Archives for July 2009

Sorry for the late notice, but if any of you out there are in NYC, then I’ve been alerted there’s a meetup group. It has 35 members.

http://www.meetup.com/Eating-Paleo-in-NYC/

John Durant, the organizer and host, emailed me some days ago that they were having a BBQ, which I somehow thought was this weekend. Tuns out it was last night, so sorry I didn’t get this out, John. I guess you’ll just have to have another event.

If anyone else is doing this sort of thing, let me know. If there’s enough interest I can create a directory page.

Update: Email from reader Prue Jack in Auckland New Zealand.

Our next meet-up is on:

Sunday Aug 30th at Cafe Massimo Takapuna at 10.30am.

This is just a group of low carbers who met through a messageboard on NZ site Trade Me.

Any other primal/low carbers are very welcome to join us.

This is a prelude to a post on why I now think you should consider incorporating at least some measure of grassfed meats into your paleo eating lifestyle. This is where I’ll get into the issues of sustainability and cost. This, of course, comes on the heels of revelations in seeing the documentary film Food, Inc., which I reviewed extensively. On the same day I saw that film, I went to a local farmers’ market and secured some grassfed meats, beef & lamb.

Here’s the report on how I prepared both, how preparation turned out to be different from grain-finished & fattened meats, and the extent to which we enjoyed them more or less than what you get in your local supermarket.

Grassfed Beef & Lamb

The first one we prepared was the lamb, and those two leg steaks fed four people, accompanied by a green salad with olive oil and fresh lemon.

These were done on the grill, both burners on full high with a good preheat time. While preheating, I put a large amount of butter in a skillet and crushed and then chopped 3-4 large cloves of garlic. I then let the garlic toast in the butter a bit, then I browned the lamb steaks, about a minute or so each side. Then they went off to the grilling and I turned down the heat on the skillet. I then actually grilled them longer than I expected, but I use the feel of the give in the meat to judge doneness and I got a bit worried because it had a lot of give (more rare) far longer then I had expected. Finally, it was done, and then they went right back into the butter and garlic for a quick dipping, then set aside to rest.

Grilled Grassfed Lamb

And finally, here’s how we chose to serve it up.

Grassfed Lamb

I think I speak for everyone present when I say it was fantastic, and for a leg (which I have usually had in the form of a roast), the best leg ever. It came out a nice medium rare and I was surprised it did not overcook.

It tuns out that this must be a characteristic of grassfed and finished meats, because I experienced exactly the same thing with the ribeye steaks, which I also grilled, and which also cooked far longer than I was expecting, but came out to perfect medium rare.  I speculate that the higher intra-tissue fat of grain fed meats heats up faster and hotter than the lean tissue, aiding in a much faster cooking. Unfortunately, I did not get a shot of the inside. It was devoured too quickly.

Grilled Grassfed Ribeye with "Demi-glace" Reduction & Cubed Potatoes Fried in Leaf Lard

The reduction was the very last of my homemade beef bone stock, and with just a tiny dash of dried rosemary. I’m going to have to get going on another batch.

Here’s a final look.

Beef Ribeyes

The most surprising thing to me is that I had always assumed I’d give up flavor and tenderness in exchange for 2-3 times the cost. This turned out to be untrue, as both of these preparations beat grain fed in just about every way I could think of:

1. More forgiving in the preparation.
2. More tender.
3. Tastier by a wide margin.

So, within a day, maybe two, I’ll have a post up dealing with the other issues surrounding grassfed meats, namely: health, sustainability, cost, availability.

I mentioned in the epic-comment post about my carb binge that I’ve been trying to get more protein, and have felt a heightened sense of well being for it (and just for clarification, since it was apparently unclear — for which I will take blame: I was not in any sense doing a Lyle McDonald "refeed").

One thing you hear a lot from those on paleo is that they feel so good. For me, that had begun to wane, a bit. It’s not that I felt bad, just that I wasn’t typically feeling so damn good all the time. This has been for a few months and I’d just chalked it up to things wearing off and getting back to normal. Then Jimmy’s Julia Ross interview got me to thinking. It used to be that I would have my fasts and usually always eat a huge steak or some other form of lots of meat, and I’d graze a lot in the evening and don’t do that much, anymore. In the last few months, I had just been spontaneously eating less, very often not finishing a meal. So, maybe there’s a double edged sword. If we eat naturally, i.e., as an H-G, then perhaps there’s a downside for modern man — a consequence of food at your fingertips. For an H-G, they’re going to feed at every opportunity; for, without good systems for storage, they never know where or when the next meal is coming from.

