Is Paleo Safe for Kids?

http://www.paleoplan.com/2012/09-06/is-paleo-safe-for-kids/

I get this question more than I’d like to admit: Is eating Paleo safe for kids and babies? Allow me to answer a question with a better question: Is eating a Western diet safe for kids? No, it’s not. And yes, eating Paleo is.

Why Wouldn’t It Be?

The top reasons I’m assuming people think eating Paleo might be dangerous for their child or baby are these:

• Not enough nutrients
• Too much meat
• Not enough dairy (in other words, not enough calcium)
• Too much meat
• Not enough sugary snack foods?

Now, I could take this opportunity to make fun of people for being brainwashed by multi-gazillion-dollar marketing schemes and demented health “officials” into believing that Cocoa Puffs made with whole wheat (or whatever) are really the paragon of a good breakfast. Or for believing that milk from a different species is a vital part of a human’sdiet. Or that sugary snacks are a good thing to give kids. Or adults for that matter. But I won’t because I’m a nice person.

It’s Safe

The straight answer to the question, again, is yes. Paleo is safe for children and babies alike. In fact, baby and children humans evolved eating Paleo the same as adult humans did for millions of years. Babies of hunter gatherers were given their mother’s Paleo teat and then their mother’s Paleo food to eat just like all the adults. Our ancestors didn’t grow crops of soy, grains, and sugar just so they could make soy formula and soy crackers and Clif bars and rice cereal for their kids to suckle on before they changed them over to an “adult” diet of meat, fish, veggies, and fruits. You get my point. I strongly believe – ahem… KNOW – that Paleo is safe for kids and babies. They have all the digestive faculties in place to eat Paleo foods (aka “real” foods), and if you make it their only option to eat those foods, most kids won’t hunger strike for very long until they figure out that being hungry sucks.

Having said that…

There are some things you should know.

Babies
For instance, a 6-month old’s first solid food on his Paleo diet shouldn’t be almonds or raw carrots or a big hunk of steak, either. Now maybe if that steak were blended…

And it shouldn’t be super processed rice cereal like you’re told by your doctor. If you read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price, you’ll find that traditional (and generally very healthy) people all over the world have given their children the same whole foods they eat from the get-go. They give their babies spiced foods, fish (even raw fish – gasp!), fish eggs, miso soup, decaffeinated green tea, liver, eggs, fermented soy mash, rice mash, but always there’s a solid protein source in there. Babies are better at digesting protein than carbohydrates before the age of 1, says Chris Kresser in his fantastic resource, The Healthy Baby Code.

Giving such young kids such flavorful foods begs the question: Would American kids like a wider array of foods if they weren’t reared on bland food products like rice, crackers, and rice crackers?

Instead of rice cereal fortified with synthetic nutrients, start with, say, a cooked egg yolk and liver (video). If you’re going Paleo yourself while you’re breastfeeding, I wrote a blog post  on what changes to make in your own diet when you’re breastfeeding.

Kids
In terms of nutritional needs, kids are just like small adults, so they should be eating adult foods; not white foods with fake vitamins in them and pasteurized, lifeless cheese. I have to put my two cents in here and say that while this may be hard to implement in your household if you have kids who only want mac & cheese or else, it’s better you do this now while you can sort of control what goes into their bodies. Be strong and be firm with them when you go Paleo. They’ll get used to it and most likely start to like the foods you give them. Plus, your kids’ waistlines and health will thank you for it later.

Kids and Carbs
Now, people do make mistakes when they put their kids on a Paleo diet, especially if those kids are active. Namely, parents put their little skinny kids on the same weight-loss Paleo meme that they’re on. That is, low carb.  GIVE YOUR KIDS ENOUGH CARBS! If they’re hungry all the time, not growing properly, fatigued, nauseous, or not able to concentrate, you’re A) probably not feeding them enough food in general and B) not feeding them enough carbs and fat. Meat and veggies are great, but just like an endurance athlete needs more carbs, so do your active, growing kids.

Sweet potatoes, squash, banana tapioca crepes, potatoes (yes, potatoes), and plenty of fruit will be your kids’ friends. How much of all of those things really depends on your kid, but I’d shoot for a couple pieces of fruit a day and a small serving of sweet potatoes or one of the other starchy veggies I mentioned above with at least one meal per day. And don’t skimp on those fatty, grass-fed cuts of meat. Kids need more fat than what comes on boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Give them the pork, the good cuts of beef, and some bacon. Coconut milk, coconut oil, olive oil, and avocados will also do the trick. The fat will give them energy.

