The Paleo Diet (24 page)

So there you have it—three delicious and healthful meal plans (Level I: three Open Meals per week; Level II: two Open Meals per week; and Level III: one Open Meal per week). Use these meal plans to familiarize yourself with Paleo Diet principles. Once you have become a seasoned Paleo Dieter, use your own creativity and ingenuity to develop your own scrumptious Paleo feasts!

With the Paleo Diet, you’ll end up eating enormously diverse and bountiful meals that include all sorts of fruits, vegetables, meats, and seafood—many of which are rarely or never eaten on “normal” diets.

Throughout this book, I’ve been telling you how good this food is. In this chapter, I’m going to prove it. On the following pages you’ll find a wide variety of breakfast, lunch, and dinner recipes, as well as recipes for making Stone Age snacks and desserts, salt- and sugar-free sauces, dressings, salsas, and condiments to help you launch the Paleo Diet in your own kitchen. Consider them a starting point for your own creativity and ingenuity. Starting the Paleo Diet doesn’t mean you’ll have to throw out your old cookbooks. It is easy to modify almost any basic recipe to conform to Stone Age dietary principles. I’ve also just published
The Paleo Diet Cookbook
, which contains more than 150 recipes not found in this revised edition of the diet plan.

One cautionary note: In all your cooking, do your best to follow the spirit of the diet. If you eat certain Paleo foods or food combinations excessively, you can sabotage and defeat this lifetime nutrition plan and even gain weight. With modern food-processing techniques and creative recipes, a clever cook can assemble Stone Age ingredients in a manner that defies the basic logic of the diet. For instance, it is possible to make nut and root flours in food processors that can be combined with honey, olive oil, and eggs and later baked to resemble almost any modern processed food with very un-Paleo characteristics—high in carbohydrates, sugar, and fats. Those high-fat, high-sugar, high-carbohydrate Paleo food combinations may taste good, but they’re not much better for your health and well-being than cookies, cakes, breads, and doughnuts. These foods are great treats to be eaten every once in a while and are better for you than the commercially available, processed versions. But if they become common fare—particularly if you’re trying to lose weight—many of the potential benefits of the Paleo Diet will be lost.

When eaten in excessive quantities, even unprocessed or minimally processed foods that would have been available to our Paleolithic ancestors, such as dried fruits (raisins, dates, figs, and others), nuts, and honey, can throw the diet off balance and can be particularly troublesome if you’re trying to lose weight. The best way to satisfy your craving for sweets is to eat fresh fruit. Instead of pie, think melons—or blueberries, blackberries, pears, peaches, strawberries, or any other favorite fresh fruit.

If you still feel hungry after eating a Paleo meal, eat more lean protein—chicken or turkey breasts, fish, lean beef, shrimp, crab, or game meat if you can get it—or more crisp, succulent vegetables or juicy, sweet, fresh fruit.

When you carefully examine the Paleo Diet recipes, you’ll notice that most of them contain only fresh meats, seafood, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, with added spices, certain oils, and condiments made from all of these ingredients. Stick to these foods. Depending on your level of the Paleo Diet (I, II, or III), you may occasionally want to include a few recipes that contain vinegar, wine, honey, or a dash of salt. There’s nothing wrong with eating these foods
occasionally,
unless you have a health problem or an autoimmune disease, as discussed earlier in the book. Enjoy a glass of wine, a trace of salt in your food, a bit of honey in your dessert, or even an occasional bagel—but don’t make them your norm.

When you make Paleo recipes with modern foods, make sure that all the ingredients are free of:

Try to choose lean cuts of domestic meats. Cook simply by baking, broiling, steaming, or sautéeing in a little oil.

Substitute powdered garlic, powdered onion, lemon juice, lime juice, lemon crystals, lemon pepper free of salt, cayenne pepper, chili powder, commercially available salt-free spice mixes, black pepper, cumin, turmeric, ground cloves, oregano, ground allspice, celery seeds, coriander seeds, and ground cardamom seeds. Actually, any spice or combination of spices can be used to replace salt. I do not recommend using any of the so-called lite salts or potassium chloride salts, because chloride, like sodium, is not good for your health.

Substitute lemon or lime juice (fresh or reconstituted). For tomato-containing recipes such as salsa, replace vinegar with lime juice; with fruit recipes, lemon juice usually works.

Replace butter, margarine, shortening, or lard with olive oil, flaxseed oil, walnut oil, or avocado oil. As I’ve discussed, olive oil has a wonderful flavor and is high in the health-promoting monounsaturated fats but generally has a poor omega 6 to omega 3 fat ratio. The same holds true for avocado oil. These two oils should frequently be complemented by, or blended with, other oils containing better omega 6 to omega 3 ratios such as flaxseed or walnut oils. The only oil you should cook with is olive oil. Flaxseed and walnut oils are unstable during cooking and may produce toxic by-products.

