter-gatherers didn’t lug cows around with them while traveling- milk was eaten as a newborn through breast milk from their mom, and that was it.

So as Paleo-stans will tell ya, our bodies weren’t designed for massive dairy consumption.

There is evidence that some adaptation to dairy has taken place throughout the years, specifically with people with pedigree in herding cultures, but this is not the majority of the population.[ 6 ]

Paleo purists will avoid dairy like the plague, while other paleo-ish people have found that devouring dairy in its various sorts work for their genetics, aims, and lifestyle.

“What about Cheese? Can I eat cheese on the Paleo Diet? ”

You do you, boo. But if you’re going Strict Paleo, then regrettably cheese is OUT too.

If you’re just looking to lose some weight while following a “mostly Paleo” lifestyle, then adding some high quality cheese into some of your meals can be okay.

Some cheeses will tend to have lower amounts of lactose or casein- the parts of dairy that can cause digestion challenges.

So, if you’re not sure your body is processing dairy properly, remove dairy from your diet and only introduce it back in when you’re ready to see how your body responds.

If you’re not losing weight while feeing a” Paleo+ Dairy” Diet, you’re still eating too many calories.

Consider cutting out dairy and see how your body responds.

Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of Food on the Paleo Diet

Because I like you as a person, I’ve generated a printable Paleo Diet Shopping List PDF you can bring with you to the grocery store to help you decide what to buy and what to avoid.

Simply right click on the image below and save as :P TAGEND

Feel free to publish this out and bringing it with you to the grocery store. If you happen to run into somebody else who has ALSO printed out this sheet, feel free to high five each other while singing Baltimora!

What is a Typical Day Like on the Paleo Diet?

Here is an example of a typical day on “The Paleo Diet” :P TAGEND

Breakfast: Omelet with spinach with fresh fruit. Lunch: Grilled chicken, kale, and avocado salad with vinegar and olive oil. Snack: Apple slicings and almond butter. Dinner: Steak with asparagus and sweet potato fries. Dessert: Strawberries and a piece of 85% dark chocolate.

That doesn’t voice so bad, right?

Make sure you check out our Paleo Diet Recipes and Resources section too for more options.

Start with a good protein source with each dinner( eggs, steak, chicken, fish, pork) and then add a vegetable or fruit.

That’s it.

If you feel hungry constantly, understand that changing up a diet can cause a body a few weeks of adjustment.

Remember, your body is learning to operate on both fewer calories AND fewer carbs- depending on how low carb you go this could be a DRAMATIC change.

And this is often referred to as “carb flu, ” and it can be miserable! Your body might take multiple weeks to adjust to these new habits.

Going from a processed, high sodium diet to a paleo diet you will very often end up eating too little sodium, which is an essential nutrient.

So if you’re feeling tired all the time, try adding some salt to your food or consider an electrolyte supplement- this is what we recommend with our Keto readers too.

Is the Paleo Diet Dangerous?

The dismissive criticisms of the Paleo Diet generally fall into one of three categories :P TAGEND

Cavemen had short lifespans. So there. A recent article said that cavemen eat grains. So there. Eating that much meat is unhealthy. So there.

As I said at the beginning of this article, it doesn’t matter what cavemen or cavewomen ACTUALLY ate.

The reason this diet works has nothing to do with what our bodies are designed to eat or what cavemen ate 1,000 s of years ago.

The Paleo Diet CAN help you lose weight because it gets you to cut out junk food, focus on eating real food, and gives you a framework to evaluate speedily every food selection :P TAGEND

” Did a caveman eat this? Yes or no .”

That’s it!

By following this ONE rules, you’re likely to eat fewer calories than you used to, and thus you’re likely to end up healthier than before.

I personally don’t follow a Paleo Diet, but I do appreciate the fact that it’s easy to comprehend and gets people to take a more active approach in their food!

So, disregarding the fear mongering, tenet, and anthropological criticisms of what cavemen actually eat, what are the ACTUAL criticisms of the Paleo Diet?

# 1)” Why is the Paleo Diet expensive ?”

Admittedly, while I recommend feeing organic fruits and veggies, free-range chicken, and grass-fed beef whenever possible, these products can be more expensive in conventional stores due to the processes needed to get them there.

However, farmers’ marketplaces often have well-priced meats, eggs, fruit, and vegetables that are locally grown and unbelievably healthy.

Even if you’re spending a little more money than before, when you factor in your overall health, spending a few extra bucks on healthier food now is a wiser investment than thousands later on costly medical expenses.

Also, if you’re really short on money, eating the non-organic or grain-fed version of a meat, vegetable, or eggs is still better than eating bread, pasta, fast food, and the like.

Most people simply compare the cost of a paleo dinner with ramen noodles or pasta and bread and determine Paleo is prohibitively expensive.

Sure, it’s more expensive than those foods, but if you are smart with your fund you can eat a much healthier snack and do really pretty inexpensively. Check out this guide on” How to Eat Healthy Without Breaking the Bank” for some tip-off and tricks.

( This doesn’t even factor in the whole” if you eat inexpensive unhealthy food now, you’ll pay thousands in medical bills and hospital visits and drugs later” argument which is valid too ).

# 2)” But cavemen had short lifespans! Of course they don’t have the diseases we do. We live route longer now .”

I agree with you here, but only because you don’t have to deal with the dangers of living back then. Again we don’t really care to live like cave people!

This is SIMPLY a construct that can help many make more informed food choices.

# 3)” Plenty of societies around the world consume grains and aren’t fat and unhealthy like us .”

Awesome- it seems like those people have found a solution that works for them. Have you read our big ass guidebook to eating a Plant-Based Diet?

The China Study is frequently cited when blaming the Paleo Diet- focusing on a vegetarian diet and devouring rice is healthier than the Paleo Diet. I respectfully disagree with the conclusions be learned from that volume but that’s awesome if you want to go plant-based! [ 7 ] I’ll leave you to make your own conclusions based on your own self-experimentation.

You’re here to learn about the Paleo Diet though, so let’s keep the focus there.

# 4)” But this is just a meat diet, and feeing all meat is bad !”

First of all, consider your sources and do your search before jumping to the conclusions.

Next, this is not an all meat diet like the Carnivore Diet or uber-low carb diets like Keto or Atkins. The biggest component of the Paleo Diet?

Vegetables!

Every meal in a true Paleo diet has a moderate amount of healthy( properly created chicken, grass-fed beef, hormone free, etc .) meat combined with nutritious veggies or a moderate amount of fruit.

# 5)” The Paleo Diet is too restrictive and I can’t live like this .”

This is the most valid criticism I personally have of the diet, as the best diet plan is the one you actually stick with and be adhered to on! The aim shouldn’t be to go” full paleo” for a few weeks only to go back to how you were eating before.

Instead, the goal here should be to rethink your relationship with food and develop a strategy that you can live with permanently.

There’s nothing worse than going on diets and gaining and losing the same 20 pounds over and over. The Paleo Diet, like other diets, WORKS ONLY IF YOU STICK WITH IT PERMANENTLY!

This attains sense after all: build temporary alterations, get temporary outcomes, right?

# 6)” Steve, I dislike veggies. How do you induce veggies savor better? HALP .”

I got you. Heres how to start liking vegetables and how to induce veggies savor better.

We know this all too well, and we have helped thousands of people slowwwwly transition their diet over a long period of time to make change less scary, more permanent, and thus induce the weight loss permanent too!

If you’re overwhelmed or scared of changing too much, or maybe you’re just sick of dieting and want to find a solution that works for your busy lifestyle and situation, schedule a call with us to gain a better understanding of our 1-on-1 coaching program :P TAGEND

Paleo Recipes and Paleo Resource

Here’s our full list of Nerd Fitness Paleo/ Healthy recipes, and here are my three favourites :P TAGEND

10 Minutes of Prep, 10 Easy Meals Paleo spaghetti: freaking delicious, I promise How to Make Mini Paleo Pizzas .

I’ve also compiled a listing of my favorite sites and recipe volumes around the internet that can help you get started :P TAGEND

# 1) Nom Nom Paleo -~ ATAGEND Michelle Tam and her husband Henry are amazing people, and their Paleo Blog is absolutely phenomenal. Great photos. Well written. Organized intelligently.

Their “Nom Nom Paleo” cookbook is a fun resource too, and a great place to get started with cooking for your Paleo lifestyle. Oh, what’s that? You have kids and a spouse and you’re all trying to eat healthier too? This book is perfect for that as well!

# 2) Mark’s Daily Apple– Easily the most comprehensive resource on the internet for the Paleo Diet- Mark writes an article every weekday about everything Paleo, and it usually blows me away. Some of the posts can get overwhelming, so I indicate starting with his Primal Blueprint 101.

The Primal Blueprint– If you want to read about this stuff in a volume rather than on a computer screen, Mark’s book The Primal Blueprint is a great place to get started on not only what to eat, but why you should be eating it.

It’s educational, funny, real-world applicable, and teaches you how to primalize( just made that up) the rest of your life too.

# 3) Robb Wolf– Another great resource, and a guy I’ve already referenced in this article multiple times. Check out his site for a comprehensive FAQ on all things Paleo, a shopping list pdf( right-click and save ), and plenty of humor.

The Paleo Solution– This article would have been finished 3 hours earlier, but before I wrote it, I read ALL of Robb’s new volume. It severely had me laughing out loud at certain points- not bad for a volume on diet!

This book is a little less forgiving than Mark’s book above, but it’s still a great read.

# 4) Loren Cordain– Loren is considered the leading expert on the Paleo Diet- Robb is actually one of his students/ adherents/ Padawans.

Dr. Cordain is probably the foremost authority on this type of eating, which is why I truly enjoyed reading both of his volumes.

MORE RECIPE Resource :P TAGEND

Ready or Not! 150 Make Now Recipes– The newer volume from Michelle Tam of Nom Nom Paleo. It’s super fun. Plus she’s wearing a Nerd FItness t-shirt in some of her photos in the book, so I might be sliiiightly biased Mark’s Daily Apple– Although he sells the cookbook on Amazon, Mark also lists over 100 free primal recipes on his site. Pick something on the listing, run buy the ingredients, and follow the instructions! So easy even a caveman can do it. Everyday Paleo– Great paintings, easy to follow recipes, and pretty interesting combinations. Click on FOOD in the Nav bar, and the meals are broken down into breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

If you’re curious about The Paleo Diet’s recent popularity and thus it’s criticisms, we’ve written two other pieces on Nerd Fitness that might be of interest :P TAGEND

” The Paleo Diet Debunked ??” where I address a few of the more recent criticisms that have popped up.

” In Defense of a Paleo-Ish Diet” where I cover how to live a largely Paleo lifestyle but still enjoy the modern benefits of society.

Who Should and Who Shouldn’t Do the Paleo Diet?

I’m a fan of the Paleo Diet for the RIGHT person:

I love mental models that help us make sense of the world, and I think for SOME people, the Paleo Diet has certainly help them cut down on overeating.

I personally do NOT follow a Paleo Diet, but I do have rules that I follow.

Do whatever attains you happy and fits in your schedule. I like this kind of stress-free eating.

Regardless of whether or not grains should be vilified, I love this diet because I know it WORKS. I know people that have lost incredible amounts of weight and altered their lives within a matter of months.

People like Staci :P TAGEND

Regardless of how you feel about grains, we can all agree that eating more natural foods and less processed foods is better for you.

YOU SHOULD DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

You struggle with portion control( meaning you can’t eat only one cookie, or you tend to keep feeing even when you’re full ). You can stick with the changes you’re making permanently! Remember, temporary alters make temporary outcomes. You don’t mind eliminating some of your favorite foods entirely.

YOU SHOULD NOT DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

The notion of giving up non-paleo foods attains you want to cry. You don’t mind learning about calories and want to track your food. Another diet sounds like a better fit for you!

Consider some of these other options instead:

The Mediterranean Diet which still includes portions of things like pasta or bread( note: I said PORTIONS , not platefuls )! Our guide on healthy eating and slowly adjust your nutrition- which would be my recommendation. My paleo-ish dietary philosophy that keeps me healthy and happy.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to stimulate permanent adjustments to your nutrition.

If you don’t see yourself being able to permanently follow a Paleo Diet, I would advise a more’ wade in from the shallow end‘ approach to dietary change!

How to Do the Paleo Diet Safely

Maybe you’re ready to try out this Paleo lifestyle, but you can’t commit fully. There are certain foods you refuse to give up, or you can’t afford to buy grass-fed beef at the moment.

That’s okay!

If you can even make a few small changes here and there( cut out liquid calories, switch out your rice for steamed vegetables, cut back on bread, etc .) you’ll start to see some changes.

Remember, 20% healthier is better than 0% healthier- as you get more comfortable with the changes you can increase that percentage.