Nutritional Density of Paleo Diet Compared to Western Diet

I did a comparison of the nutrient density of a typical Western diet and a typical Paleo diet. What I found was that Paleo won on all accounts except for calcium, sodium (not necessarily a bad thing), and vitamin D (because there’s no fortified milk on the diet). I highly recommend you read that post because I go into why that’s not a bad thing more than I will go into it here. I’ll only talk about calcium here because I know it’s on your minds.

Calcium
Basically, Western countries have the highest incidences of osteoporosis AND the highest consumption of dairy products. So what gives?

In another blog post, I discussed how you need more than just calcium to build bones, and not as much calcium as your doctor may be over-recommending to you. Plus, it’s important to know that calcium needs an alkaline environment to be absorbed properly, and when you’re eating a ton of grains, dairy, beans, and sugar, you’re creating an acidic environment.

Also, a lot of the calcium we ingest on a Western diet is bound to phytic acid, which is carried out of the intestines unabsorbed. You only get what you absorb.

Plus, on this particular day that I analyzed, the difference in calcium intake was only 97 mg, with Paleo coming in at 614 mg and the Western diet at 711 mg. Many cultures do well with way under those amounts. Here’s what Mark Sisson of www.marksdailyapple.com has to say about calcium.

You can get a balanced array of calcium and other bone-building minerals from… wait for it… bones. Make some bone broth. It literally takes 1 minute of prep time to make it.

Meat

All I’ll say about meat is that I’ve said it before. Your kid isn’t going to die of rabbit starvation on a balanced Paleo diet. His kidneys won’t fail (unless maybe he already has kidney disease), and he won’t get gout. Read this blog postand this one for more information on why meat is not the devil. Oh, and this one on gout. Having said that, though, you don’t have to be pounding kilos of meat every day to call yourself Paleo. Some people just don’t like meat that much. Fine. Eat less of it, more veggies, more fat, more fruit, and more nuts and seeds (sprouted and soaked, of course) and you’ll be just fine.

In Closing…
From what I hear, parents are often surprised and delighted by how much their kids enjoy the meat and veggie recipes they make for them when they go Paleo. I think we underestimate kids’ appetites for good, nourishing foods. Make some interesting, fun recipes like our Pork Tenderloin with Blueberry Sauce or the Coconut Salmon with Cream Sauce. You might be surprised!

Anyone have anything to share about their own kids’ experiences with going Paleo?

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Paleo Friendly Recipe

Southwestern Frittata

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1/4 cup yellow onion, finely diced

1 small jalapeno, seeds removed and minced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup sweet potato, peeled and grated

1 pound grass fed ground beef

1 tablespoons chili powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 cup salsa verde

12 eggs

Sea Salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350. In a large saute pan, saute the onions and minced jalapeno in the coconut oil over medium heat until the onions are translucent.  Add the ground beef and cook just until it starts to brown and add the grated sweet potato and garlic.  Cook until the beef is completely browned and the sweet potato is soft.  Add the chili powder, cumin, and salsa, stir and cook until heated through.  Taste and season with a little sea salt if desired.  Transfer the meat mixture to a 11×7 glass baking dish and spread the meat mixture evenly over the bottom of the pan.  In a large mixing bowl, beat together the 12 eggs add pour over the meat mixture in the baking dish.  Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes.  Uncover and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes or until the eggs are set in the middle when you jiggle the pan.

Enjoy!

Paleo Friendly Recipe

Easy Eggplant Bolognese

4 tablespoons bacon fat or coconut oil

2 medium sized Italian eggplants peeled and cubed (approximately 3-4 cups)

1 red bell pepper cut into bite size pieces

1 small red onion, sliced

1 pound ground beef

1 pound ground pork

1 teaspoon sea salt + more to taste

2 tablespoons red wine (you can sub with balsamic vinegar if you like)

3-4 garlic cloves minced

1 ½ cups tomato sauce

1 tablespoon dried oregano

Black pepper to taste

1. In a large soup pot, heat 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat over medium heat.  Add the eggplant and saute until tender, approximately 5-8 minutes.

2. Remove the eggplant from the pan and set aside.

3. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of bacon fat to the pot and saute the bell peppers and onions until tender, about another 5-8  minutes.  Remove the peppers and onions from the pot and set aside as well.

4. Crumble the ground pork and ground beef into the pot and brown. Add the teaspoon of salt and stir.

5. Add the red wine and garlic and bring to a simmer.  Stir the simmering meat and wine until the alcohol smell starts to subside.