I found that to the extent I wasn’t really that hungry, I’d fast in-between my fasts. That is, knowing I could source food whenever, it got to be increasingly: maybe later. The imperative to eat at every opportunity is missing in modern life (for a non carb-adict), so, perhaps it is that once you really get solid, you actually have to pay attention to eating even when not particularly hungry.

Hunger has always been the key, to me, but I now find myself wondering if, on the other side of this deal, we need to be mindful of being even a little hungry, which is to say: I don’t have to eat, but I could. I have also found, through experimentation, that even if slightly hungry, once I begin to eat, I can actually really pound it down. It’s like eating something turns a small hunger into a big appetite.

Here’s a couple of examples of high intake breakfasts of late; the second, not so much, but it was heavy in fat.

First up, a round of artisan cured meats & salami from the farmer’s market (from Germany & Spain), some leftover roasted chicken, fresh sauerkraut, and some sage cheese.

Charcuterie Breakfast

In addition, I had this grape tomato salad, tosses with EVOO, a dash of balsamic, and some dried basil & thyme.

Tomato Salad

Next up, this morning — and yea, I need to get some white plate up here at the cabin. It was poached eggs on cottage cheese, homemade Hollandaise sauce (paleo friendly, easy, recipe right here), some artisan salami, grape tomatoes, and a bit of fruit that’s not pictured.

Poached Eggs and Hollandaise

Admittedly, the Hollandaise doesn’t look great, but it did! What happened was that I did just what the recipe cautioned about and let it get to hot, so it curdled, a bit. Trust me: it was the most beautiful creamy before this. Oh, well, the taste was the same.

Not particularly high protein, but decent, and lots of fat. The Hollandaise has 3 egg yolks and an entire cube of butter. I had most of it, Bea some, and there was very little let over.

And here I sit, hours later, and hunger is the last thing on my mind. But I’m gonna eat a big steak tonight, anyway.

Well, not really, but that’s what we jokingly dubbed this dish. Very simple and quick.

Paleo "Fish & Chips"

This was simply wild-caught Alaskan cod fried in a very nice amount of butter, salt & pepper to taste. In the meantime, make a chopped relish of your choice of pickle & red onion. I prefer a French version of gherkin called cornichon.

For the "chips," that’s simply thin spears of asparagus tossed in the fat of your choice (I think I used some melted lard), laid out on a cookie sheet, and placed in the oven at 400 for about 20-30 minutes, then finish off under the broiler until a bit crispy on the outside, like chips.

In this instance, I decided to chop the fish up in large chunks once cooked. The plating is obvious enough. Finally, some good quality organic sour cream gives it the tartar sauce gusto I like so much. Dust it with a little paprika and parsley.

Alaskan Cod with Cornichon & Red Onion Relish and Sour Cream

So we went to a concert Friday night — Dave Mason, and then The Moody Blues. Hell yea! Because of the time frame in which we arrived in Arnold, CA, then had to leave for the show, no time to get dinner (and who wants to fast at a concert???). So, I quickly decided this would be a cheat. Then, I decided to make it an experiment in massive (for me) carb loading.

I’ll give you the background, and it’s going to be a bit long and moderately extensive, OK? …So here goes. My favorite driving activity these days is to catch up on Jimmy Moore’s podcasts. I’m going to get to why Jimmy got me to carb binge, later; but, first, let me divert you (again: many diversions here) for a minute. Number one, if you’re not taking advantage of Jimmy’s gargantuan efforts in his podcast shows, you are missing out on a lot of the very best — if only for its more total human experience: it’s people talking, discussing, which is quite different, perhaps superior in terms of our natural ability to take in, comprehend, and enjoy — far more than just visual input from reading a blog post.