After all, I know how tough it is to stay loyal to a strict diet, especially without a plan to follow. It’s why we created free resources that can help you reach your goals faster without you also going crazy.

Get rid of the temptation: if you’re gonna go at this thing with a full head of steam, remove all the junk food from your house.

It’s going to take a few weeks for your body to adjust to burning fat instead of glucose, and you might want to eat poorly here and there. If there’s no food in your house to tempt you, it will be much easier to stay on target.

Now, it’s your turn.

Have you tried the Paleo Diet yet? What was your experience like? Have a criticism of the diet that I didn’t cover before? Do you have a favorite paleo resource?

Remember, one of the major Rules of the Rebellion is to question everything!

I hope this article gives you some food for thought( terrible pun, I know ), and gives you permission to question conventional wisdom and start addressing the issues in your diet!

In addition to this Beginner Paleo Guide, I hope you consider checking our 1-on-1 Coaching Program as well.

We have designed this program from the ground up to help people like you change their lives and fix their nutrition in a way that doesn’t suck.

Now, go forth. And feed like a caveman.

-Steve

PS: I’ll leave you with a mention of the Nerd Fitness Academy– it essentially gamifies your experience in transitioning into a Paleo lifestyle and diet, and provides you with specific instruction, meal plans, workouts, and a supportive community.

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photo sources: cavemen elephant hunt, caveman cooking over fire, cavemen hunt paleo bear, milk truck logo, darth vader vendor, storm trooper tomato, lego cook, chef and lego pig, lego explorer, lego muffin, lego bread and carbs, frozen caveman grok lego, lego clock, lego caveman forging for food, caveman with wheel, darth vader and ostrich lego, easing into water lego, lego man with pasta

Footnotes( returns to text)

Adult Obesity Prevalence Map CDC.gov

What if its all Been a Big Fat Lie ? Take a look at this time magazine article on cancer patients who switched to a zero-sugar diet and watched positive results. You can read our full guide on Gluten check out the Inuit Paradox for a great read on societies that exist without almost any carbohydrates If you want to nerd out about this stuff, go wild with this study This is the most well-researched critique I’ve detect of the China Study: Denise Menger- China Study- Fact or Fallacy

Read more: nerdfitness.com

[currenthealtheventsblog-blog]

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

New Post has been published on https://currenthealthevents.net/awesome/paleo-diet-beginner-guide-7-things-you-should-know-before-eating-like-a-caveman/

Paleo Diet Beginner Guide: 7 Things You Should Know Before Eating Like a Caveman!

So you wanna learn about the Paleo Diet, aka” the Caveman Diet ,” eh?

This is one of the most popular diets on the planet right now( up there with the Keto Diet ), and I bet you have questions.

Well I got answers, sucka!

And lots of LEGO photos.

In this massive guide, I’m going to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to the Paleolithic Diet( click each link to go right to that segment ):

What is the Paleo Diet and how does it run ? Will I lose weight on the Paleo Diet ? What can I eat on the Paleo Diet ? What foods CAN’T I eat on the Paleo Diet ? Can I feed grains on the Paleo Diet ? Can I eat dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I feed cheese on the Paleo Diet ? Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of foods on the Paleo Diet What does a typical day look like on the Paleo Diet ? Is the Paleo Diet dangerous ? Paleo Recipes& Paleo Resource . Who shouldn’t do the Paleo Diet ? How to do the Paleo Diet safely .

Now, this guide is SUPER long, we are therefore took the liberty of converting it into a nicely designed guide for easy intake( not literal intake, unless you print it on bacon ).

Grab your Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet free when you sign up in the box below: Get the FREE eBook! The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Paleo!

Discover if Paleo is for you

The one simple trick to know if your food is Paleo-friendly

Easy Paleo recipes for beginners to get you started

I identify as a:

Woman

Man

If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

As the great Mr. Flintstone once said, “Yabadabadooooo!”

What is the Paleo Diet and How does it Work?

Oh lord, another “diet.”

I know, it sounds like a fad/ marketing gambit, but The Paleo Diet isn’t really a “diet,” and it’s actually quite logical when you think about it.

It’s also the most time-tested diet ever.

Here’s the ENTIRE diet in a nutshell :P TAGEND

” If a cave person didn’t eat it, neither should you .”

As the hypothesi goes, tens of thousands of years ago, before Nike, Cap’n Crunch, and Healthy Choice dinners, our ancient ancestors prospered as hunter-gatherers.

Although it’s been a really long time, our genetics haven’t altered that much since then.

And yet…these days we’re overweight, out of shape, stressed out, unhappy, sleep deprived and dying from far too many preventable cancers due to lifestyle choices.

So what the hell happened?

Agriculture!

And then delivery and Netflix.

A few thousand years ago, humans discovered farming, the agricultural revolution took off, and we advanced from hunter-gatherers to farmers.

We settled down, formed societies, and the human race progressed to what we are today. Which is obviously great for a number of reasons :P TAGEND

Not getting eaten by wild animals Electricity Automobiles Nintendo

The problem is that our bodies never adjusted properly to eating all the grains and sugar that we’re now consuming.

As paleo guru Robb Wolf sets it, should be considered a 100 -yard football field :P TAGEND

The first 99.5 yards are how long Homo-Sapiens spent as hunter-gatherers. As they became REALLY good at hunting and collecting our bodies adapted to that lifestyle over thousands of years.

That last half-yard represents our species after the agricultural revolution, where our diet has changed( but our genetics haven’t ).

So, instead of loading up on meat, vegetables and seasonal fruits, we’ve become a species “dependent” upon grains- bread, pasta, rice, corn, and so on.

66% of us are overweight, 33% are considered obese, and those numbers are only getting worse.[ 1 ]

Clearly something’s not right, and we need to fix it.

The Paleo Diet is an effort to go back to our ancestral roots.

To start eating how we’re biologically designed to eat, allowing us to tap into our genetic potential and start living healthier immediately.

To recap the rules of the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Only eat foods a caveman would feed See Rule# 1

Note that it doesn’t mention calorie counting or meal timing or macro tracking. That’s part of the popularity of this diet: eat paleo approved foods when you’re hungry, and that’s it.

Will I Lose Weight on the Paleo Diet?

This is the question we get above all else :P TAGEND

” Will the Paleo Diet assistance me lose weight ?”

Probably. If you can actually apply the standards of the the Paleo lifestyle, you can get some pretty solid results.

It’s helped many people attain jaw-dropping transformations, including my friend Saint,( whose story you can read here ):

Or Staci from Team NF, our leading female trainer in our 1-on-1 Coaching Program ):

The Paleo Diet will work for you, if you do it right.

You need to have the right mindset, you need to focus on the right foods, and you need to structure your environment so that you’re not tempted to backslide and abandon the Paleo Diet after a few days.

However, it has nothing to do with what Fred Flintstone ate or didn’t eat.

It comes down to science and thermodynamics.

As I point out in our article on How to Lose Weight: What’s the Perfect Diet( For me ?), if you want to lose weight :P TAGEND

Eat fewer calories than you burn every day. Want to also be healthy? Eat mostly real food.

Want to KEEP the weight off?

Add# 3: Do those two things consistently for a decade.

Here’s WHY you’ll lose weight on the Paleo Diet:

You’re merely feeing meat, fish, veggies, fruits, and nuts. These are foods that are full of nutrients, will make you feel full, but don’t have nearly as many calories as junk food. You are wholly eliminating calorie-dense, often nutritionally deficient, unhealthy foods. This means no grains( pasta, bread, rice ), no dairy , no beans. It also means no soda , no candy , no sugar.

And yup. When you merely eat real food and avoided all unhealthy food, you’re more likely than not going to run a caloric deficit- and thus lose weight.

Let me share a really obvious example.

200 calories of broccoli gets you enough to fill up an entire plate :P TAGEND

Or … 200 calories will get you exactly 1/2 a Snickers bar :P TAGEND

Look at that: nobody can eat that much broccoli, and nobody only eats half a candy bar!

My point is this: by eating Paleo-approved foods, you’re more likely than not to eat fewer calories than you did in the past automatically, which can lead to weight loss.

I dig into this in even greater detail in” Why can’t I lose weight ?” but it all comes down to” calories in, calories out .”

So YES, the Paleo Diet MIGHT help you lose weight.

You merely need to eat fewer calories than you burn every day( Here’s how to calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure ). And that is easier when you are eliminating foods that people tend to overeat :P TAGEND

Candy Soda Pasta Bread Dairy

But that’s all about what we’re eliminating. What are we maintaining !?

what Can I eat on The Paleo diet?

In order to follow the Paleo Diet Lifestyle, here are the foods that are Paleo endorse :P TAGEND

Meat*- steak, ham, pork, bison, boar. Organ- liver, kidneys, heart. Marrow- find a theme here? Eat ALL parts of the animal! Fowl- chicken, duck, hen, turkey…things with wings that( try to) fly. Fish- cod, tuna, salmon, and so on. Eggs- Look for omega-3 enriched cage-free eggs. Vegetable- spinach, broccoli, kale, carrots, peppers, zucchini, onions, etc. Petroleum- minimally processed, derived from plants: olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil. Fats: ghee, lard, or other animal fats. Fruit- apples, pears, bananas, grapes, strawberries. Nuts- almonds, walnuts, cashews, and their respective butters( almond butter is so good !) Tubers- Sweet potatoes and yams.

* If you can, aim for grass-fed beef and organic fruits and vegetables. But don’t go break the bank with your food buys. Simply do the best you can.

As the Paleo Diet explains: Pick any of the foods from that list and feed as much as you want of them.

You might have noticed that a lot of the foods above are loaded with fat. And depending on what your mom told you growing up, you might believe fat is the devil.

So let me address that right away…

Do Eating Fat Make You Fat?

If you’re trim back on carbs, that means you’ll need to fill the void in your diet with the most controversial macronutrient :P TAGEND

Fat!

It’s gotten a bad rap over the past number of decades, so companies have been doing everything possible to stimulate everything low fat and “healthy! ”( while adding all sorts of preservatives, chemicals, and sugar ).

Yup…cut out the fat, increase the carbs….and seem where THAT has gotten us.

Why has fat been vilified? Rather than get into the politics of it myself, I’ll let Gary Taubes, writer of the incredibly thorough and well-researched Good Calories, Bad Calories take over.

As he discusses in an article he wrote for the New York Times a decade ago: [ 2 ]

These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of hour.

In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980′ s, and that this was coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma.( Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period .)

They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and real life to be dismal failures, and that on top of it all, the percentage of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades.

Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as expected to be completed.” That is very disconcerting ,” Willett says.” It suggests that something else bad is happening .”

” Low fat” foods were created to follow conventional wisdom that fat attain you fat( which as stated in the above article doesn’t stand up to scrutiny ).

When a company makes a low fat food, they remove the fat and have to replace the flavor with something.

That “something” is usually sugar( and often more calories ).

Crap.

So, according to Taubes and Paleo folks, fat has been vilified and the real focus should have been on sugar and carbs all along.

Because healthy fats are valuable additions to our diet.

Here are some examples of Paleo-Approved Healthy Fats :P TAGEND

Avocados Almond( and almond butter) Fatty cuts of meat Walnuts Coconut oil Olive petroleum

In the Paleo Diet, fat builds up a large portion of one’s diet.

If you’re worried about consuming fat and how it will affect your cholesterol, read our Full Guide to Cholesterol

WhAT Foods Can’t I eat On the Paleo Diet?

If you are looking to strictly follow the Paleo Diet, then you can’t eat foods that did not exist back in” Caveman period .”

Why?

Because- as advocates of the diet point out- cavemen couldn’t eat those foods because they didn’t exist. There was no way to create cereal and candy – you could only eat what you determined or hunted.

So, that’s what the Paleo Diet advocates as the reason for avoiding these foods. And it serves as a good mental model to check with yourself: “Could a caveman have feed this dinner? ”

And when you start to answer this question, you identify the foods that you’re not allowed to eat on the Paleo Diet :P TAGEND

Grains like pasta, cereal bread, and rice Dairy like milk and cheese Candy, cookies, ice cream, and other processed foods

The Paleo Diet also almost entirely eliminates sugar outside of fruit. No candy. No soda. No powdered donuts. Yup, even the mini white ones from the grocery store where you can eat like 100 of them( accidentally, of course ).

Many studies have shown that an incredible number of diseases and lifestyle issues can be reversed by cutting out sugar and processed foods.[ 3 ]

But I understand grains and dairy are a bit more complex.

Let me explain :P TAGEND Can I Eat Grains on the Paleo Diet?

Unfortunately , nope.

The Caveman reason why: Grain require some amount of processing, and thus Cavemen would not have eaten them.

The science and psychological reason why: we have a tendency to overeat grains and the other ” no no” foods on the Paleo Diet. They are calorically dense, nutrient deficient, and they can wreak havoc on some people’s blood sugar levels.