6. Add the eggplant, peppers, and onions back to the pan with the meat, pour in the tomato sauce, add the oregano, and some black pepper and bring to a simmer.

7. Taste and season with more sea salt if desired.

8. Serve in bowls and enjoy!

9. Feel free to serve over sauted or steamed veggies of your choice like zucchini, broccolini, julienned carrots, kale, etc.

6 reasons to go Grain Free!

6 Reasons to Go Grain Free

We all love bread, rice and pasta and most of us grew up believing that whole grains are health foods. It is hard to think of life without them, but when people start to understand the damage that these starches are causing it is easier to “just say no” to grains.

Going grain free is a no-brainer

 Lectins- Grains are seeds that are trying to get through the digestive tract intact so they can be planted. Seeds have special layers that protect them from being broken down by animals. When we eat these lectin containing grains all our lives, it sets the stage for leaky gut syndrome where the villi of the small intestine become damaged and inflamed. A leaky or permeable gut lining lets undigested food particles into the blood steam creating an alarm reaction in the body. These rogue food particles bind with bodily tissues and the immune system begins an attack against our own organs, which sets the stage for conditions like IBS, Crohn’s, colitis, thyroiditis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and arthritis.
Gut Flora: A diet high in grains can contribute to altered gut flora, where harmful bacterial strains like E. coli can take over. Bacteria in the colon feed on starchy foods like bread and other grains creating a breading ground for parasites and yeast overgrowth. This dysbiosis is an imbalance of beneficial flora in the large intestine and is one of the the reasons people have weight loss resistance and never ending carb cravings. Negative bacteria can even proliferate into the small intestine (where they are not supposed to be at all) creating gas bloating and never ending food sensitivities/intolerances.
Phytic Acid- is found in the hull of grains (and beans) and humans are not able to digest phytic acid. Phytic acid binds to important minerals such as magnesium, calcium, iron and zinc, blocking our ability to absorb them which sets the stage for many disease states.
Gluten: is a protein in wheat that has increased due to genetic manipulations performed by farmers starting in the 1970′s. These changes to the wheat kernel make people more likely to have a negative reactions when eating this new version of an ancient food. Many people have silent Celiac disease where they have no noticeable symptoms until they end up with a chronic condition. The testing for Celiac disease is very unreliable and doctors wait until there is major damage to the small intestine and years of patient discomfort before making a diagnosis. It is best to rely on your own elimination diet results to see if going grain free makes you feel better.
Diabetes: Two slices of whole wheat bread can raise blood sugar more than eating teaspoon of pure table sugar. All bread (white and wheat) is just like candy or donuts to our delicate metabolisms. Our body tightly regulates blood sugar levels and eating a high carbohydrate diet wears out the pancreas increasing the risk of diabetes. This blood sugar roller coaster create a chronic stress state leading to increased cortisol and belly fat storage.
Cross Reactivity: Removing all grains from your diet may seem severe but the problem is when a person has a damaged and leaky gut lining any food resembling gluten can cause major irritation. The structures of most grains are so similar that the body can not tell the difference and has an increased immune response to corn, rice, quinoa, oats, ect. Another problem is that so many other grains are contaminated with gluten during processing. By removing all grains, the small intestine is able to heal so it can get the nutrients it needs to rebuild the villi and diffuse the body’s need to self attack.

Going grain free is easy !

How do you go grain free?
Does it seem like you bloat up or get gas no matter what you eat? Are you always constipated and have low energy?  It may be time for a gut healing protocol which includes a grain free diet. If you are wanting to go grain free but are finding it a little overwhelming, I recommend a great online class by Dr. Jill Tieman a nutritionist and chiropractor who specializes in the Gut and Psychology Syndrome and SCD: Breaking the Vicious Cycle grain free protocols for healing food allergies, auto-immune conditions,  autism and more.
What you get:

• 12 weeks of online classes
• Over 80 video tutorials
• Over 150 written, printable recipes
• ACT NOW and receive 2 BONUS VIDEOS

Register before Sept 25 for the best deal!
Use coupon code NOGRAINS for an additional $20 off. For more info click here.
The Class includes lessons on:
Lesson 1: Kitchen Basics
Lesson 2: Breakfast
Lesson 3: Condiments
Lesson 4: Lunch
Lesson 5: Staples
Lesson 6: Chicken
Lesson 7: Sides & Sauces
Lesson 8: Meat
Lesson 9: Snacks
Lesson 10: Fish
Lesson 11: Soups & Salads
Lesson 12: Desserts
For more info see this video:

Sign up here to get started on your healing journey! This class makes going grain free easy and tasty!

