Mr. Warnick and I have talked a lot during our marriage about how we want to be able to play with our kids when they are young and as they grow older. We don't want to be limited by our sore joints or lack of energy or anything like that. We wanted to exercise and eat lots of healthy foods so we can stay in good shape for our kids. I have another reason I wanted to do this, and I'm sure McKay feels the same, we just haven't talked about this reason as much. Growing up as a member of the LDS church we were always taught that our bodies are temples. They are a sacred gift that our loving heavenly Father has given to us. I want to take care of this wonderful gift so that I can continue to serve my heavenly Father as long as possible.
Why am I telling you all of this? Well, McKay and I decided about a month ago that we wanted to start working towards our goal of being healthy. We had already started running together, and that was a good start. But now we specifically tried to eat healthily. We decided to follow a certain "diet". No, it is not a diet in the way that everyone else thinks about it. We are not necessarily trying to lose weight or anything like that. It's called the Paleo Diet. The way that I had it explained to me is this: all animals have their own diet, a mix of everything that they eat. Pandas eat bamboo. Horses and cows eat grass. Bears eat berries and fish. And so on and so forth....So the Paleo diet is supposed to be the "Human Diet". It consists of the things that our ancestors (hunter/gatherers) ate as the human race evolved. As such, the foods are supposed to be the foods that the human body evolved to eat and do well on. I know, a lot of you probably don't necessarily agree with this, and thats fine. But the foods we have been eating are healthy whether the cavemen ate them or not.
So, what does the diet consist of? A lot of veggies, some fruit, and some meat. Thats pretty much it. Oh, and some good fats! Before agriculture started and humans could grow grains and before everything had added sugar in it, humans mainly ate veggies, fruit, and meat. No, the hunter/gatherers didn't farm cattle, they followed the herds and hunted them. That means we can eat meat, but they didn't have any dairy foods. So we don't eat milk, yogurt, ice cream, cheese, butter, and all the other dairy foods you can think of. We don't eat any foods with added sugar in it. You might think that is horrible and all of our foods must only be savory. Nope, we can use organic/pure honey or maple syrup. Yum! We also don't eat grains, because the hunter/gatherers didn't grow crops, they gathered what plants they could find. So no bread, rice, oatmeal, etc.
There's a lot of science behind all of this too. Grains have gluten. Gluten is a protein that can tear up your intestines and cause a lot of problems. Many people don't have a problem with it because they have eaten food containing gluten their whole life, but why not just be safe. Milk has lactose and a similar protein to gluten called casein. We are the only species that drink milk past infancy. And we don't even drink our own species milk (granted that would be really weird...). Lactase is the enzyme that our bodies produce that allow us to digest lactose. Scientists have found that children stop producing so much lactase right around age 3 or 4. Because we still drink milk our bodies adapt (which is pretty darn amazing). But many people cannot digest lactose and this is what we know as lactose intolerance. Casein is the protein in milk that is similar to gluten. It can really tear up your intestines and create problems. A lot of people agree with cutting out sugar from your diet, so I'm not going to go into that explanation.
Anyway, I'm not trying to convince any of you that the Paleo diet is the only true/correct diet and that everyone should eat this way. I am just laying out a lot of the information we researched before we decided to try out Paleo. We didn't want to go into this life change without some good information.
I'm sure a lot of you will wonder where we get all of the vitamins, especially the vitamins and minerals that dairy foods provide. Well, where did our ancestors get them? Vegetables and fruits can provide all the vitamins and minerals needed.
The Paleo diet also encourages people to eat foods grown locally. Our ancestors couldn't just go to the store and buy some bananas that were grown in South America. If you think about it, people that lived in Africa had a much different diet than Eskimos living in the arctic. Eskimos ate a lot of blubber! And they still thrived. How in the world did they get enough nutrients out of a piece of whale blubber? I don't know...but the point is that our bodies adapt to where we are living and what foods are available. So yes, I've heard the argument about the people that live in communities with a lot of dairy farming. Their bodies do adapt to be able to handle a lot of dairy foods, and thats great for them. But, not everyone can handle dairy.
A big part of the Paleo diet is that it is a personal thing. Not everyone's body can handle the same foods as everyone else. It is important to listen to what your body likes. Everywhere I read about Paleo says to try many, many different foods. And if something doesn't agree with you, don't eat it again. It's pretty simple.
Any who, I could go on and on, but this post is already pretty long. So I'll get to the point. Mr. Warnick and I have been eating Paleo for over 3 weeks now. We've both lost weight and feel energized and good. We have had 2 meals in the past 3 weeks that aren't Paleo and we felt kind of yucky afterwards. Our bodies like the foods we've been eating. We might not continue to be as strict as we have been for this first month, but we enjoy whats foods we have and we eat well. We bought a Paleo cookbook that has a bunch of really great recipes that we have enjoyed trying.
One thing we really missed at the beginning of this month were tortillas. Before, we always had quesadillas, breakfast burritos, and everything else inside tortillas. But, they're made with white flour or corn flour which are no no's on Paleo. So I searched Pinterest. I found a recipe for tortillas that are completely Paleo! You can find the original recipe here. They use arrowroot powder and coconut flour, which are both very Paleo. Hooray! The tortillas turn out a little more like crepes than tortillas but they work perfect for what we use them for.
Here's the recipe:
Ingredients:
-2 eggs
-1 tsp melted coconut oil
-1 tbsp water
-1/4 C arrowroot powder
-1 tsp coconut flour
-pinch of salt
Whisk the eggs, coconut oil, and water together. Then add the dry ingredients and mix well. Mine came out with little clumps of flour so I just got a spoon and crushed all of the clumps I could.
Heat a skillet (no oil needed). Once heated pour some batter into the skillet and roll around so that the batter evenly coats the bottom of the skillet. The edges will start to pull away as it cooks. Cook for 1 minute on both sides. And voila! You have a Paleo tortilla, good for fish tacos, breakfast burritos, and anything else you want. We love this recipe.