This leads to a sugar hurry-up followed by a accident, which can lead to more emotional or hungry overeating…and the process starts again.

Rather than me explain that part with thousands of words, just watch this three-minute video-” Why You Got Fat :”

Let’s get into some more reasons Paleo proponents suggest avoiding grains: most contain gluten and lectins.

What are they and what’s wrong with them? I’m so glad you asked :P TAGEND

Gluten is a protein found in things like rye, wheat, and barley. It’s now being said that much of our population may be gluten-intolerant( hence all the new “gluten-free! ” items popping up everywhere ). Over hour, those who are gluten intolerant can develop a dismal array of medical conditions from consuming gluten: dermatitis, joint ache, reproductive problems, acid reflux, and more.[ 4 ] Lectins are natural toxins that exist in grains to defend against consumption! Yup. Grains have evolved to keep themselves from being eaten by us. These lectins are not a fan of our gastrointestinal tract, and they prevent the tract from repairing itself from normal wear and tear. This can cause all kinds of damage.

Long story short: many people cannot process grains properly, and they are usually the food that causes people to eat too many calories. So by eliminating grains from your diet, you’re more likely than not going to eat fewer calories without counting calories.

That’s a Paleo win!

Do I Need to Avoid Carbs on the Paleo Diet?

Not inevitably.

That depends on your goals and your body – you are a special snowflake!

Some people function well on a high fat, low carb diet.

Others function better on a high carb, low fat diet.

Personally, I function better on a higher carb, lower fat diet( which is how I lost 22 pounds in 6 months ).

I will say the Paleo Diet is USUALLY a Low Carb diet, and large quantities of carbs are not required for somebody to be healthy regular diet.[ 5 ].

After all, carbs aren’t evil- they’re just…carbs.

Here is the logic and psychology behind why the Paleo Diet is low carb :P TAGEND

On a typical Western diet, we devour plenty o’ carbs, and our bodies convert those carbs to a sugar called “glucose.” This is our body’s preferred method of fueling itself.

In the absence of carbs to create glucose to fuel our bodies, we have to do a few other things instead :P TAGEND

Transform stored fat into glycerol and fatty acids( this process is called lipolysis ). Burn fatty acids for energy or transform the fatty acids into glucose for energy( this is called gluconeogenesis) In the absence of glucose( through fasting or following a Keto Diet ), your body can create ketones for ga( called “ketogenesis” ).

We’re going to focus on the forms of weight loss NOT related to ” ketogenesis .” Unless you are avoiding all carbohydrates while going Paleo, or you are doing long fasts, you most likely won’t be in ketosis while going Paleo.

We do cover Paleo vs Keto: Which is Better if you’re deciding between the two.

Back to weight loss and Paleo: when you cut back on carbs, and thus most likely Also cut back on total calories ingested, you are creating a caloric deficit in your body.

And eat a consistent deficit over a long enough time period, BOOM caveman weight loss.

So, fewer carbs= less glucose in your system, less sugar accidents, less “hangry” moments and smaller opportunity of overeating= fewer calories eaten on average.

If you’re worried about adherence to the diet, I understand – it’s the toughest part of Paleo- sticking with it!

Knowing what to eat is part of it, but following this fairly restrictive lifestyle in a modern surrounding surrounded by cookies and candy and bagels and pasta is really difficult!

If this whole” Paleo, Carbs, and Weight Loss” thing is emphasizing you out, you’re not alone!

In fact, people like you are the reason we created our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program!

We work with busy people like you to structure a complete life overhaul: handcrafted workout routines, accountability, mindset changes, and nutritional strategies.

Can I feed Dairy on the Paleo Diet? Can I eat Cheese On the Paleo Diet?

This also depends. Strict Paleo folks tend to stay away from it- a portion of the world is lactose intolerant, and those that aren’t usually have at least some type of an aversion to it.

Why? Because hunter-gatherers didn’t lug cows around with them while traveling- milk was ingested as a newborn through breast milk from their mom, and that was it.

So as Paleo-stans will tell ya, our bodies weren’t designed for massive dairy consumption.

There is evidence that some adaptation to dairy has taken place throughout the years, specifically with people with pedigree in herding cultures, but this is not the majority of the population.[ 6 ]

Paleo purists will avoid dairy like the beset, while other paleo-ish people have found that eating dairy in its various kinds work for their genetics, aims, and lifestyle.

“What about Cheese? Can I feed cheese on the Paleo Diet? ”

You do you, boo. But if you’re going Strict Paleo, then regrettably cheese is OUT too.

If you’re just looking to lose some weight while following a “mostly Paleo” lifestyle, then adding some high quality cheese into some of your meals can be okay.

Some cheese will tend to have lower sums of lactose or casein- the parts of dairy that can cause digestion challenges.

So, if you’re not sure your body is processing dairy properly, remove dairy from your diet and only introduce it back in when you’re ready to see how your body responds.

If you’re not losing weight while eating a” Paleo+ Dairy” Diet, you’re still feeing too many calories.

Consider cutting out dairy and see how your body responds.

Paleo Diet Shopping Guide: List of Foods on the Paleo Diet

Because I like you as a person, I’ve made a printable Paleo Diet Shopping List PDF you can bring with you to the grocery store to help you decide what to buy and what to avoid.

Simply right click on the image below and save as :P TAGEND

Feel free to publish this out and bring it with you to the grocery store. If you happen to run into somebody else who has ALSO printed out this sheet, feel free to high five each other while singing Baltimora!

What is a Typical Day Like on the Paleo Diet?

Here is an example of a typical day on “The Paleo Diet” :P TAGEND

Breakfast: Omelet with spinach with fresh fruit. Lunch: Grilled chicken, kale, and avocado salad with vinegar and olive oil. Snack: Apple slice and almond butter. Dinner: Steak with asparagus and sweet potato fries. Dessert: Strawberries and a piece of 85% darknes chocolate.

That doesn’t audio so bad, right?

Make sure you check out our Paleo Diet Recipes and Resources section too for more alternatives.

Start with a good protein source with each meal( eggs, steak, chicken, fish, pork) and then add a vegetable or fruit.

That’s it.

If you feel hungry constantly, understand that changing up a diet can cause a body a few weeks of adjustment.

Remember, your body is learning to operate on both fewer calories AND fewer carbs- depending on how low carb you go this could be a DRAMATIC change.

And this is often referred to as “carb flu, ” and it can be miserable! Your body might take multiple weeks to adjust to these new habits.

Going from a processed, high sodium diet to a paleo diet you will very often end up eating too little sodium, which is an essential nutrient.

So if you’re feeling tired all the time, try adding some salt to your food or consider an electrolyte supplement- this is what we recommend with our Keto readers too.

Is the Paleo Diet Dangerous?

The dismissive criticisms of the Paleo Diet generally fall into one of three categories :P TAGEND

Cavemen had short lifespans. So there. A recent article said that cavemen eat grains. So there. Eating that much meat is unhealthy. So there.

As I said at the beginning of this article, it doesn’t matter what cavemen or cavewomen ACTUALLY ate.

The reason this diet runs has nothing to do with what our bodies are designed to eat or what cavemen ate 1,000 s of years ago.

The Paleo Diet CAN help you lose weight because it gets you to cut out junk food, focus on eating real food, and gives you a framework to evaluate quickly every food selection :P TAGEND

” Did a caveman eat this? Yes or no .”

That’s it!

By following this ONE rules, you’re likely to eat fewer calories than you used to, and thus you’re likely to end up healthier than before.

I personally don’t follow a Paleo Diet, but I do appreciate the fact that it’s easy to comprehend and gets people to take a more active approach in their food!

So, disregarding the fear mongering, dogma, and anthropological criticisms of what cavemen actually feed, what are the ACTUAL criticisms of the Paleo Diet?

# 1)” Why is the Paleo Diet expensive ?”

Admittedly, while I recommend feeing organic fruits and veggies, free-range chicken, and grass-fed beef whenever possible, these products can be more expensive in conventional stores due to the processes needed to get them there.

However, farmers’ marketplaces often have well-priced meats, eggs, fruit, and veggies that are locally grown and unbelievably healthy.

Even if you’re spending a little more money than before, when you factor in your overall health, spending a few extra bucks on healthier food now is a wiser investment than thousands later on costly medical expenses.

Also, if you’re really short on money, eating the non-organic or grain-fed version of a meat, vegetable, or eggs is still better than feeing bread, pasta, fast food, and the like.

Most people simply compare the cost of a paleo dinner with ramen noodles or pasta and bread and determine Paleo is prohibitively expensive.

Sure, it’s more expensive than those foods, but if you are smart with your fund you can eat a much healthier snack and do really pretty inexpensively. Check out this guide on” How to Eat Healthy Without Breaking the Bank” for some tips and tricks.

( This doesn’t even factor in the whole” if you eat inexpensive unhealthy food now, you’ll pay thousands in medical bills and hospital visits and drugs later” argument which is valid too ).

# 2)” But cavemen had short lifespans! Of course they don’t have the diseases we do. We live way longer now .”

I agree with you here, but only because you don’t have to deal with the dangers of living back then. Again we don’t really care to live like cave people!

This is SIMPLY a construct that can help many construction more informed food choices.

# 3)” Plenty of societies around the world consume grains and aren’t fat and unhealthy like us .”

Awesome- it seems like those people have found a solution that works for them. Have you read our big ass guidebook to eating a Plant-Based Diet?

The China Study is frequently cited when blaming the Paleo Diet- are concentrated on a vegetarian diet and ingesting rice is healthier than the Paleo Diet. I respectfully disagree with the conclusions drawn from that volume but that’s awesome if you want to go plant-based! [ 7 ] I’ll leave you to stimulate your own conclusions based on your own self-experimentation.

You’re here to learn about the Paleo Diet though, so let’s keep the focus there.

# 4)” But this is just a meat diet, and eating all meat is bad !”

First of all, consider your sources and do your search before jumping to the conclusions.

Next, this is not an all meat diet like the Carnivore Diet or uber-low carb diets like Keto or Atkins. The biggest component of the Paleo Diet?

Vegetables!

Every meal in a true Paleo diet has a moderate amount of healthy( properly raised chicken, grass-fed beef, hormone free, etc .) meat combined with nutritious veggies or a moderate quantity of fruit.

# 5)” The Paleo Diet is too restrictive and I can’t live like this .”

This is the most valid criticism I personally have of the diet, as the best diet plan is the one you actually stick with and be adhered to on! The objective shouldn’t be to go” full paleo” for a few weeks only going to go to how you were eating before.

Instead, the goal here should be to rethink your relationship with food and develop a strategy that you can live with permanently.

There’s nothing worse than going on diets and gaining and losing the same 20 pounds over and over. The Paleo Diet, like other diets, WORKS ONLY IF YOU STICK WITH IT PERMANENTLY!

This makes sense after all: make temporary alters, get temporary results, right?

# 6)” Steve, I detest veggies. How do you attain vegetables taste better? HALP .”

I got you. Heres how to start liking vegetables and how to build veggies taste better.

We know this all too well, and we have helped thousands of people slowwwwly transition their diet over a long period of time to make change less scary, more permanent, and thus construct the weight loss permanent too!

If you’re overwhelmed or scared of changing too much, or maybe you’re just sick of dieting and want to find a solution that works for your busy lifestyle and situation, schedule a bellow with us to gain a better understanding of our 1-on-1 coaching program :P TAGEND

Paleo Recipes and Paleo Resource

Here’s our full list of Nerd Fitness Paleo/ Healthy recipes, and here are my three favorites :P TAGEND

10 Minutes of Prep, 10 Easy Meals Paleo spaghetti: freaking delicious, I promise How to Make Mini Paleo Pizzas .

I’ve also compiled a listing of my favorite sites and recipe volumes around the internet that can help you get started :P TAGEND

# 1) Nom Nom Paleo -~ ATAGEND Michelle Tam and her husband Henry are amazing people, and their Paleo Blog is absolutely phenomenal. Great photos. Well written. Organized intelligently.

Their “Nom Nom Paleo” cookbook is a fun resource too, and a great place to get started with cooking for your Paleo lifestyle. Oh, what’s that? You have children and a spouse and you’re all trying to eat healthier too? This volume is perfect for that as well!

# 2) Mark’s Daily Apple– Easily the most comprehensive resource on the internet for the Paleo Diet- Mark writes an article every weekday about everything Paleo, and it usually blows me away. Some of the posts can get overwhelming, so I suggest starting with his Primal Blueprint 101.

The Primal Blueprint– If you want to read about this stuff in a book rather than on a computer screen, Mark’s book The Primal Blueprint is a great place to get started on not only what to eat, but why you should be eating it.

It’s educational, funny, real-world applicable, and teaches you how to primalize( just made that up) the rest of your life too.