Yes! You can get in right now for only $129! That’s a whopping $70 off — which comes out to less than $11 per class.

Sources:

Proteinpower.com

Marksdailyapple.com

Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight


Disclosure: cmp.ly/4 and cmp.ly/5

Photos courtesy of RealFoodforager.com

Homemade Paleo Mayo Cooking Demo!!

June 20, 2011 By Sarah 274 Comments

Finally, a post about food!!  Hurray hurray, jump up and down but don’t get too excited because this post is a lesson – a very important paleo mayonnaise lesson and one that is worth learning for those folks who figured that their creamy white blissful days of mayo were over after hopping on the paleo wagon.  Most decent tasting mayonnaise options that you’ll find in the market are made with soybean oil and really should be avoided because soybean oil is only good for, well, nothing that I can think of… But I promise, if you follow my mayonnaise making directions very carefully you’ll be back to loving the creamy condiment for dips, sauces, spreads, and salad dressings for several of your paleo creations included but not limited to tuna salad, chicken salad, sauce for fish, or to spread on your mushroom sandwiches.

Ok, here we go!  I’ll list ingredients and directions below and feel free to watch paleo mayo making in action on the video as I add a twist at the end so it might be worth the few minutes it takes to get through it.

Also, as mentioned in the video, one concern that people have about making mayonnaise is the fact that you have to use raw eggs.  The reality is that getting sick from raw eggs is extremely rare, especially if you are using farm fresh pasture raised eggs, click here for more information.  If you are still concerned or if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, I would recommend pasteurizing your eggs.  Click here to learn the process of pasteurizing eggs which is a whole lot easier than you might think!

Paleo Mayo

Secret for better tasting mayo, do not use extra virgin olive oil but instead use a light tasting olive oil, or a mild tasting oil such as walnut oil.  Also, try using a hand held mixer instead of a blender if you blender gets hot quickly which can mess up the emulsification process.

2 eggs

2 cups light tasting olive oil or walnut oil

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon yellow mustard

1 teaspoon sea salt

1/3 teaspoon cayenne pepper

In a blender, add the eggs, vinegar, and mustard and blend together well – leave the blender running and slowly slowly slowly drop by drop or very slow drizzle add the oil.  BE PATIENT!!  Do not dump all the oil in quickly and give up!!  When the mixture begins to emulsify or thicken, only then can you be a bit faster about pouring in the olive oil but still take your time.  Turn the blender off once all the olive oil is in and the mayonnaise is thickened to your desired consistency.  Add the salt and cayenne pepper and mix well or blend again for another few seconds.

Now for the fun part – variations!!!  Always wait until after your mayonnaise is thick before you add seasoning but here is when you can get creative.  Add dried of fresh dill, fresh basil, or cilantro, garlic and onion, hot sauce, or even curry powder to make your own spreads, sauces and dips for just about everything as mentioned earlier in the post. Now, watch my video to see the fun twist that I put on our homemade mayonnaise!

See video:  http://youtu.be/TIbnNzy1XCo

 

How Common is Gluten Sensitivity?

I’ve long suspected that everyone has some degree of sensitivity to gluten, even if they’ve never been formally diagnosed and even if they don’t notice any overt symptoms after eating it. Now we have concrete evidence that non-celiac gluten sensitivity actually exists. My own story was that of a lifetime grain-eater who defended my “right” to eat grains until I was 47 – until the evidence was just too overwhelming to ignore. Once I gave them up as part of a 30-day experiment, lo and behold, my arthritis cleared up, my lifelong IBS went away, and my occasional GERD disappeared. Ditching grains, especially wheat, changed my life for forever and made me understand how easy it is for so many people to overlook this possible problem. A recent study, which I highlighted in Weekend Link Love, confirmed the existence of non-celiac wheat sensitivity. Subjects without the atrophied villi (tiny projects that line the intestines and help absorb nutrients) characteristic of celiac and without positive tests for various markers that indicate celiac experienced gluten-related symptoms after a blinded wheat challenge. It doesn’t give us much of a clue as to the prevalence of sensitivity, but it establishes that such a thing might exist among the general population.
It’s not even the only study. It’s just the latest of many to establish and/or hint that non-celiac gluten sensitivity exists:

