Article Page - Dairy Intolerance

Even before we heard of the Paleo Diet the male half has been telling me too much cheese is no good.  He never went into detail on the why....he just said "can cause constipation"...and I never asked him why he was so against it since I love dairy products.

Some Paleo folks cut out dairy, some reduce their dairy, some will only use raw products, etc.  I haven't seen and haven't really looked for raw milk, etc here in Hawaii and I'm not sure I love dairy enough to pay the extra cost for it either...so we're choosing to cut out as much dairy as we can.  The results -- as long as we're not having a voggy day I seem to experience less post nasal drip which is great!

I'll have to keep tabs on what the male half is eating when we're not together (i.e. - at work, on business trips, etc.) because his sinus problems are still there...then again, we've had a week of bad vog...so I'll check on his sinuses again once we get the vog out of our system.

This is an interesting and informative article about dairy intolerance.   We hope to post more articles on dairy intolerance soon.  A month or so ago the male half and I had a conversation about what was making his sinuses clog up.  We ran down what he ate that evening and decided it had to be the ice cream he snuck in since that was the only thing he ate that he doesn't normally eat.  This led to a search on "does dairy effect sinuses"...I found a great article which I cannot seem to find again...but I'll keep looking!

Paleo Crockpot Pork Chops, Bacon and Apples

Crockpot Pork Chops , Bacon and Apples

We enjoyed this recipe...can't say we loved it, but it was tasty and different for us.

We removed a lot of the fat from our pork chops -- of course, our pork chops turned out a little dry.  Well, I should say some came out dry and some came out almost dry.  No complaints from the male half of this couple though...he was happy to have something different.  We also cooked it quickly - 4 hours on high, but wish we had more time to slow cook it.   We found many recipes online for Crockpot Pork Chops, Bacon and Apples -- then came up with our own version.

Will definitely try other pork chop/bacon/apple recipes in the future.

We ate this while in Dukan Consolidation but if you feel it's too much fat for you, you can wait until your weight has stabilized.  This dish didn't effect our weight at all.  We had these pork chops with steamed broccoli.

RECIPE:
Serves 4
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low

4-5 small lean pork chops, some fat removed
4 strips bacon, cut into large chunks
2 apples, cut into 1" pieces (or around there)
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 small yellow onion, sliced
salt and pepper to season the pork chops
1/2 t. chili flakes

Place apples, garlic, onion, bacon and chili flakes into a lined crock pot.  Season pork chops with salt and pepper, place them in the pot.  Cover and cook for 4 hours on high or preferably 6-8 hours on low.

Enjoy!

Paleo Banana Bread

Grain-Free Banana Bread

We loved this recipe!

When we first looked into the Paleo diet, one of the first recipe blogs we came across was Civilized Caveman's blog.  What a find!  George has a great inspirational story and he comes up with some fabulous recipes!

I had been bugging the male half of this couple to incorporate more Paleo foods into his diet.  Weekday breakfasts are always a little tough for us...he only likes to eat certain things at work for breakfast.  I knew he loved bananas so I decided to try the Civilized Caveman's Paleo Banana Bread and wow, it is close to banana bread made with white flour!

If you're on the Dukan Diet, definitely try this once you get to Consolidation.  I'm still trying to lose weight, so I sampled half a slice and the male half enjoyed the rest of the loaf for his breakfast.  I offered to make Banana Bread French Toast for him...but he doesn't like to eat French Toast at work.  It has no added sweeteners!  I liked it as is, the male half of this couple drizzled organic honey on his.

NOTE: We made a second batch of this for the male half of this couple.  Don't skimp on the bananas...we were shy 1/2 c. or so of bananas and wow, it makes a difference.  The second batch is drier than the first.  It's not horrible, but not as fabulous as the first loaf.  We didn't have enough bananas and read a comment posted by another blogger on the Civilized Caveman's site that they used less bananas and it still came out great.  We wouldn't recommend it!

RECIPE:
Makes 1 loaf
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Bake Time: 30-40 minutes (check for doneness)

2 1/2 c. mashed ripe bananas (approx 3-4 bananas)
4 eggs
1/2 c. almond butter
4 T. grass-fed butter or coconut oil, melted
1 T. cinnamon
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1 t. vanilla
pinch of pure sea salt

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Grease a metal loaf pan.

Combine bananas, eggs, almond butter and grass-fed butter until smooth - we used a handheld mixer.  Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Pour batter into greased pan and bake for 30-40 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Ours cooked in 30 minutes (landlady installed a new range!).  Check for doneness with a toothpick.

Let cool, cut and serve.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Articles Page - Paleo Diet Info.

We've mentioned this page before, but now that we have a page to collect articles and posts, thought we'd post it.  We read a couple times on Flamidwyfe's blog about the Paleo diet...sounded interesting, so almost an entire year later I decided to look into what the Paleo Diet was all about.  This is one of the first article/post we came across.  It was informative, in layman's terms and humorous (not to the point the humor discredited the post).  I emailed it to the male half of this couple and said "let's discuss over lunch".  He read it and that same day we were discussing the pluses and minuses of trying the Paleo Diet.  