# 3) Robb Wolf– Another great resource, and a guy I’ve already referenced in this article multiple times. Check out his site for a comprehensive FAQ on all things Paleo, a shopping list pdf( right-click and save ), and plenty of humor.

The Paleo Solution– This article would have been finished 3 hours earlier, but before I wrote it, I read ALL of Robb’s new book. It severely had me laughing out loud at certain points- not bad for a book on diet!

This book is a little less forgiving than Mark’s book above, but it’s still a great read.

# 4) Loren Cordain– Loren is considered the leading expert on the Paleo Diet- Robb is actually one of his students/ disciples/ Padawans.

Dr. Cordain is probably the foremost authority on this type of eating, which is why I actually enjoyed reading both of his books.

MORE RECIPE RESOURCES :P TAGEND

Ready or Not! 150 Make Now Recipes– The newer volume from Michelle Tam of Nom Nom Paleo. It’s super fun. Plus she’s wearing a Nerd FItness t-shirt in some of her photos in the book, so I might be sliiiightly biased Mark’s Daily Apple– Although he sells the cookbook on Amazon, Mark also lists over 100 free primal recipes on his site. Pick something on the listing, go buy the ingredients, and follow the instructions! So easy even a caveman can do it. Everyday Paleo– Great scenes, easy to follow recipes, and pretty interesting combinations. Click on FOOD in the Nav bar, and the meals are broken down into breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

If you’re curious about The Paleo Diet’s recent popularity and thus it’s criticisms, we’ve written two other pieces on Nerd Fitness that might be of interest :P TAGEND

” The Paleo Diet Debunked ??” where I address a few of the more recent criticisms that have popped up.

” In Defense of a Paleo-Ish Diet” where I encompass how to live a mostly Paleo lifestyle but still enjoy the modern benefits of society.

Who Should and Who Shouldn’t Do the Paleo Diet?

I’m a fan of the Paleo Diet for the RIGHT person:

I love mental models that help us make sense of the world, and I guess for SOME people, the Paleo Diet will really help them cut down on overeating.

I personally do NOT follow a Paleo Diet, but I do have rules that I follow.

Do whatever stimulates you happy and accommodates in your schedule. I like this kind of stress-free eating.

Regardless of whether or not grains should be vilified, I love this diet because I know it WORKS. I know people that have lost incredible sums of weight and changed their lives within a matter of months.

People like Staci :P TAGEND

Regardless of how you feel about grains, we can all agree that eating more natural foods and less processed foods is better for you.

YOU SHOULD DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

You struggle with portion control( entailing you can’t eat only one cookie, or you tend to keep eating even when you’re full ). You can stick with the changes you’re making permanently! Remember, temporary changes make temporary results. You don’t mind eliminating some of your favorite foods wholly.

YOU SHOULD NOT DO THE PALEO DIET IF :P TAGEND

The idea of giving up non-paleo foods induces you want to cry. You don’t mind learning about calories and want to track your food. Another diet sounds like a better fit for you!

Consider some of these other options instead:

The Mediterranean Diet which still includes portions of things like pasta or bread( note: I said Portions , not platefuls )! Our guide on healthy eating and slowly adjust your nutrition- which would be my recommendation. My paleo-ish dietary philosophy that holds me healthy and happy.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to stimulate permanent adjustments to your nutrition.

If you don’t see yourself being able to permanently follow a Paleo Diet, I would advise a more’ wade in from the shallow aim‘ approach to dietary change!

How to Do the Paleo Diet Safely

Maybe you’re ready to try out this Paleo lifestyle, but you can’t commit fully. There are certain foods you refuse to give up, or you can’t afford to buy grass-fed beef at the moment.

That’s okay!

If you can even make a few small changes here there are still( cut out liquid calories, switch out your rice for steamed veggies, cut back on bread, etc .) you’ll start to see some changes.

Remember, 20% healthier is better than 0% healthier- as you get more comfortable with the changes you can increase that percentage.

After all, I know how tough it is to stay loyal to a strict diet, especially without a plan to follow. It’s why we created free resources that can help you reach your goals faster without you also going crazy.

Get rid of the temptation: if you’re gonna go at this thing with a full head of steam, remove all the junk food from your house.

It’s going to take a few weeks for your body to adjust to burning fat instead of glucose, and you might want to eat poorly here there are still. If there’s no food in your house to tempt you, it will be much easier to stay on target.

Now, it’s your turn.

Have you tried the Paleo Diet yet? What was your experience like? Have a criticism of the diet that I didn’t cover before? Do you have a favorite paleo resource?

Remember, one of the major Rules of the Rebellion is to question everything!

I hope this article gives you some food for thought( terrible pun, I know ), and gives you permission to question conventional wisdom and start addressing the issues in your diet!

In addition to this Beginner Paleo Guide, I hope you consider checking our 1-on-1 Coaching Program as well.

We have designed this program from the ground up to help people like you change their lives and fix their nutrition in a way that doesn’t suck.

Now, go forth. And feed like a caveman.

-Steve

PS: I’ll leave you with a mention of the Nerd Fitness Academy– it essentially gamifies your experience in transitioning into a Paleo lifestyle and diet, and provides you with specific instruction, snack plans, workouts, and a supportive community.

###

photo sources: cavemen elephant hunt, caveman cooking over fire, cavemen hunt paleo bear, milk truck logo, darth vader vendor, storm trooper tomato, lego cook, chef and lego pig, lego explorer, lego muffin, lego bread and carbs, frozen caveman grok lego, lego clock, lego caveman forge for food, caveman with wheel, darth vader and ostrich lego, easing into water lego, lego man with pasta

Footnote( returns to text)

Adult Obesity Prevalence Map CDC.gov

What if its all Been a Big Fat Lie ? Take a look at this time magazine article on cancer patients who switched to a zero-sugar diet and assured positive results. You can read our full guide on Gluten check out the Inuit Paradox for a great read on societies that exist without almost any carbohydrates If you want to nerd out about this stuff, go wild with this study This is the most well-researched criticism I’ve see of the China Study: Denise Menger- China Study- Fact or Fallacy

Read more: nerdfitness.com

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The Difference Between Vegan and Vegetarian (No They Aren't the Same)

I’ve recently been on a date with a girl. When I told her that I don’t eat animal products, she asked me curiously: “So are you vegetarian or a vegan?”

“Wait what, do you know the difference?” – I replied. She answered with: “I think so, vegans completely avoid animal products while vegetarians sometimes eat eggs and dairy.” The definition was basic, yet spot-on. Needless to say, I was impressed.

Most people don’t know what veganism is nor the difference between vegan and vegetarian. In this article you will learn the difference between vegan and vegetarian so you are educated and can decide which one of those two are most suited for you.

What is veganism

Veganism is defined as:

“the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products, particularly in diet, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals.”

To put it simply: Vegans neither consume or buy anything that comes from an animal.

While most vegans act this way because of ethical reasons, the reasons don’t matter – the actions do. Behind veganism there’s often a cult.

At its heart [of veganism] is the healing power of compassion, the highest expression of love of which man is capable. For it is a giving without hope of a getting. And yet, because he would free himself from many of the demands made by his own lower nature, the benefit to man himself would be incalculable. – Vegetarian World Forum

Donald Watson coined the term vegan in 1944 (almost hundred years after the word vegetarian was founded) . He first meant vegan to be known as ‘non-dairy vegetarian’, until the Vegan Scoiety (yes, there’s such a thing!) defined it as:[1]

“the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals”.

Interest in veganism exploded in the 2010s.

What is vegetarianism

Vegetarianism is defined as:

“the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat, and may also include abstention from by-products of animal slaughter. “

To put it simply: Vegetarians don’t consume or buy anything that is directly correlated to animal slaughter. Namely: No meat and often also no byproducts of animal slaughter, for example: gelatin, which is obtained from boiling skin, tendons or ligaments of cows or pigs.[2]

The word vegetarian was first used in 1839 and was refered to a “vegetable diet”. It’s commonly known to be a compound of vegetable and the suffix -arian.

The earliest findings of vegetarians date back to 7th century BCE.[3] It is said that the Greek teacher Pythagoras has advocated a vegetarian diet.[4]

The difference between vegan and vegetarian

Vegetarianism is the generic term of veganism. To put it blunt: Veganism is the more hardcore version of vegetarianism.

When I started this journey of minimizing animal products, I first followed a vegetarian diets for a couple of months. To get used to it and build up the necessary knowledge for following a vegan diet. In fact most vegans started out as being vegetarians and then minimized their consumption of animal products until they’re getting on the vegan level.

One may become a vegetarian for a variety of reasons – humanitarian, health, or mere preference for such a diet; The principle is a smatter of personal feeling, and varies accordingly. Veganism, however, is a principle – that man has no right to exploit the creatures for his own ends – and no variation occurs. – Vegetarian World Forum

Veganism completely minimizes the exploitation of animals, while vegetarianism only minimizes direct slaughter. To reduce the pain caused on animals the most, one follows a vegan diet.

One might not directly kill an animal by buying an egg of a chicken for example, but the nature of the competitive animal industry makes it necessary to eliminate male chicks immediately once their born. Over 3 million male chicks get killed like this (Warning: Graphic) every year.

This also stems resentment between the veganism and the vegetarianism community, as vegans feel vegetarians are closing their eyes off to obvious suffering. I recently read a sticker on a vegan restaurant that said: “Vegetarian isn’t enough!”

This is the reason I’m an advocate of veganism, as it always was an all-or-nothing case for me.

Watch this video about all the reasons on why you should go vegan:

How to become a vegetarian (without overwhelming yourself)

The best way you can start becoming a vegetarian is by getting knowledge. Reading this article is a great first step: How to Become a Vegetarian (It’s not that Hard as You Thought!)

After that you should start slowly. The goal is to minimize all the meat in your diet.

But instead of eliminating all meat from your diet, eliminate one animal at a time.

For instance: start with beef. Don’t eat it for 30 days. Then eliminate pork in addition to beef. Continue to eliminate a category of meat every 30 days.

Eventually you’ll elimate all meat and seafood, but because of the gradual approach, it won’t feel unmanageable.

The key here is to keep it sustainable.

A word of caution: You may experience resistance and questions about becoming a vegetarian, especially from close friends and family that don’t want to change. Be kind when answering questions and don’t preach the benefits of vegetarianism.

Lead by example – then let them follow.

How to become a vegan (a step-by-step guide)

I’ve eaten meat my entire life. Maybe I even ate too much. I’ve followed the typical bodybuilding diet, rice and chicken with nearly every meal. This someties resulted in over 1 kilogram of meat a day.

Since more than 3 years I’m following a vegan diet and I have never looked back. While the original steps to go from meat eating to vegetarian are the same as to become a vegan, the vegan just goes a tad bit further.

I’ve written down 8 steps to become a vegan here:

How to Go Vegan (Step-By-Step Guide from a Fitness Coach)

I especially recommend you reading step 7 and step 8, as it’s the main difference between veganism and vegetarian.

Conclusion

To put it simply, veganism is the more hardcore version of vegetarianism.

Vegans aim to put the exploitation of all animals to an absolute minimum, while vegetarianism mainly reduces direct violence on the animals (e.g. slaughter).

This is also the reason why veganism has a now cult-like status, as veganism is more about a compassionate lifestyle than a eating behaviour.

Featured photo credit: QualityGains.com via qualitygains.com

Reference

[1]^The Vegetarian World Forum: Veganism Defined[2]^Wikimedia: What is Vegetarianism: Benefit Or Harm On Health[3]^Source: Olivelle, transl. from the original Sanskrit by Patrick (1998). Upaniṣads (Reissued ed.). Oxford [u.a.]: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0192835765.[4]^Borlik, Todd A. (2011) Ecocriticism and Early Modern English Literature: Green Pastures. New York City, New York and London, England: Routledge. pp. 189–192. ISBN 978-0-203-81924-1.

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You're not eating nearly enough protein

A small plastic pouch filled with dark brown, organic matter arrived at my doorstep today.

No, I didn’t immediately bolt down the stairs in hot pursuit of some teenagers. Instead, I took a closer look and found that the bag actually contained something else entirely: dead crickets.

Alex Drysdale, founder of Crik Nutrition, was so eager for me to sample his flagship product that he shipped it overnight via DHL from his office in Winnipeg, Canada. I just hadn’t expected it so soon. Drysdale, a former communications technician who quit his job last year to cash in on today’s protein boom, swears that his critters “are loaded with nutrients because they’re made from whole, crushed-up cricket—you’re eating the exoskeleton and all the organs.” I try not to picture cricket guts when I open the pouch and take a whiff. Surprisingly, the smell is sweet and nutty. Feeling ballsier than usual, I shove a spoonful in my mouth. Compared with gritty and bitter whey and soy powder varieties, this stuff dissolves instantly on my tongue and tastes like almonds and honey.