• “Spectrum of gluten-related disorders: consensus on new nomenclature and classification.” (2012)
• “Gluten causes gastrointestinal symptoms in subjects without celiac disease: a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial.” (2011)
• “Is gliadin really safe for non‐coeliac individuals? Production of interleukin 15 in biopsy culture from non‐coeliac individuals challenged with gliadin peptides.” (2007)

But how prevalent is it? We know that celiac disease is on the rise; what about gluten sensitivity?
First, before we get into numbers, let’s go over the difference between celiac and gluten sensitivity:
Celiacs have persistent and profound perforation of the intestinal lining (at least as long as they’re eating gluten) as well as atrophy of the villi, thereby allowing foreign proteins – including, but not limited to, gluten– constant access into the bloodstream and impairing nutrient absorption. Folks with “mere” gluten sensitivity have transient and milder intestinal permeability, or sometimes none at all.
Celiac is an autoimmune disease that inspires the immune system to attack the body’s own tissues, while in gluten sensitivity, the immune attacks are directed solely against components of the diet (gliadin).
Celiac disease seems to involve the “adaptive immune system,” while gluten sensitivity involves activation of the “innate immune system.”
In celiac, the inflammatory cytokine IL-17 is elevated. In gluten sensitivity, it is not.
So gluten sensitivity and celiac disease are two distinct “clinical entities” with the same environmental trigger – gluten – and many of the same symptoms:

• Diarrhea
• Bloating
• Abdominal pain
• Eczema
• Headache
• Foggy brain
• Fatigue
• Depression
• Joint pain
• Numbness in the extremities

And sometimes the symptoms aren’t obviously connected to gluten (or anything you did or ate). It’s tough to ignore persistent diarrhea that precipitates (pun intended) upon gluten ingestion. That’s an obvious symptom that may clue you in, especially if you’re aware of the potential problems with gluten, you’ve just eaten something containing it, and you’re pondering all this while filling the toilet. But gastrointestinal symptoms don’t always present themselves in gluten sensitivity, as in this study, where 13% of subjects with gluten ataxia (a kind of neuropathy) had no GI symptoms. I mean, who hasn’t felt brain fog from time to time, or been tired in the middle of the day, or had some itchy rashy red skin, or had sore joints before? Most people would never think to link these to the bagel they just ate (ok; you guys might).
Testing for gluten sensitivity is tough because there’s no real standard yet. You’ll notice that the recent study didn’t determine gluten sensitivity solely by running patients’ labs and looking for a certain figure; they had to painstakingly and laboriously eliminate confounding variables (like celiac) through extensive lab testing, and then run a double blind wheat challenge to see if symptoms still arose. That grand, single overarching lab test doesn’t exist, not yet anyway.
Well, that’s not exactly true. There are tests that measure the presence of anti-gliadin IgA (a gliadin antibody) in the blood and in the stool. Antibodies in the blood mean that gliadin made it through the intestinal lining into the blood, where the body mounted a defense against it; antibodies in the stool indicate the presence of antibodies in the gut, where the body has mounted a defense. Gut antibodies, however, come before blood antibodies. For that reason, fecal antibody tests are regarded as more accurate for testing gluten sensitivity, because blood antibodies only show up after significant intestinal damage has allowed gliadin to pass through. You could test positive for fecal antibodies and negative for blood antibodies if your intestinal lining remained fairly intact.
One study found that around 12% of healthy people’s blood samples tested positive for antibodies to IgA. Fecal tests, however, indicate that around 29% of healthy people test positive. If the fecal antibody tests are accurate and reflective of gluten sensitivity, that’s nearly a third of Americans!
There’s also a genetic component to gluten sensitivity and celiac, the HLA-DQ gene. According to some reports, almost every permutation of the HLA-DQ gene is associated with some manner of gluten sensitivity, particularly the haplotypes HLA-DQ2 and HLA-DQ8. Only HLA-DQ4 has never been linked to any form of gluten sensitivity, and less than 1% of the American population possesses a homozygous HLA-DQ4/4. If that holds true, then the vast majority of Americans have the genetic potential toward gluten sensitivity.
Of course, when you consider that everyone – regardless of genetic proclivity toward autoimmunity – releases zonulin, the regulator of intestinal permeability, when our intestinal lining is exposed to gliadin (a component of gluten), a universal response to gluten looks likelier. Sure, we all know plenty of people who can eat a sandwich without complaining, or that guy who claims he could never live without wheat. Gluten and related fragments may be getting through the intestinal lining in these people, but their immune systems mop them up pretty handily before they can do much damage. But what happens if their immune system is impaired, maybe because of a period of chronic stress or overtraining? What happens if their microbiomes are ravaged by antibiotics and poor diet and thereby absent the bacterial species necessary to fully degrade gluten? There’s no clinical trial tracking the effects of usually healthy people undergoing chronic stress or antibiotics on their sensitivity to gluten, but people are stressed, people are overworked, and their guts are messed up. It’s hurting our health in many different ways, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a lot more undiagnosed gluten sensitivity out there because of it.
It’s conceivable that gluten could be doing damage and causing constant, low-grade inflammation without you even knowing it. This is why folks who go Primal and give up wheat and other gluten-containing grains become more “sensitive” to wheat upon reintroduction. It’s not that going Primal has suddenly made them intolerant of gluten; it’s likelier that going Primal has made them more sensitive to their gluten sensitivity. It was probably always there, but they never knew what they were feeling until they removed it and then tried to reintroduce it.
As for figuring out if you’re gluten sensitive, I suppose you could go for one of the stool or blood tests provided by EnteroLab or Cyrex Labs (although not everyone is enamored with EnteroLab). But honestly? The gold standard is to just not eat gluten for a few weeks to a month and then reintroduce it and see how you feel. If any strange symptoms pop up (see list above), you’re probably sensitive to gluten. If you want further clarification at this point, then go for the tests. Just try the diet first. It’s gonna be your best (and probably the only necessary) lens.
We don’t have any real solid answers, sadly, just hints. But isn’t that how questions of human physiology tend to play out? It might be 12%, or maybe 30%, or perhaps even a higher (or lower) percentage of the population. Whatever the number, I know that grains don’t serve me well, and they probably aren’t doing you any favors either. So try giving them up for 30 days and seeing how you feel. After all, you aren’t missing out on anything nutritionally by avoiding gluten, except for some potential nasty health issues down the line.
That’s what I’ve got, folks. What do you think? Are you gluten sensitive? Let me know in the comments, and thanks for reading!


Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-common-is-gluten-sensitivity/#ixzz25cnJSoYg

Article on the Paleo Diet

Even if you don't follow the news, you probably know celebrities are a breed of super-humans whose interests and lifestyles are infinitely more interesting than yours or ours. In Celeb-Nerdy, we encourage these wonderful creatures to break out their LARPing costumes, sealed homemade baseball cards, or their obscure Navajo banjo collections to geek out on their top-secret hobbies. In this edition, provocateur blogger and self-proclaimed "professional asshole" Tucker Max tells us about his love affair with the paleo diet.

Never heard of the paleo diet? Max explains: "Generally speaking, paleo prescribes completely cutting out all grains and processed sugar. You eat a little bit of fruit, a ton of vegetables, and then specific types of animals, e.g. grass-fed beef. If a cow eats corn, you might as well just eat the f***ing corn. Avoiding grains does no good if you're eating animals that eat grains."

So, are you on a diet then? Are you watching your figure?

[Laughs.] I'm not on a diet. The whole concept of dieting is fundamentally bankrupt. I live a certain lifestyle and it all started by accident. It actually started with fighting. I moved to LA in 2007 and was there for two years dealing with the [I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell] movie and I f***ing hated LA, dude. I hated everything about it. Everything but the weather.

“I'm not on a diet. The whole concept of dieting is fundamentally bankrupt.”

I'm not really good with dealing with negative emotions, you know? I'm not the Buddha. One of my buddies out there did Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. You know what UFC and MMA cage fighting is? It's become pretty mainstream, but this was the beginning of '07 when it was not quite as mainstream as it is now. Jiu-Jitsu is sorta a component of MMA. But he's like, "Why don't you come and do this?" And I was like, "Come on, I'm not going to take off my shirt and roll around with a bunch of sweaty naked dudes. If you wanna be gay, be gay, but don't do that." [Laughs.] He was like, "You're an idiot. This has nothing to do with that. This is real fighting." I didn't believe him.

So I go in and of course I get my ass handed to me. I went back the next day because I was pissed off, and I fell in love with it because it's so difficult and cognitively taxing. But at the same time it's the most intense, ridiculous workout ever. It hits you in a primal spot that nothing but sex and eating do. Those are the three things humans were designed to do: Fight, eat, and f***.

