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Recently, my wife and I have been trying the Paleo Diet (also known as the caveman diet). In two weeks she has lost 14 pounds. We are both feeling great.

For those of you not familiar with the Paleo diet, the underlying premises is that our bodies are evolved to eat certain foods, and much of the modern diet consists of things which have only recently been added which are not digested as well. Modern food also includes large amounts of processings which add useless/harmful chemicals and removes beneficial parts of the food. Essentially, the paleo diet is all about eating real, whole food. Lots of vegtables, fruit, and moderate amounts of meat, nuts and eggs. Things avoided include: processed sugar, alcohol, grains, dairy, legumes.

The only problem is, we are wondering what to eat? We have been making the things we know that fit in the diet, but we don't want to get bored just eating the same dishes over and over. Has anybody else tried this diet, do you have any good meal suggestions?

And just so you know, I have not yet tried a paleo meal that I didn't like. These recipes can be used even if you don't want to follow the paleo diet.

I would describe the Paleo Diet a little differently. I would say that the agricultural revolution dramatically changed what humans eat, and our bodies have not yet evolved to properly utilize the products effectively. Prior to the agricultural revolution, basic foods included meat and vegetables, limited fruit, and nuts. The Paleo Diet isn't really about restricting meat intake at all. But it does try and avoid grain fed meats. It encourages you to understand the differences between various fats, and says that certain fats are good. It absolutely stresses total avoidance of grains and dairy products, except for eggs.

It also encourages caveman like exercise, which is exercise that a caveman might engage in while hunting or building. Isolated muscle exercises are discouraged.

Good paleo exercises are:
- Sandbag hefting and carrying (carrying your kill home)
- Boulder lifting (building)
- Sprints (hunting)
- Walking/hiking (hunting and nomadic lifestyle)

Best Paleo websites:
- http://www.marksdailyapple.com/#axzz28vqMf59D
- http://ancestryfoundation.org/
- http://movnat.com/

To find good academic studies and papers on the subject, use the following terms:
- paleolithic nutrition filetype:pdf
- paleo diet filetype:pdf

OK, to get it started, I will give what we had for dinner a couple days ago.

We call it "Sweet and spicy beef stew"

Ingredients:
- stew beef, chopped into 1 inch chunks, about 1 pound
- 1 can stewed tomatoes
- 1 can diced tomatoes with green chilies
- 1/4th red pepper, 1/4th green pepper, diced
- carrots, chopped
- handful of green beans
- dash of worchestershire sauce
- pinch of thyme
- dash of salt
- pinch of pepper
- 2 cups water

Throw ingredients into crock pot. Cook on medium for 8 hours, until beef becomes soft. Enjoy!

Yeah, I was not saying to restrict eating meats, just that they should not be overdone. This is not like the Atkins diet.

Previously my wife tried Medical Weight Loss (didn't work, by the way). They had strict requirements for protein consumption, something like 3 8oz  servings a day. She often complained about the large servings of meat were hard to choke down.

The other day we had chicken for dinner, about 4 oz for each of us, along with a large portion of sugar-snap peas, fried yellow squash and canteloupe. It was perfectly filling and satisfying.

If you're not familiar with Mark's Daily Apple (linked to in my first post), read through his blog. It's loaded with recipes, cooking tips, etc. He also provides great info on paleo exercise, as I mentioned above as well.

Mark's Daily Apple is great.
Another huge Paleo recipe site is Everyday Paleo: http://everydaypaleo.com/2011/07/10/everyday-paleo-no-potato-salad/ - that's a link to a recipe I tried a few weeks ago, it was great.
A smaller site I used to check every day is http://paleograd.blogspot.com/ -  lots of really good dinner ideas. - found this on Paleo Hacks.
Last but definitely not least: http://ieatmostlymeat.com/

The Paleo Diet has solved a ton of health problems for me and everyone I know who has tried it. Most grains cause problems (for most people) but GMO grains are basically poison...it's amazing how many allergies and diseases you can develop if your immune system is constantly at war with everything you eat.

I tried the South Beach diet a while back, which seems pretty similar.  The concentration is on fiber and glycemic load.  It was boring trying to stick with eating "approved" things, but it definitely helped me to concentrate on eating healthier foods since then.  The easy things that stuck were eating only whole grains, eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, not avoiding healthy fats and eggs, and having some fish and rice every once in a while.  I make french toast, eat sandwiches pretty regularly, snack on trail mix, make sushi, smoke whole turkeys, have a sweet potato once in a while, and use a bread machine to make fresh whole wheat bread.

What you're doing sounds different from the Paleo Diet.

Differences:

- Don't eat grains. Don't eat bread.
- Don't eat rice.
- Minimize fruits.
- Don't eat potatoes.

Fixed it for you.

A friend of mine maintains a photo-heavy paleo food blog/recipe site at http://meat.io/ (warning: as the domain name implies, it's for carnivores only!)

Mark's Daily Apple was already mentioned, but you might also wish to read Mark's excellent book The Primal Blueprint, which contains a great deal of helpful specific information on what to eat and what not to eat (though not many recipes as such):
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-book/the-primal-blueprint/

This morning I had some great pancakes made with xantham gum, coconut flour, and duck eggs. Not sure what else was in there though.

What I like to have for breakfast is a sausage and egg scramble. Saute up some sausage with some veggies (like green and red peppers and/or spinach, maybe some finely diced potato), and when its done add in 2-3 eggs and scramble it all together.

Stir-frys are also really good. Just toss in some meat, cook it for a bit and then add in some chopped frozen veggies (I like the bags of mixed).

I don't eat grains when I cook for myself anymore but I still have cheese, butter, dark chocolate and potatoes. I'm not convinced that diary is a major problem in small amounts and one potato every few meals is not a major amount of carbohydrate (which a lot of people following the paleo diet get paranoid about). And if you are basing the diet decision on what hunter-gatherers ate, I believe they did eat potatoes and other starchy vegetables, though maybe they didn't? It depends largely on location of-course. Diet changes massively depending on what food sources are available.

Potatoes as of a few hundred years ago were much different than potatoes today. They, like many plant species, have been bred to emphasize desired qualities, in this case a very large, starchy tuber.

Do you have anything I can read about that being the case?

I suppose if potatoes are to be avoided then carrots and parsnips are to be avoided too?