[RELATED1]

Crik is just the latest form of protein I’ve happily eaten lately; the others include protein-infused granola, protein pancakes, high-protein Greek yogurts, and the gamut of powders—whey, soy, pea, hemp, and now cricket. The protein industry reaps about $9 billion annually, a figure that’s quadrupled since 2005. Some dismiss this as just another fleeting food fad, the result of a connection to certain popular high-protein diets, such as Paleo. A few experts—along with new federal dietary guidelines announced in January—claim we’re eating too much protein. But, I’m happy to report, scientists who study protein insist otherwise.

For the record, the U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) officially recommends just 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight. “That’s designed for the average person to just exist—hang out, watch TV, do whatever,” says Mike Nelson, Ph.D., an exercise physiologist and founder of Extreme Human Performance, a fitness coaching firm that espouses a high-protein diet. It was also written during the wartime 1940s to recommend the minimum amount for good nutrition when Americans were rationing food. “But,” says Nelson, “if you’re not the average person, and you’re exercising more intensely, you’re going to need more protein.”

At 160 pounds, the RDA puts me at 58 grams per day, which is a scant more than a cup of Greek yogurt at breakfast and a small chicken breast for lunch, with zero protein for dinner. But based on recent findings, protein scientists now advise at least 0.68 grams per pound and up to 0.75 grams if you’re doing intensive weight training (more than two hours daily) and want to bulk up fast—which would put my recommended intake at 120 grams per day, divided into four servings, consumed roughly four hours apart. Because I exercise five or six days a week, Stuart Phillips, Ph.D., a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario, who studies how protein supports muscle growth, tells me that 110 grams per day should be ample. I bump up my intake accordingly, almost doubling it.

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Two weeks later I’ve dropped five pounds—most of it off my belly. I’m stacking on extra weights for chest and shoulder presses. But the most profound change is in recovery. The throbbing quads and calves I’d suffer after long runs? Gone. And when I overload my muscles while lifting (think: big burn), the soreness lasts for mere hours instead of days.

Right now I crave protein like a drug. I eat it in the morning and, as you’ll soon learn why, even before bed. I eat everything from omelets to salmon to pulverized insects that look like shit. And here’s the thing: I’ve never felt better.

Later, when I convey my experience to Robert Wolfe, Ph.D., one of the early pioneers in protein science and now director of the Center for Translational Research in Aging and Longevity at the University of Arkansas, he’s not surprised. “When you look at the research, it’s impossible not to be impressed with the benefits of a higher proportion of protein than the RDA in the diet,” he says. Eat more protein and “by and large, you’re going to be fitter. That’s the reality.”

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What's enough protein? And what's too much?

Despite everything we know about the connection between protein and muscle growth (for the record, protein refers to the amino acids from foods that our bodies require to be healthy and strong but don’t produce intrinsically), it wasn’t until very recently that scientists began to determine just how much protein we should be eating, what types (animal or plant), when (morning or evening), and how much.

“Back in the early 1980s, we used to think that if you averaged out your recommended protein intake over a week, you were OK,” says Nancy Rodriguez, Ph.D., a professor of nutritional studies at the University of Connecticut. “But fast-forward 10 years, and we realized it wasn’t just having protein every two or three days. You should be eating it every day and distributing it among meals and snacks.”

For decades, dietitians and trainers generally adhered to the RDA. But Donald Layman, Ph.D., a professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois, suspected this number might be too low. Often regarded as a leader in protein requirements, Layman had been investigating how humans metabolized amino acids and whether there was a threshold amount required to trigger protein synthesis, the biological mechanism that spawns muscle. In 1999, Layman conducted experiments on rats and found that a specific amount of the essential amino acid leucine, contained in all protein, is necessary to kick-start synthesis. Leucine alone can’t create muscle—you need all nine essential amino acids to do that; leucine is just the catalyst that ignites the process. “Until you get enough leucine, protein synthesis won’t run at 100%,” Layman explains. When he extrapolated his data to humans, he determined that for someone like me to optimize post-workout muscle growth, I should be consuming upward of 30 grams of protein per meal, which provides 2.5 grams of leucine. (For that, a whey-or soy-based protein smoothie with a half-cup of yogurt added would do the trick; so would a four-ounce T-bone steak.)

But what happens if I eat more than that? Would devouring, say, 90 grams of protein in a single sitting—or about 12 ounces of salmon—triple muscle growth? No one knew the answer until Doug Paddon-Jones, Ph.D., a professor of nutrition and metabolism at the University of Texas, consulted with Layman for a study. In 2009, Paddon-Jones enlisted a group of volunteers, including eight men in their early 30s, all weighing about 175 pounds, and fed them each a four-ounce steak with 30 grams of protein. Five hours later, he took blood samples and muscle biopsies from the volunteers. “There was a 50% improvement in muscle protein synthesis,” says Paddon-Jones. When he repeated the test but ramped up the size of the meal, eventually tripling protein intake, synthesis remained the same. “That suggests that somewhere around 30 grams [for a 175-pound male] there is a ceiling effect for your ability to use actual protein-rich foods to build and repair muscle,” Paddon-Jones says. For bigger guys, of course, those numbers will rise proportionately. If you clock in at 250 pounds, for instance, your per-meal protein intake would rise to 42 grams. (And there are other factors that can push that number even higher, such as genes.) Granted, if you’re consuming way more protein than you should, there are still some added nutritional benefits—thanks to the amino acids and micronutrients in a varied protein diet (meat, legumes, seafood, soy)—but muscle protein synthesis falls off precipitously.

Too much protein in a single meal is like filling the 20-gallon tank in your SUV with 60 gallons of gasoline—two-thirds of the fuel gets wasted, spewing out onto the pavement. (Excess protein ends up in your urine.) “You don’t have a storage site for protein,” explains Phillips. “You can’t pack it away for further use.”

Paddon-Jones warns about racking up extra calories: “The biggest problem with overconsuming protein is you’re going to get fat. There’s an upper limit in terms of what your body can process at one time. You can eat more, but it’s likely not doing your muscles much good.”

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Before working out or after: What's the protein smoothie sweetspot? 

At the University of Connecticut, Rodriguez hones diets for collegiate and pro athletes, including those in the NFL, NBA, and NHL. She instructs them to get about 35 grams of protein per meal and scales it up for heavier guys. But will any protein do? Rodriguez cites several new studies that have examined plant versus animal proteins, and whole foods compared with supplements. The upshot: To grow new muscle and get bigger while adhering to a low-calorie diet, whole, animal-based sources are preferable, specifically meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt). Now, you might be wondering about the recent World Health Organization (WHO) report from late last year that caused carnivores to panic because it labeled meat a carcinogen and lumped bacon with tobacco in the certain-death category. Not to worry. First, the WHO study surveyed people who consumed almost nothing but—that is, heaps of meat every day. These folks are also often overweight and sedentary. So does meat give you cancer? Or do you get it from being fat and lazy? The answer is almost certainly the latter, meaning that if you’re fit and work out regularly, a modest serving (about four ounces) a few times a week of beef, pork, or, yes, even bacon isn’t going to put your health at risk.

“I don’t think you can become the best athlete you can be without meat,” says Luc van Loon, Ph.D., an exercise physiology professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, adding that he favors whole animal foods like beef because they digest slowly—a steak can take 24 hours for the body to process—so it provides a steady protein supply all day.

If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, good old-fashioned rice and beans, and tofu are acceptable alternatives. But remember: By proportion, animal meat packs up to three times the protein content as plant-based food like legumes and nuts. So with tofu, for example, you’ll have to eat a lot more of it to get the same protein you would dining on a six-ounce filet mignon or a three-egg cheese omelet. Some plant-based proteins are also high in carbohydrates, which, if not readily burned off, end up as fat. (Crickets are about 70% protein by weight.)

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If you’re going the supplement powder route, scientists suggest you choose whey, the wildly popular animal-based protein derived from cow’s milk. For a 2015 study in the Journal of Food Science, Phillips analyzed whey, soy, and rice powders and found that whey had the highest leucine content of the three. “And when we’re talking about regenerating muscle, the key is protein higher in leucine,” he says. “Based on our work, whey tops the list.”

Whey also ranks first in its ability to feed muscles faster than any other protein type. “Whey protein is absorbed really quickly in the blood, within 15 to 20 minutes,” Paddon-Jones says. Train hard and your body burns stored carbs and fat to produce glucose for energy. But unlike fat, there’s no protein cache to tap for making muscle. And as van Loon points out, “when you combine exercise with protein, you get a synergistic response—muscle protein synthesis is doubled.” That’s why experts love whey: Its rapid absorption improves the rate of rebuilding compared with other protein sources.

But timing is everything. When muscles contract during strenuous exercise the cells become more anaerobic, and protein synthesis shuts off. So chugging a protein smoothie right before hitting the gym or while exercising is pointless—and a few studies suggest it may even be counterproductive, impeding your muscle’s ability to grow. “There’s no good reason to do it,” Phillips says. On the other hand, researchers have measured the largest gains in lean muscle growth in athletes who consume whey protein 30 to 90 minutes after training. “That’s when you get the biggest bang for your buck, because the machinery is set up to resynthesize muscle,” Rodriguez says.

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Can you actually build muscle while you sleep?

When we bulk up in response to resistance training, it’s because there’s a net gain of new muscle growth. Squats break down quads, which respond by rebuilding themselves bigger and stronger—a process that protein amplifies. But like other scientists, van Loon once believed this occurred only when we were awake. Then three years ago, he met with a few colleagues at a bar and “after too many beers,” as he puts it, “we thought, ‘What happens if we give people protein during sleep?’ ” Scientists had never considered whether protein could be metabolized at night, or if it could, whether muscle synthesis would occur.

When you eat protein, its amino acids are dispatched to various tissues—muscle, organ, bone—where they’re used to repair and rebuild cells. But to determine what happens at night, van Loon had to pinpoint the exact where and when of this process. So at a university animal research facility in the Netherlands, he rigged a Holstein cow with intravenous tubing and pumped in $40,000 worth of chemical compounds called tracers that allow scientists to follow them throughout the body. From the cow’s milk, van Loon derived a protein supplement he could give to human test subjects and then track the amino acids throughout their bodies. “I could see the digestion and absorption, how much of the protein becomes available in the circulation, and how much of what you eat lands in the muscle over a few hours,” he explains.

Next he conducted two separate protein-and-sleep studies by recruiting healthy, active men in their early 20s. In the first experiment, the men exercised in the evening, then half took a protein supplement before bedtime, with the remainder fed a placebo. Van Loon found that the protein was effectively digested and absorbed while the men slept, and muscle rebuilding was also higher. In the next study, he had the subjects lift weights for three months in the evenings, with half taking a protein supplement before bedtime and the other half a placebo. He found the group who consumed protein prior to sleep had a greater increase in muscle mass and strength.

Based on his initial results, van Loon recommends a so-called “fourth meal” of protein approximately 30 minutes before bedtime—that would be about 30 grams for a guy my size. But keep calories to a minimum, since anything in addition to the protein isn’t going to burn off. (You’re asleep, remember.) Good choices are Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, or a protein smoothie, assuming you minimize the sugary fillers like berries and juice. “Protein prior to sleep gives you a greater window of opportunity to facilitate muscle reconditioning,” van Loon says. “It turns out that nighttime is an unused period when you can stimulate the adaptive response to exercise.”

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What's the best way to get your protein high?

Because I’m a carnivore, to me more protein means more seafood, chicken, pork, and beef. On top of ample salmon and bison—two of my favorite foods—during my investigation, I added van Loon’s fourth bedtime “meal,” as well as whey after workouts.

And my grocery bills went out of control.

Ultimately, I decided to mix things up: A few times a week I now splurge on pricey seafood (often tuna or halibut, among the protein kings of fish), and for smoothies I go with organic, grass-fed whey or Drysdale’s Crik powder: the yummiest of the supplements, but—at roughly $5 for a 32-gram serving of protein—also the most expensive. Primarily, though, I rely on protein-packed basics like yogurt, eggs, peanut butter, and cheese. For breakfast, I do one cup of nonfat Greek yogurt, blended with blueberry kefir, a tablespoon of peanut butter, and a teaspoon of honey. I follow my late-morning workout with a whey smoothie, using the provided scoop to get the correct amount of protein, then sweeten it with whatever fruit happens to be in the fridge—and call that lunch. Dinner varies, but the main dish is almost always a high-protein whole food, such as pork or salmon, eyeballing the portions to get roughly eight ounces. Before bed, I might snack on a bowl of cottage cheese topped with sliced chicken or turkey breast, dishing it out based on the serving-size info based on the packaging.