Real fighting, man. I grew up on sports. I played basketball in college. I love sports, but this is nothing like sports. Sports are just fighting with a ball. So I guess I was 31, and all the guys I was fighting were early 20s and teens. It's hard on the body. I was having to take four Advil to get out of bed in the morning. I wasn't even doing it professionally; it was just a hobby. I was going three or four times a week.

So, I go to my buddy Tim Ferriss who wrote The 4-Hour Workweek and The 4-Hour Body. He's been training all kinds of MMA people for years. I'm like, "Dude, what do you do for your body?" At that point in my life I was eating like any normal person. He was like, "There are two things you should do: Take fish oil and eat a slow-carb diet."

I start supplementing fish oil, and it was f***ing miraculous. I had seriously intense joint pain and so much soreness. With fish oil, it was all gone. I'm pretty inquisitive and empirical so I read up on it. Apparently most Western diets are seriously omega-3 deficient. What that does is cause a lot of inflammation in the body and some other issues. All the inflammation was gone.

I read more and more into it and was like, "If just doing these two things created this change in my body..." I was already working out intensely, fighting, and I probably went from 195 to 185 in about a month. It's not like I was trying to lose weight. I was always eating as much as I always had; I just shifted what I was eating. I'm never going to go on any sort of program where it's like, "Restrict your caloric intake." F*** you. That's never going to happen.

But once I started doing this, I started feeling so much better. My brain felt like it worked better. Everything about me improved. So I kinda went down the rabbit hole, and I started reading up on diet and nutrition from alternate sources. Art De Vany, Robb Wolf, and Loren Cordain, they didn't invent it but they kinda popularized the concept of paleo eating. I realized that if you're just a normal person, and you have the normal ideas about diet and nutrition, everything you know is wrong.

“I realized that if you're just a normal person, and you have the normal ideas about diet and nutrition, everything you know is wrong.”

The food pyramid, with eight servings of grain a day? I can go through the science with you, but the fact is that grains are very toxic to humans. They'll keep you alive, but they're one of the worst things to eat that isn't going to kill you immediately. I was skeptical at first, but the more and more I looked at the science and tested it on myself, I realized they were f***ing right. The whole concept behind paleo eating is as humans we evolve in a certain ecological niche, and our bodies are to do certain things and eat certain foods. The world that we live in today is very, very dissimilar that we've evolved to occupy. They're not saying we should go live in f***ing caves and not have antibiotics anymore, but to remove the things that are bad for you and substitute them with things that are good for you.

What's the most expensive purchase you've made to support this lifestyle?

Well at this point, I've fundamentally changed my lifestyle so it works around this. But like, cage-free eggs are a f***ing fraud. A lot of chickens are literally held in a cage and poop out f***ing eggs and they're overcrowded. Those chickens cannot live outside a barn. F***ing crazy, dude. They can't live outside.

So, I love eggs. The eggs I buy are from a local farm called Jeremiah Cunningham's World's Best Eggs in Austin. This guy has special chickens that are like wild chickens. He doesn't feed them grain. He leaves his chickens out in the field and they do what chickens are supposed to: eat bugs. It's like $6 a dozen for these eggs. So I'm like, "All right, motherf*****." So not only did I try these eggs to see if they tasted better, but I went and bought the regular awful grocery-store eggs that are bulls****. Non-organic. It was shocking the difference in taste. Shocking.

You're obviously pretty enthusiastic about this, but was there ever a time when you've understated your opinion when asked about it? Or have you ever almost changed your mind about it?

No. I did this slowly. I started in '07, and I would say only in the last six months I made a big, big breakthrough. I couldn't get below 175 and 10 percent body fat. I knew there was a level below where I was. I actually started on the warrior diet, which is a way of eating paleo. It's the same food; I just ate a little differently.

Warrior diet is where you eat nothing in the morning, maybe some coffee and some sauerkraut — that's what I just ate. For lunch, maybe some raw vegetables. Spinach, radishes, preferably high ANDI-score vegetables. Kale, stuff like that. And then at night, I eat like a big meal. I'm going to Parkside tonight, and the menu is like bone marrow, sweet bread, Texas lamb. Stuff like that. I'll probably have a 3,000-calorie dinner.

How long did it take you to get used to eating coffee and sauerkraut in the same sitting?

[Sighs.] That's another aspect. Fermented foods. The big paleo thinkers haven't really figured out fermented foods yet. Paleo is so new. It changes almost monthly. A lot of details added, a lot of refinements. Loren Cordain was very, very much against saturated fat a couple years ago, but now he's actually reversed his position.