The male half actually read up on information similar to the Paleo Diet when his father had bypass surgery years ago.  The dietician his father saw not only recommended exercise and a low fat diet, but he encouraged "cleaner" eating.  While the male half hasn't committed to trying the Paleo Diet 100%, he will eat the Paleo/Dukan meals we make and has even tried the baked goods I've been baking for him.

Our lives have become a little crazier, so we have even less time to cook but as soon as things get back to normal I am going to push for us to eat Paleo for all meals.

Hope you enjoy nerdfitness' rundown of the Paleo Diet.

Dukan Crockpot Enchilada Stew (it's Paleo too!)

Enchilada Stew

We loved this recipe!

This recipe came from a Paleo site, Paleomg.com.  She blogger is pretty funny and we've tried a couple of her recipes...very good!  We actually tried this recipe back while I was getting over an illness so we never worked on a post for it.  It was very tasty, but a little too spicy for us so we added an additional can of tomato sauce.

This made a LOT of food for the two of us.  Leftovers went into a frittata and the rest in the freezer. The male half of this couple enjoyed his stew with a couple slices of avocado.  We left out the coconut oil since we didn't have any, but the stew still came out great!

RECIPE:
Serves a lot (depends on how you eat it...I ate it as is, the male half had his with brown rice.)
Prep time: 10-30 minutes (we removed fat from our chicken)
Cook Time: 6-8 hours on low

Enchilada Stew

2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs (some fat removed, too much fat removed will result in a very dry chicken dish)
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 small green bell pepper, chopped
2 jalapenos, seeds removed, chopped
1 - 4oz can chopped green chiles
1 - 14 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 - 7 oz can tomato sauce
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. ground cumin
1 T. chili powder (use less if you prefer less heat)
2 t. dried oregano
salt and pepper, to taste
bunch of cilantro, for garnish, chopped
avocado, sliced (if you're not in Cruise)

Rinse and pat dry chicken.  Place chicken in a lined crock pot.  Add the rest of the ingredients on top the chicken in any order.  Cover and cook on low for approximately 6 hours.  Shred chicken before serving.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Crockpot Cilantro Lime Chicken (it's a Paleo recipe too!)

Crockpot Cilantro Lime Chicken

We have mixed feelings about this one...mostly because we didn't follow the recipe all the way and we're guessing that may be partly why it didn't come out to our liking.

This is a very flavorful marinade, but it was too lime-y for us.  It may be because we used 8 boneless chicken thighs instead of a whole chicken...but one of us doesn't like looking at or touching a whole chicken!  I'm hoping someone else will try it with the whole chicken because the recipe we found, the photo on the blog made the chicken look so yummy!   Here's the original recipe.

Here's what we did:

RECIPE:
Serves 4
Prep time: 15 minutes plus overnight marinading
Cook time: 6 hours on low

8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, most of the fat removed

Dry Rub ingredients:
1 t. pure sea salt
1 t. black pepper
1 t. chili powder
1 t. cayenne powder
1 t. ground cumin

1/2 c. lime juice (about 4 limes for us...if we try this again, we've going to try 1/4 c. lime juice)
2 generous handfuls of fresh cilantro, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 T. extra virgin olive oil (optional if you're on Dukan)

Rinse and pat dry your chicken.  Place in a large ziplock bag (we don't recommend using a crock pot


liner - ours leaked.  Apply the dry rub onto the chicken, make sure to put an even coating on the chicken.  In a food processor, combine lime juice, cilantro, garlic and olive oil.  Pour marinade over chicken.  Seal bag pressing out as much air as you can.

Marinade chicken overnight.  The next day, place chicken in crockpot along with any leftover marinade, cook on low for 6-8 hours.  We cooked ours for 6 hours.

Hope this turns out better for everyone else...maybe one day I'll get over my whole chicken fears!

New Page - Articles

For the past couple of months we've been reading online articles on various blogs about the Paleo or Caveman Diet.  We started with Flamidwyfe's blog and branched out from there.

We haven't gone completely Paleo yet...still trying to lose weight -- so we're on the Dukan Diet but we try to make our meals as Paleo as we can without adding too much fat.  It's been a challenge, but a good one.  I wish I kept all the articles I came across RE: Dukan and Paleo -- but I didn't.

Today we decided to add a new page to our blog to collect some of the articles that continue to inspire us.  There's just a few articles but as we add articles, we'll post about it too.  A note about us and the articles we come across -- like many others, we always take in information with a grain of salt understanding that many times an article is one person or persons opinion or views on the subject or what they researched.  We try to do additional research to weigh various opinions on the subjects, etc.  We are not endorsing any opinions shared in these articles -- these are articles that inspire us to research more, understand more, care more, etc.

Our first addition is this article on inflammation we found on Deliciously Organic's blog/recipe site.   Inflammation is something we dealt with a lot in the past and we're all for natural cures.  During the Attack and Cruise Phases of the Dukan Diet, we didn't notice as much inflammation.  At my lowest weight during Dukan, I was feeling great.  After spending some time in Consolidation and adding back a serving of whole wheat to our diets, the inflammation returned.  We noticed a decrease in inflammation after experimenting with Paleo (reducing our grains to almost nothing).

We hope to move towards a completely grain-free diet in the near future.  For now, we eat grain-free as often as we can!  Less tummy bloating for us :-)