After two weeks not only do I feel great but also—as previously mentioned—I’m five pounds lighter, chiefly because protein makes me feel fuller and satiated (which keeps me from snacking), and because of protein’s thermic effects (I actually burn calories while digesting it). I also notice something else with my new diet: I’m always thirsty. As it turns out, protein is hygroscopic, which means it attracts water like iron filings to a magnet. “If you shift to high-protein, you should drink 50% more water than you were drinking before,” Layman advises. This gets me wondering: Besides dehydration, what other potential risks might protein pose?

Low-carb diets, like the Atkins, which became popular in the ’90s, preached all-you-can-eat protein. You can fill up on steak and eggs as long as you limit carbs. With Atkins, protein functions like an inert, low-calorie filler: Consume enough of it and you’ll be too stuffed to eat anything else. (In contrast, the Paleo diet rightly embraces protein for its superior nutritional value. It falls short, however, because it doesn’t prescribe how much protein to eat or when to eat it. It also rejects dairy—even Greek yogurt, which new research has identified as a superlative protein.)

At the height of the Atkins craze, reports of health problems surfaced, the most serious being kidney failure. I ask Phillips whether I should be concerned, and I’m told no. Because many of the Atkins dieters were overweight, he explains, they were also “verging on type-2 diabetes,” a disease that can include kidney dysfunction. “But as the circular logic went, the high protein caused the kidney failure in the first place, and that’s not true. There’s no evidence of that.” The other myth is “protein is bad for your bones,” Rodriguez says. The going theory used to be that protein-rich foods nudged your body’s pH balance toward higher acidity—and too much acid would leach minerals like calcium from bones and lead to osteoporosis. But current research proves just the opposite: Protein increases bone density by improving calorie absorption. “We’re realizing that eating adequate protein, along with calcium, is good for your bones, not bad for them,” Rodriguez says. In fact, in a 2008 study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Layman wrote, “Higher protein diets are associated with greater bone mass and fewer fractures when calcium intake is adequate.”

[RELATED8]

As I worked to harness the benefits of protein, I discovered that the plant-based soy doesn’t build muscle as fast as animal protein or whey. “Soy is about 60% as effective as whey,” says Layman. “But if you use a small enough amount, say 12 to 15 grams, you will get no muscle-building effects.” I also learned about one big protein no-no: booze. Both Phillips and Paddon-Jones recount a now-famous tale shared among protein geeks, which involves a team of Australian football players. During the off-season they’d meet every Friday at a gym for weight training. Afterward, they’d go drinking at a nearby pub.

“No one was getting stronger in the off-season,” Paddon-Jones says. A coach with a hunch about the booze changed their training to Tuesdays—a less convenient night to souse it up—“and they put on a ton of muscle mass and strength. Alcohol was shutting down protein synthesis.”

Last year, Phillips led the first-ever experiment to test the theory. He gathered eight men ages 21 to 26 and put them through an exercise routine that included weightlifting, cycling, and high-intensity interval training. After the workout, he gave them each 50 grams of protein over a four-hour period and then got them trashed. Over the subsequent eight hours, he took tissue biopsies from their quad muscles. The result: Muscle-protein synthesis had dropped by 24% compared with his control group, who got protein but no booze. “Eight solid drinks of vodka definitely messed up their muscles’ ability to utilize protein,” he says. “Alcohol affects your ability to regenerate and repair muscle and get it ready for a subsequent workout. If you’re an athlete, regularly consuming more than one or two drinks a day is not recommended.”

There’s still one question that can’t be overlooked: How will consuming 100-plus grams of protein a day for years on end impact long-term muscle health? “We can’t answer that quite yet,” Layman says. One sure fact: Men in their mid-40s will find that their muscles begin to naturally shrink. “As we get older, we’re less efficient at turning protein into muscle,” Layman says. This has led nutritionists to assume that adults need less protein as we age. Having documented what high protein does for younger men, scientists now challenge that assumption and plan to conduct longitudinal studies to track men and their muscles over a lifetime.

When such a study occurs, I tell Layman that he should enlist my father, who turned 82 last month and remains an avid athlete. He lives in Seattle, where he routinely devours chicken and salmon, plays competitive tennis with guys half his age, and often begins his day by paddling his kayak two miles across Lake Washington.

Is it the protein? Exercise? Lucky genes? A combo of all three?

No matter. The sudden jump in strength and recovery I experience after disregarding the RDA and doubling my protein intake is reason enough to stick with it long term. Bring on the crickets. 

[RELATED9]

Protein foods

from Men's Fitness https://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/what-to-eat/youre-not-eating-nearly-enough-protein

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Kenji's Favorite Recipes of 2017

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Kenji's Favorite Recipes of 2017

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[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, unless otherwise noted]

Every year is different, but this year has been extra different for me. I’ve spent a big chunk of my time working on a second book (currently slated for release sometime in 2019). The book has a much stronger emphasis on non-American techniques and recipes than my first book did, which happily coincides with the way I typically like to eat at home. I’ve also been hard at work on the opening of Wursthall (come join us for beer and sausage in San Mateo when we open the doors in February)! And oh yeah, my wife and I also created human life pretty much from scratch and I’ve discovered that I enjoy stay-at-home-dad’ing even more than I enjoy testing recipes and writing all day every day (which is to say, a lot).

So there’s really one thematic element you’re gonna see in this list: Easy and delicious family meals, with a few weekend projects thrown in for good measure.

Pressure Cooker Chile Verde

As a new parent who doesn’t have as much time on his hands to cook as he used to, this is my favorite type of pressure cooker recipe. No pre-cooking, no searing, no simmering, no added liquid to water down flavor, no nothing. Just dump a bunch of roughly chopped ingredients into the cooker, seal her up, and let her go. By the time dinner time rolls around, you’ve got yourself a rich, complex stew with tender chunks of pork bathed in chilies and tomatillos. The best part is you can make as much as your pressure cooker will handle. Spend 15 minutes in the kitchen, then get ready to eat for days.

Get the recipe and technique for Pressure Cooker Chile Verde »

Caldo Verde

“So, what’s this soup? Just potatoes and kale simmered together until they’re mushy? Hmm. Sounds boring,” is what you might be saying to yourself in your head. And yeah. Potatoes and kale sounds kinda boring to me too. Yet when you actually cook up this classic Portuguese soup (and okay, it also gets some onions, chicken broth, and, if you’re so inclined, some chouriço), you’ll watch as those chunks of potato slowly break down and thicken up the soup while the kale reveals flavors you never knew it had. It all transforms into something comforting and hearty without being overly heavy.

Get the recipe and technique for Calo Verde »

3-Ingredient Mac and Cheese

This is one of those “wait, is it really that simple?” recipes. It takes just three ingredients—pasta, cheese, and evaporated milk (in equal parts!)—and ends with a stovetop mac and cheese that is just as creamy, gooey, and delicious as far more complex recipes. Cooking the pasta in barely enough water to cover it and allowing that water to completely evaporate to concentrate starch (an emulsifying powerhouse) is the secret.

Get the recipe and technique for 3-Ingredient Mac and Cheese »

One-Pot Pozole Verde

This is a bright green version of the classic Mexican meat-and-hominy soup. Made by combining several green ingredients (tomatillos, chilies, cilantro, pepitas, etc.) along with chicken and hominy, it all comes together in a single pot. The trick is adding things in the right order and at the right time in order to maximize the flavor of each ingredient and layer them into a cohesive whole.

Get the recipe and technique for One-Pot Pozole Verde »

BraveTart’s Magic Bagels

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

I’ve been on my own personal quest to bake the perfect bagel at home ever since moving from New York to California (where the bagel pickings are a whole lot slimmer). Leave it to Stella to publish a recipe that beats any of my attempts. By incorporated a tangzhong—a cooked flour-and-water paste that gets added to the dough—she’s able to greatly increase the shelf-life of the bagels. Most bagels aren’t worth their hole even an hour out of the oven. I’ve eaten Stella’s bagels two days later (toasted whole before slicing, of course; we are not savages who toast sliced bagels) and still got that perfect crisp-on-the-outside, chewy-in-the-middle bagel experience.

P.S. I am still working on my own personal recipe which, depending on how testing continues, may or may not make it into my next book.

Get the recipe and technique for BraveTart’s Magic Bagels »

Kickass Quesadillas

I’ve been making some variation of this style of quesadilla for a couple decades. They’re sort of like microwaving a flour tortilla with cheese except a little more work and a lot less sadness. The first key is to combine additional ingredients and aromatics directly into the grated cheese for even melting and flavor throughout (cilantro and chopped pickled jalapeño are my go-to late-night-snack), then it’s just a matter of using enough oil and managing your heat so your quesadillas end up extra-crispy on the outside and fully-melted and gooey in the middle.

Get the recipe and technique for Kickass Quesadillas »

Detroit-Style Pan Pizza

I’ve been carefully orchestrating Alicia’s pizza-eating experience since before birth, starting with ensuring that my wife Adri ate only the finest pizzas while she was pregnant. Currently I’m using a historical approach to her education. She started with Neapolitan, then moved on to New York-style slices. Next on her agenda is a New Haven-style apizza which would complete her tour of the offerings from the three pizza capitals of the world.

New Haven, New York, and Napoli may be the cheese-and-tomato-topped-bread capitols of the world, but Detroit, with its signature rectangular pies originally baked in blue steel pans used in the automotive industry, certainly deserves a seat at the United Nations of Pizza. My recipe is the culmination of a years-long love affair with Detroit-style pizza, delivering an extra-crispy crust with a tall, airy, and chewy crumb, a balanced tomato sauce, and of course those signature blackened crispy cheese edges. I can’t wait for her to try it.

Get the recipe and technique for Detroit-Style Pan Pizza »

Pasta Primavera

Once a classic, pasta primavera has suffered from the Olive Garden-ification effect where lightness, freshness, and seasonality go out the window for more cheese, more cream, and more year-round uniformity. There’s nothing wrong with creamy dishes you can eat year round, but dammit, I want my pasta primavera to actually taste like spring.

This recipe only works for a few months out of the year when those green spring vegetables—asparagus, peas, fava beans, snap peas, etc.—are at their sweetest, snappiest, and most tender. And what a good few months those are! My version of the dish uses a technique I learned from Melissa Clark at the New York Times, who uses crème fraîche to bind her sauce together. It all gets lightened up with some fresh lemon juice and parsley.

Alicia hasn’t been of eating age during spring yet, but boy does she love pasta and vegetables. I have a feeling she’ll do just fine with this one.

Get the recipe and technique for Pasta Primavera »

Egg-in-a-Hole for You and Your Spawn

OK, here’s a secret*: I really like cooking for Alicia and she really seems to enjoy eating what I cook. Sometimes** I even succumb to the temptation to make everything cute and and put together teeny-tiny mini versions of my food for her. Tiny sandwiches, tiny salads, tiny pancakes, tiny bowls of noodles, tiny quesadillas, tiny stir-fries, etc. This particular one is probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen my own two hands make. You start by cutting a circle out of a slice of bread, then frying it up with an egg in the middle. Meanwhile, you cut a smaller circle inside the circle you just cut out and fry a second, smaller quail egg inside that new hole. One slice of toast, two different eggs, and you’ve got a nice little breakfast for you and your spawn.

*not a secret.

**all the time

I haven’t found eggs small enough to dive in a third layer. Yet.

Get the recipe and technique for Egg-in-a-Hole for You and Your Spawn »

Erdäpfelsalat

Have I mentioned I’m opening a restaurant soon? I am! Wursthall, a German and Austrian-style beer hall is gonna be opening up near my home in San Mateo around February 2018. A while back, I was debating whether to put Austrian or German-style potato salad on the menu. A “research” trip through Austria and Bavaria, where I fell in love with Austrian erdäpfelsalat, helped me decide. It’s looser and creamier than an American or German potato salad, yet contains very little fat. Instead, it’s dressed with vinegar, aromatics, and broth (typically a white beef or chicken broth), along with just a touch of oil.

One problem with making Austrian potato salad in the United States is that it’s impossible to find those uniquely sweet and earthy yellow Austrian potatoes, but I’ve found that so long as pure authenticity of flavor is not your goal (authenticity is way overrated), some good American potatoes can make a salad that’s equally tasty, if a little different.

Get the recipe and technique for Erdäpfelsalat »

New Orleans Red Beans and Rice

Alright, so Alicia may like pasta and vegetables and fruit and meat and bread and cheese and everything else, but she loves beans. She can sit for a full half hour*** at a stretch, diligently picking up a single bean at a time between her thumb and forefinger (the only utensils she’s currently proficient with) and carefully transferring it to her tongue, using her eight baby teeth to mash them up.

I also love beans, and it’s hard to think of a bean dish I love more than New Orleans Red Beans and Rice. Red beans simmered all day with spicy sausage

***It’s amazing how much time compression occurs as a new parent. I get a full half hour of quiet time?!? Think of everything I can accomplish!