But here's the thing about fermented foods. I learned this from Seth Roberts. I wouldn't call him a leader in the paleo movement, but he intercepts with them on certain things he's studied. You understand how most of the digestion in our guts is done by bacteria? Well, that's gotta come from somewhere because our bodies don't make it. Because of the FDA and the fear of these bacteria, everything is pretty much devoid of fermented food. And that's super, super-bad for health. But when I started eating fermented food, all kinda cool stuff started happening. Especially kombucha. And sauerkraut, miso, natto, there's all sorts of ways you can get it. But you need it.

“You understand how most of the digestion in our guts is done by bacteria? Well, that's gotta come from somewhere because our bodies don't make it.”

But here's the thing. If you buy processed foods or eat fast food once a week, your body is so addicted to carbs and used to being overwhelmed by MSG that if you jumped into what I was doing it would be a system shock. But dude, I didn't do this overnight. I eased into it.

Look. I'm not a f***ing fruitcake. I understand that Snickers bars are f***ing delicious. No fact about paleo is going to ever change the fact that Snickers are f***ing delicious. So once a month or something I'm going to eat a f***ing Snickers bar because they're f***ing delicious. But even when I eat them I'm going to get a little bit sick because they're so overwhelmingly flavored. The taste is so intense and so sweet. I'll get a bit of a stomachache because I'm just not used to it anymore.

Do you have any other guilty pleasures like that, but they might give "normal" people a bit of a system shock like you described?

You should see my house. For the most part what I eat is super-dark organic dark chocolate. At some point dark chocolate is just disgusting. It's gotta have some sugar in it, but somewhere between 70 and 80 percent is what's palatable. But three years ago I would've spit that out. I would've needed 40 to 50 percent.

“Look. I'm not a f***ing fruitcake. I understand that Snickers bars are f***ing delicious. No fact about paleo is going to ever change the fact that Snickers are f***ing delicious.”

Is there anything you're trying to develop a taste for right now?

About two months ago I started on just raw vegetables for lunch. If you looked at my f***ing thing, it looks like what a sheep would eat. Radishes, beets, stuff like that. There's just no way when you first start eating that stuff that that's going to be a super-delicious and appealing lunch. [Laughs.] But I've been trying it because I wanted to see if I could get below 10 percent body fat. That's how I did it, getting to the next level. I'm like shredded now. It's kinda ridiculous. But vegetables taste a lot better to me now. It's like... neutral.

What's one of the most surprising experiences you've had in finding out someone else had this passion in common with you?

You know what's funny, dude? I've gotten to the point now where I can look at someone and tell. Paleo is not mainstream yet but I think it will be in the next five years. But I can look at someone and tell you. Especially the ones that are hardcore. They just have an energy and a vibrance and a skin tone and a musculature. It's like they stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, even if they're not like model-hot. They look like... Greek statues or something. I'm not that built, dude. I'm a muscular dude but I look like a decathlete. Not a body builder. I don't look like I'm taking steroids or something.

This morning I woke up, I was 171 pounds. I'm the strongest I've ever been. I'm 35 years old and I'm in better shape than I was at 25 or at 15. I'm at eight percent body fat. I work out, like, not counting fighting, maybe an hour a week. A week. Not a day. A week. A week. Like four times, 15 minutes apiece. I have like the most ridiculous six-pack I've ever had. And dude, it's not like I was a fatty in high school and college. I was an athlete. I earned 10 letters in high school. It's not like I ate great, but I didn't eat terrible either. My lipid level? My blood tests are so good that my endocrinologist didn't believe it at first. She said no one can have a triglyceride level this low. And I eat liver. Organ meat is so, so important if you're eating paleo. It's where you get a lot of your nutrients.

I'm the strongest I've ever been. I'm 35 years old and I'm in better shape than I was at 25 or at 15.

But I can go up to a girl and be like, "You're paleo, aren't you?" And she'll look at me for a second and be like, "How did you know!"

Even though it isn't mainstream, what sort of common misconceptions or reactions do you run into from people when they find this out about you?

It doesn't have a demonization about it yet. People just think it's weird at this time. If they don't know what it is, and they're suspicious of it, they just think it's weird. People are just like, "Why would you eat a liver or a beef heart?" I try to explain that it's highly nutritious and etc. etc., and they don't get it. And then I'll be like, "How old do you think I am?" They'll say, "I dunno? 28?" I'll say, "No, I'm 35. And you're 22 and you look like you're 30." And it's not my genetics. I'm not Johnny Depp or something. My parents look like average people. I have pretty average genetics.