Jimmy: your podcasts are unequalled in terms of a whole experience and high accessibility. They’re entertaining, and eminently valuable — and you have my (and my wife’s) sincere thanks. ‘Takes a lot to get me off of whatever classic rock station I might be able to find along my various ways, but you manage to do it very often. Thank you, Sir, and thank you especially for the quality of guests you are able to command, which, as you probably know, is the biggest part of it. I’m sure you have dozens of interview requests you’d never subject your listeners to. Easily, 80-90% of your podcasts are ones I listen and integrate in full, and some I listen to twice.

So, I would admonish all reader to check these out. Here’s the place, and you can access in different ways. Producing these shows is a lot of work, so I would suggest that if you listen to them and find value in them, as do I, then please consider donating to the effort.

On this particular trip I decided to finally listen to Jimmy’s interview with Lyle McDonald. Here’s the write-up on Jimmy’s blog. Well, I must say that I was highly impressed with this interview in terms of Lyle’s obvious good preparation for it, and also for the utmost respect he showed Jimmy; which, if you’ve ever seen Lyle in comments on his blog or posts in his forum…well, let’s just say I wasn’t expecting this, and particularly so when the topic turned to “metabolic advantage” of very low carbohydrate diets. Lyle was very conciliatory and explained his position quite well.

Alright, so that’s the first part of the setup. Next, one of Lyle’s books is The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook, which I read, tried, and blogged about here, and here. In total, I stayed on it less than a week. I just could not take the blandness of huge amounts of lean protein. But, I’m convinced the diet will shed fat rapidly in the short term. One thing Lyle talked about — both in the book and in the podcast — is episodic carb bingeing to sort of reset metabolism, notch up thyroid function, and capture some other benefits.

So, this was my excuse for doing what I did Friday night: yep, I’m blamin’ it all on Lyle and Jimmy. Gee, thanks, guys.

It started out reasonably enough.

Antipasto Plate

I also had a draft beer, and this plate came with three slices of bread. Bea & I split the whole deal, but I probably had the lion’s share. Then I got my crazy idea. What would it be like to go wild on carbs? So, following this, I had none other than a huge tri-tip sandwich (bread too), a corn dog, and then another beer.

Actually, I felt fine for the duration of the concert, and didn’t even get drowsy. Got home around 11:30 pm, walked the pups, then began feeling really tired ’round midnight and hit the sack. But first, I began getting this tremendous craving for water. Downed two large glasses, then went off to bed. Fell asleep immediately, but then woke up two hours later, 2:00 am or so, thirsty as hell, and with nuclear heartburn as a bonus. It was so bad that I had to resort to baking soda. More water. Went back off to bed, then laid there, tossing & turning, until around 5:30 am, getting up at least three or four more times — to drink more water. Then, the eventual other half of the unpleasantness came, of which I’ll spare you the details…

Finally I got to sleep again, sometime before 6:00 am, and was able to get a decent two hours. Needless to say, I dragged ass all day, yesterday. Went down to breakfast at a local place around 11:00 am, with the intention of taking in an enormous protein load to get myself functioning again. I was screaming hungry, and still thirsty. It was that now unfamiliar, gnawing, nauseating hunger that all carb addicts know so well. I ate three eggs, four sausages, three strips of bacon, a huge mound of cottage cheese, and a few slices of tomato.

Now we’re talking! I began feeling better almost immediately, and continued to feel better — though tired — throughout the day. Now, here I sit this morning in full recovery, not hungry or thirsty a bit. On reflection, I’m wondering if the unending thirst was a function of glycogen storage from the carbs. As we all know, each gram of stored glycogen requires 2-3 times that in water retention. Can anyone speculate on that point?

In all, it was a good experience that I’d actually recommend from time to time for those already on a solid paleo path. It will definitely solidify your approach to a paleo-like lifestyle. I won’t be doing this again anytime soon.

Finally, on the subject of carb addiction, here is another great podcast from Jimmy: his interview with Julia Ross. “Carbohydrates aren’t food, they’re addictive drugs,” says Julia. She has very high success using particular amino acid supplements (protein) to diminish and eventually rid people of cravings for drugs, alcohol, and…carbs. It’s quite an amazing story. I, for one, have been experimenting with eating way more protein the last week or so (she says you can accomplish what her supplementation does by really loading up on the protein). Other than my foray into carb hell on Friday night, I have noticed an increasing sense of well being by eating two very protein intense meals per day, nothing in-between, and virtually no nighttime grazing. Check it out for yourself.

Any comments of shared experiences with carb binges?