Get the recipe and technique for »

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[jlcolby]

New Post has been published on http://cookingtipsguide.com/kenjis-favorite-recipes-of-2017/

Kenji's Favorite Recipes of 2017

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[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, unless otherwise noted]

Every year is different, but this year has been extra different for me. I’ve spent a big chunk of my time working on a second book (currently slated for release sometime in 2019). The book has a much stronger emphasis on non-American techniques and recipes than my first book did, which happily coincides with the way I typically like to eat at home. I’ve also been hard at work on the opening of Wursthall (come join us for beer and sausage in San Mateo when we open the doors in February)! And oh yeah, my wife and I also created human life pretty much from scratch and I’ve discovered that I enjoy stay-at-home-dad’ing even more than I enjoy testing recipes and writing all day every day (which is to say, a lot).

So there’s really one thematic element you’re gonna see in this list: Easy and delicious family meals, with a few weekend projects thrown in for good measure.

Pressure Cooker Chile Verde

As a new parent who doesn’t have as much time on his hands to cook as he used to, this is my favorite type of pressure cooker recipe. No pre-cooking, no searing, no simmering, no added liquid to water down flavor, no nothing. Just dump a bunch of roughly chopped ingredients into the cooker, seal her up, and let her go. By the time dinner time rolls around, you’ve got yourself a rich, complex stew with tender chunks of pork bathed in chilies and tomatillos. The best part is you can make as much as your pressure cooker will handle. Spend 15 minutes in the kitchen, then get ready to eat for days.

Get the recipe and technique for Pressure Cooker Chile Verde »

Caldo Verde

“So, what’s this soup? Just potatoes and kale simmered together until they’re mushy? Hmm. Sounds boring,” is what you might be saying to yourself in your head. And yeah. Potatoes and kale sounds kinda boring to me too. Yet when you actually cook up this classic Portuguese soup (and okay, it also gets some onions, chicken broth, and, if you’re so inclined, some chouriço), you’ll watch as those chunks of potato slowly break down and thicken up the soup while the kale reveals flavors you never knew it had. It all transforms into something comforting and hearty without being overly heavy.

Get the recipe and technique for Calo Verde »

3-Ingredient Mac and Cheese

This is one of those “wait, is it really that simple?” recipes. It takes just three ingredients—pasta, cheese, and evaporated milk (in equal parts!)—and ends with a stovetop mac and cheese that is just as creamy, gooey, and delicious as far more complex recipes. Cooking the pasta in barely enough water to cover it and allowing that water to completely evaporate to concentrate starch (an emulsifying powerhouse) is the secret.

Get the recipe and technique for 3-Ingredient Mac and Cheese »

One-Pot Pozole Verde

This is a bright green version of the classic Mexican meat-and-hominy soup. Made by combining several green ingredients (tomatillos, chilies, cilantro, pepitas, etc.) along with chicken and hominy, it all comes together in a single pot. The trick is adding things in the right order and at the right time in order to maximize the flavor of each ingredient and layer them into a cohesive whole.

Get the recipe and technique for One-Pot Pozole Verde »

BraveTart’s Magic Bagels

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

I’ve been on my own personal quest to bake the perfect bagel at home ever since moving from New York to California (where the bagel pickings are a whole lot slimmer). Leave it to Stella to publish a recipe that beats any of my attempts. By incorporated a tangzhong—a cooked flour-and-water paste that gets added to the dough—she’s able to greatly increase the shelf-life of the bagels. Most bagels aren’t worth their hole even an hour out of the oven. I’ve eaten Stella’s bagels two days later (toasted whole before slicing, of course; we are not savages who toast sliced bagels) and still got that perfect crisp-on-the-outside, chewy-in-the-middle bagel experience.

P.S. I am still working on my own personal recipe which, depending on how testing continues, may or may not make it into my next book.

Get the recipe and technique for BraveTart’s Magic Bagels »

Kickass Quesadillas

I’ve been making some variation of this style of quesadilla for a couple decades. They’re sort of like microwaving a flour tortilla with cheese except a little more work and a lot less sadness. The first key is to combine additional ingredients and aromatics directly into the grated cheese for even melting and flavor throughout (cilantro and chopped pickled jalapeño are my go-to late-night-snack), then it’s just a matter of using enough oil and managing your heat so your quesadillas end up extra-crispy on the outside and fully-melted and gooey in the middle.

Get the recipe and technique for Kickass Quesadillas »

Detroit-Style Pan Pizza

I’ve been carefully orchestrating Alicia’s pizza-eating experience since before birth, starting with ensuring that my wife Adri ate only the finest pizzas while she was pregnant. Currently I’m using a historical approach to her education. She started with Neapolitan, then moved on to New York-style slices. Next on her agenda is a New Haven-style apizza which would complete her tour of the offerings from the three pizza capitals of the world.

New Haven, New York, and Napoli may be the cheese-and-tomato-topped-bread capitols of the world, but Detroit, with its signature rectangular pies originally baked in blue steel pans used in the automotive industry, certainly deserves a seat at the United Nations of Pizza. My recipe is the culmination of a years-long love affair with Detroit-style pizza, delivering an extra-crispy crust with a tall, airy, and chewy crumb, a balanced tomato sauce, and of course those signature blackened crispy cheese edges. I can’t wait for her to try it.

Get the recipe and technique for Detroit-Style Pan Pizza »

Pasta Primavera

Once a classic, pasta primavera has suffered from the Olive Garden-ification effect where lightness, freshness, and seasonality go out the window for more cheese, more cream, and more year-round uniformity. There’s nothing wrong with creamy dishes you can eat year round, but dammit, I want my pasta primavera to actually taste like spring.

This recipe only works for a few months out of the year when those green spring vegetables—asparagus, peas, fava beans, snap peas, etc.—are at their sweetest, snappiest, and most tender. And what a good few months those are! My version of the dish uses a technique I learned from Melissa Clark at the New York Times, who uses crème fraîche to bind her sauce together. It all gets lightened up with some fresh lemon juice and parsley.

Alicia hasn’t been of eating age during spring yet, but boy does she love pasta and vegetables. I have a feeling she’ll do just fine with this one.

Get the recipe and technique for Pasta Primavera »

Egg-in-a-Hole for You and Your Spawn

OK, here’s a secret*: I really like cooking for Alicia and she really seems to enjoy eating what I cook. Sometimes** I even succumb to the temptation to make everything cute and and put together teeny-tiny mini versions of my food for her. Tiny sandwiches, tiny salads, tiny pancakes, tiny bowls of noodles, tiny quesadillas, tiny stir-fries, etc. This particular one is probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen my own two hands make. You start by cutting a circle out of a slice of bread, then frying it up with an egg in the middle. Meanwhile, you cut a smaller circle inside the circle you just cut out and fry a second, smaller quail egg inside that new hole. One slice of toast, two different eggs, and you’ve got a nice little breakfast for you and your spawn.

*not a secret.

**all the time

I haven’t found eggs small enough to dive in a third layer. Yet.

Get the recipe and technique for Egg-in-a-Hole for You and Your Spawn »

Erdäpfelsalat

Have I mentioned I’m opening a restaurant soon? I am! Wursthall, a German and Austrian-style beer hall is gonna be opening up near my home in San Mateo around February 2018. A while back, I was debating whether to put Austrian or German-style potato salad on the menu. A “research” trip through Austria and Bavaria, where I fell in love with Austrian erdäpfelsalat, helped me decide. It’s looser and creamier than an American or German potato salad, yet contains very little fat. Instead, it’s dressed with vinegar, aromatics, and broth (typically a white beef or chicken broth), along with just a touch of oil.

One problem with making Austrian potato salad in the United States is that it’s impossible to find those uniquely sweet and earthy yellow Austrian potatoes, but I’ve found that so long as pure authenticity of flavor is not your goal (authenticity is way overrated), some good American potatoes can make a salad that’s equally tasty, if a little different.

Get the recipe and technique for Erdäpfelsalat »

New Orleans Red Beans and Rice

Alright, so Alicia may like pasta and vegetables and fruit and meat and bread and cheese and everything else, but she loves beans. She can sit for a full half hour*** at a stretch, diligently picking up a single bean at a time between her thumb and forefinger (the only utensils she’s currently proficient with) and carefully transferring it to her tongue, using her eight baby teeth to mash them up.

I also love beans, and it’s hard to think of a bean dish I love more than New Orleans Red Beans and Rice. Red beans simmered all day with spicy sausage

***It’s amazing how much time compression occurs as a new parent. I get a full half hour of quiet time?!? Think of everything I can accomplish!

Get the recipe and technique for »

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[mgjansen81]

Kenji's Favorite Recipes of 2017

New Post has been published on https://makesomethingtasty.com/kenjis-favorite-recipes-of-2017/

Kenji's Favorite Recipes of 2017

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[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, unless otherwise noted]

Every year is different, but this year has been extra different for me. I’ve spent a big chunk of my time working on a second book (currently slated for release sometime in 2019). The book has a much stronger emphasis on non-American techniques and recipes than my first book did, which happily coincides with the way I typically like to eat at home. I’ve also been hard at work on the opening of Wursthall (come join us for beer and sausage in San Mateo when we open the doors in February)! And oh yeah, my wife and I also created human life pretty much from scratch and I’ve discovered that I enjoy stay-at-home-dad’ing even more than I enjoy testing recipes and writing all day every day (which is to say, a lot).

So there’s really one thematic element you’re gonna see in this list: Easy and delicious family meals, with a few weekend projects thrown in for good measure.

Pressure Cooker Chile Verde

As a new parent who doesn’t have as much time on his hands to cook as he used to, this is my favorite type of pressure cooker recipe. No pre-cooking, no searing, no simmering, no added liquid to water down flavor, no nothing. Just dump a bunch of roughly chopped ingredients into the cooker, seal her up, and let her go. By the time dinner time rolls around, you’ve got yourself a rich, complex stew with tender chunks of pork bathed in chilies and tomatillos. The best part is you can make as much as your pressure cooker will handle. Spend 15 minutes in the kitchen, then get ready to eat for days.

Get the recipe and technique for Pressure Cooker Chile Verde »

Caldo Verde

“So, what’s this soup? Just potatoes and kale simmered together until they’re mushy? Hmm. Sounds boring,” is what you might be saying to yourself in your head. And yeah. Potatoes and kale sounds kinda boring to me too. Yet when you actually cook up this classic Portuguese soup (and okay, it also gets some onions, chicken broth, and, if you’re so inclined, some chouriço), you’ll watch as those chunks of potato slowly break down and thicken up the soup while the kale reveals flavors you never knew it had. It all transforms into something comforting and hearty without being overly heavy.

Get the recipe and technique for Calo Verde »

3-Ingredient Mac and Cheese

This is one of those “wait, is it really that simple?” recipes. It takes just three ingredients—pasta, cheese, and evaporated milk (in equal parts!)—and ends with a stovetop mac and cheese that is just as creamy, gooey, and delicious as far more complex recipes. Cooking the pasta in barely enough water to cover it and allowing that water to completely evaporate to concentrate starch (an emulsifying powerhouse) is the secret.

Get the recipe and technique for 3-Ingredient Mac and Cheese »

One-Pot Pozole Verde

This is a bright green version of the classic Mexican meat-and-hominy soup. Made by combining several green ingredients (tomatillos, chilies, cilantro, pepitas, etc.) along with chicken and hominy, it all comes together in a single pot. The trick is adding things in the right order and at the right time in order to maximize the flavor of each ingredient and layer them into a cohesive whole.

Get the recipe and technique for One-Pot Pozole Verde »

BraveTart’s Magic Bagels

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

I’ve been on my own personal quest to bake the perfect bagel at home ever since moving from New York to California (where the bagel pickings are a whole lot slimmer). Leave it to Stella to publish a recipe that beats any of my attempts. By incorporated a tangzhong—a cooked flour-and-water paste that gets added to the dough—she’s able to greatly increase the shelf-life of the bagels. Most bagels aren’t worth their hole even an hour out of the oven. I’ve eaten Stella’s bagels two days later (toasted whole before slicing, of course; we are not savages who toast sliced bagels) and still got that perfect crisp-on-the-outside, chewy-in-the-middle bagel experience.

P.S. I am still working on my own personal recipe which, depending on how testing continues, may or may not make it into my next book.

Get the recipe and technique for BraveTart’s Magic Bagels »

Kickass Quesadillas

I’ve been making some variation of this style of quesadilla for a couple decades. They’re sort of like microwaving a flour tortilla with cheese except a little more work and a lot less sadness. The first key is to combine additional ingredients and aromatics directly into the grated cheese for even melting and flavor throughout (cilantro and chopped pickled jalapeño are my go-to late-night-snack), then it’s just a matter of using enough oil and managing your heat so your quesadillas end up extra-crispy on the outside and fully-melted and gooey in the middle.

Get the recipe and technique for Kickass Quesadillas »

Detroit-Style Pan Pizza

I’ve been carefully orchestrating Alicia’s pizza-eating experience since before birth, starting with ensuring that my wife Adri ate only the finest pizzas while she was pregnant. Currently I’m using a historical approach to her education. She started with Neapolitan, then moved on to New York-style slices. Next on her agenda is a New Haven-style apizza which would complete her tour of the offerings from the three pizza capitals of the world.

New Haven, New York, and Napoli may be the cheese-and-tomato-topped-bread capitols of the world, but Detroit, with its signature rectangular pies originally baked in blue steel pans used in the automotive industry, certainly deserves a seat at the United Nations of Pizza. My recipe is the culmination of a years-long love affair with Detroit-style pizza, delivering an extra-crispy crust with a tall, airy, and chewy crumb, a balanced tomato sauce, and of course those signature blackened crispy cheese edges. I can’t wait for her to try it.

Get the recipe and technique for Detroit-Style Pan Pizza »

Pasta Primavera

Once a classic, pasta primavera has suffered from the Olive Garden-ification effect where lightness, freshness, and seasonality go out the window for more cheese, more cream, and more year-round uniformity. There’s nothing wrong with creamy dishes you can eat year round, but dammit, I want my pasta primavera to actually taste like spring.

This recipe only works for a few months out of the year when those green spring vegetables—asparagus, peas, fava beans, snap peas, etc.—are at their sweetest, snappiest, and most tender. And what a good few months those are! My version of the dish uses a technique I learned from Melissa Clark at the New York Times, who uses crème fraîche to bind her sauce together. It all gets lightened up with some fresh lemon juice and parsley.

Alicia hasn’t been of eating age during spring yet, but boy does she love pasta and vegetables. I have a feeling she’ll do just fine with this one.

Get the recipe and technique for Pasta Primavera »

Egg-in-a-Hole for You and Your Spawn

OK, here’s a secret*: I really like cooking for Alicia and she really seems to enjoy eating what I cook. Sometimes** I even succumb to the temptation to make everything cute and and put together teeny-tiny mini versions of my food for her. Tiny sandwiches, tiny salads, tiny pancakes, tiny bowls of noodles, tiny quesadillas, tiny stir-fries, etc. This particular one is probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen my own two hands make. You start by cutting a circle out of a slice of bread, then frying it up with an egg in the middle. Meanwhile, you cut a smaller circle inside the circle you just cut out and fry a second, smaller quail egg inside that new hole. One slice of toast, two different eggs, and you’ve got a nice little breakfast for you and your spawn.

*not a secret.

**all the time

I haven’t found eggs small enough to dive in a third layer. Yet.

Get the recipe and technique for Egg-in-a-Hole for You and Your Spawn »

Erdäpfelsalat

Have I mentioned I’m opening a restaurant soon? I am! Wursthall, a German and Austrian-style beer hall is gonna be opening up near my home in San Mateo around February 2018. A while back, I was debating whether to put Austrian or German-style potato salad on the menu. A “research” trip through Austria and Bavaria, where I fell in love with Austrian erdäpfelsalat, helped me decide. It’s looser and creamier than an American or German potato salad, yet contains very little fat. Instead, it’s dressed with vinegar, aromatics, and broth (typically a white beef or chicken broth), along with just a touch of oil.

One problem with making Austrian potato salad in the United States is that it’s impossible to find those uniquely sweet and earthy yellow Austrian potatoes, but I’ve found that so long as pure authenticity of flavor is not your goal (authenticity is way overrated), some good American potatoes can make a salad that’s equally tasty, if a little different.

Get the recipe and technique for Erdäpfelsalat »

New Orleans Red Beans and Rice

Alright, so Alicia may like pasta and vegetables and fruit and meat and bread and cheese and everything else, but she loves beans. She can sit for a full half hour*** at a stretch, diligently picking up a single bean at a time between her thumb and forefinger (the only utensils she’s currently proficient with) and carefully transferring it to her tongue, using her eight baby teeth to mash them up.

I also love beans, and it’s hard to think of a bean dish I love more than New Orleans Red Beans and Rice. Red beans simmered all day with spicy sausage

***It’s amazing how much time compression occurs as a new parent. I get a full half hour of quiet time?!? Think of everything I can accomplish!

Get the recipe and technique for »

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Kenji's Favorite Recipes of 2017

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Kenji's Favorite Recipes of 2017

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[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, unless otherwise noted]

Every year is different, but this year has been extra different for me. I’ve spent a big chunk of my time working on a second book (currently slated for release sometime in 2019). The book has a much stronger emphasis on non-American techniques and recipes than my first book did, which happily coincides with the way I typically like to eat at home. I’ve also been hard at work on the opening of Wursthall (come join us for beer and sausage in San Mateo when we open the doors in February)! And oh yeah, my wife and I also created human life pretty much from scratch and I’ve discovered that I enjoy stay-at-home-dad’ing even more than I enjoy testing recipes and writing all day every day (which is to say, a lot).

So there’s really one thematic element you’re gonna see in this list: Easy and delicious family meals, with a few weekend projects thrown in for good measure.

Pressure Cooker Chile Verde

As a new parent who doesn’t have as much time on his hands to cook as he used to, this is my favorite type of pressure cooker recipe. No pre-cooking, no searing, no simmering, no added liquid to water down flavor, no nothing. Just dump a bunch of roughly chopped ingredients into the cooker, seal her up, and let her go. By the time dinner time rolls around, you’ve got yourself a rich, complex stew with tender chunks of pork bathed in chilies and tomatillos. The best part is you can make as much as your pressure cooker will handle. Spend 15 minutes in the kitchen, then get ready to eat for days.

Get the recipe and technique for Pressure Cooker Chile Verde »

Caldo Verde

“So, what’s this soup? Just potatoes and kale simmered together until they’re mushy? Hmm. Sounds boring,” is what you might be saying to yourself in your head. And yeah. Potatoes and kale sounds kinda boring to me too. Yet when you actually cook up this classic Portuguese soup (and okay, it also gets some onions, chicken broth, and, if you’re so inclined, some chouriço), you’ll watch as those chunks of potato slowly break down and thicken up the soup while the kale reveals flavors you never knew it had. It all transforms into something comforting and hearty without being overly heavy.

Get the recipe and technique for Calo Verde »

3-Ingredient Mac and Cheese

This is one of those “wait, is it really that simple?” recipes. It takes just three ingredients—pasta, cheese, and evaporated milk (in equal parts!)—and ends with a stovetop mac and cheese that is just as creamy, gooey, and delicious as far more complex recipes. Cooking the pasta in barely enough water to cover it and allowing that water to completely evaporate to concentrate starch (an emulsifying powerhouse) is the secret.

Get the recipe and technique for 3-Ingredient Mac and Cheese »

One-Pot Pozole Verde

This is a bright green version of the classic Mexican meat-and-hominy soup. Made by combining several green ingredients (tomatillos, chilies, cilantro, pepitas, etc.) along with chicken and hominy, it all comes together in a single pot. The trick is adding things in the right order and at the right time in order to maximize the flavor of each ingredient and layer them into a cohesive whole.

Get the recipe and technique for One-Pot Pozole Verde »

BraveTart’s Magic Bagels

[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]

I’ve been on my own personal quest to bake the perfect bagel at home ever since moving from New York to California (where the bagel pickings are a whole lot slimmer). Leave it to Stella to publish a recipe that beats any of my attempts. By incorporated a tangzhong—a cooked flour-and-water paste that gets added to the dough—she’s able to greatly increase the shelf-life of the bagels. Most bagels aren’t worth their hole even an hour out of the oven. I’ve eaten Stella’s bagels two days later (toasted whole before slicing, of course; we are not savages who toast sliced bagels) and still got that perfect crisp-on-the-outside, chewy-in-the-middle bagel experience.

P.S. I am still working on my own personal recipe which, depending on how testing continues, may or may not make it into my next book.

Get the recipe and technique for BraveTart’s Magic Bagels »

Kickass Quesadillas

I’ve been making some variation of this style of quesadilla for a couple decades. They’re sort of like microwaving a flour tortilla with cheese except a little more work and a lot less sadness. The first key is to combine additional ingredients and aromatics directly into the grated cheese for even melting and flavor throughout (cilantro and chopped pickled jalapeño are my go-to late-night-snack), then it’s just a matter of using enough oil and managing your heat so your quesadillas end up extra-crispy on the outside and fully-melted and gooey in the middle.

Get the recipe and technique for Kickass Quesadillas »

Detroit-Style Pan Pizza

I’ve been carefully orchestrating Alicia’s pizza-eating experience since before birth, starting with ensuring that my wife Adri ate only the finest pizzas while she was pregnant. Currently I’m using a historical approach to her education. She started with Neapolitan, then moved on to New York-style slices. Next on her agenda is a New Haven-style apizza which would complete her tour of the offerings from the three pizza capitals of the world.

New Haven, New York, and Napoli may be the cheese-and-tomato-topped-bread capitols of the world, but Detroit, with its signature rectangular pies originally baked in blue steel pans used in the automotive industry, certainly deserves a seat at the United Nations of Pizza. My recipe is the culmination of a years-long love affair with Detroit-style pizza, delivering an extra-crispy crust with a tall, airy, and chewy crumb, a balanced tomato sauce, and of course those signature blackened crispy cheese edges. I can’t wait for her to try it.

Get the recipe and technique for Detroit-Style Pan Pizza »

Pasta Primavera

Once a classic, pasta primavera has suffered from the Olive Garden-ification effect where lightness, freshness, and seasonality go out the window for more cheese, more cream, and more year-round uniformity. There’s nothing wrong with creamy dishes you can eat year round, but dammit, I want my pasta primavera to actually taste like spring.

This recipe only works for a few months out of the year when those green spring vegetables—asparagus, peas, fava beans, snap peas, etc.—are at their sweetest, snappiest, and most tender. And what a good few months those are! My version of the dish uses a technique I learned from Melissa Clark at the New York Times, who uses crème fraîche to bind her sauce together. It all gets lightened up with some fresh lemon juice and parsley.

Alicia hasn’t been of eating age during spring yet, but boy does she love pasta and vegetables. I have a feeling she’ll do just fine with this one.

Get the recipe and technique for Pasta Primavera »

Egg-in-a-Hole for You and Your Spawn

OK, here’s a secret*: I really like cooking for Alicia and she really seems to enjoy eating what I cook. Sometimes** I even succumb to the temptation to make everything cute and and put together teeny-tiny mini versions of my food for her. Tiny sandwiches, tiny salads, tiny pancakes, tiny bowls of noodles, tiny quesadillas, tiny stir-fries, etc. This particular one is probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen my own two hands make. You start by cutting a circle out of a slice of bread, then frying it up with an egg in the middle. Meanwhile, you cut a smaller circle inside the circle you just cut out and fry a second, smaller quail egg inside that new hole. One slice of toast, two different eggs, and you’ve got a nice little breakfast for you and your spawn.

*not a secret.

**all the time

I haven’t found eggs small enough to dive in a third layer. Yet.

Get the recipe and technique for Egg-in-a-Hole for You and Your Spawn »

Erdäpfelsalat

Have I mentioned I’m opening a restaurant soon? I am! Wursthall, a German and Austrian-style beer hall is gonna be opening up near my home in San Mateo around February 2018. A while back, I was debating whether to put Austrian or German-style potato salad on the menu. A “research” trip through Austria and Bavaria, where I fell in love with Austrian erdäpfelsalat, helped me decide. It’s looser and creamier than an American or German potato salad, yet contains very little fat. Instead, it’s dressed with vinegar, aromatics, and broth (typically a white beef or chicken broth), along with just a touch of oil.

One problem with making Austrian potato salad in the United States is that it’s impossible to find those uniquely sweet and earthy yellow Austrian potatoes, but I’ve found that so long as pure authenticity of flavor is not your goal (authenticity is way overrated), some good American potatoes can make a salad that’s equally tasty, if a little different.

Get the recipe and technique for Erdäpfelsalat »

New Orleans Red Beans and Rice

Alright, so Alicia may like pasta and vegetables and fruit and meat and bread and cheese and everything else, but she loves beans. She can sit for a full half hour*** at a stretch, diligently picking up a single bean at a time between her thumb and forefinger (the only utensils she’s currently proficient with) and carefully transferring it to her tongue, using her eight baby teeth to mash them up.

I also love beans, and it’s hard to think of a bean dish I love more than New Orleans Red Beans and Rice. Red beans simmered all day with spicy sausage

***It’s amazing how much time compression occurs as a new parent. I get a full half hour of quiet time?!? Think of everything I can accomplish!

Get the recipe and technique for »

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