Concentrated sugars of any kind—even natural sugars (honey, maple sugar, and date sugar)—were not staple components for our Paleolithic ancestors. Sugars in the Paleo Diet should be obtained mainly from fruits and vegetables, not from concentrated sources. However, fruit purees flavored with lemon juice and spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, mint leaves, ginger, and vanilla, to name a few) can be used in recipes to add sweetness to sauces, condiments, and desserts.

Alcoholic beverages clearly were not a component of true Paleolithic diets, and yours should be limited to an occasional glass of wine, beer, or spirits as part of your Open Meals. Wine, as long as it does not contain salt (as most cooking wines do), can be used to marinate meats and add flavor to many cooked dishes. When wine is used in this context, the amount of added alcohol and sugar is negligible; also, wine contains a number of health-promoting phytochemicals and antioxidants. Note: If you suffer from an autoimmune disease, the alcohol and the yeast in wine or other alcoholic beverages can potentially cause problems, and you would be wise to avoid them altogether.

Nut flours (almond, pecan, walnut, hazelnut) can be made in food processors or purchased at some health food or specialty stores, and they can be used to thicken sauces or to add flavor to condiments. Again, these products should be used sparingly. They have the potential to unbalance your diet and disrupt your health when they’re used excessively or in combination with oils, honey, dried fruit, or fruit purees. The foundation of Paleo Diet carbohydrates is fresh fruits and vegetables—not nut flours, honey, fruit juices, or purees.

Now,
bon appetit
!

Thoroughly wash catfish and place in a 9 × 13-inch baking dish greased with a little olive oil. Heat the rest of the olive oil in a saucepan and sauté garlic. Pour over catfish. Sprinkle lemon juice and remaining spices evenly over fish. Bake at 350 degrees for twenty to twenty-five minutes. Serves three to four.

Wash fish thoroughly in cool water, and lay it in a shallow baking dish. Pour in white wine. Spread onion slices evenly over fish, and sprinkle with lemon juice, dill, and turmeric. Cover with foil, and bake at 375 degrees for twenty minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork. Serves two to three.

Drizzle crabmeat with lime juice and sprinkle with paprika and dill. Serve with lime wedges and garnish with parsley. Serves two.

Thoroughly wash haddock in cool water and set aside. Heat oil in a heavy skillet, and sauté garlic and onion until tender. Add green peppers and continue to sauté on low heat until tender. Add tomatoes, parsley, basil, dill, and black pepper. Remove from heat and spread half the sauce in the bottom of a 9 × 13-inch baking dish. Place fish on top, and pour remaining sauce over entire fish. Sprinkle with lemon juice. Cover with foil, and bake at 375 degrees for fifteen to twenty minutes or until flaky. Serves four.

Steam mussels in water until shells open. While mussels are steaming, sauté garlic in olive oil. Add dill, lemon juice, and wine. Simmer for three minutes. When mussels are open, put on serving plate and pour mixture over each. Serves two.

Wash salmon, and place in shallow baking dish. Mix curry, turmeric, and pepper with chicken stock, and pour over fish. Pour in white wine, and cover with foil. Bake at 350 degrees for twenty to thirty minutes. Salmon should flake easily with fork. Serves two.

 

Place each salmon steak on a piece of aluminum foil large enough to wrap it. Pour lemon juice over each steak, sprinkle with dill, and seal each steak in its aluminum pouch. Put the aluminum-sealed steaks in a Pyrex dish and bake at 350 degrees for thirty minutes or until the fish flakes easily with a fork. Serve salmon with sprinkled chives and lime wedges. Serves four.

Set avocados on serving plate with cut side facing up. Combine shrimp, lemon juice, onion powder, and pepper in a medium-size mixing bowl. Spoon shrimp mixture onto each avocado, covering generously. Sprinkle top of each stuffed avocado with paprika before serving. Serves four.

Place cooked shrimp in a large bowl. Mix olive oil, garlic, spices, and lemon juice in a separate bowl. Brush shrimp with spice mixture, and place on hot grill or under broiler for one to two minutes. Turn shrimp and continue cooking for an additional one to two minutes. Garnish with lime wedges and parsley. Serves three to four.

Rinse and drain shrimp, and set aside. In a small bowl, mix together onion, dill weed, paprika, and lemon juice. Fold in shrimp. Serve shrimp salad on lettuce, and top with hard-boiled egg slices. Serves two.

Heat oil in skillet, and sauté garlic until golden brown. Lay fish in oil, and sprinkle with lime and lemon juice. Sprinkle cayenne and black peppers over all, then add tomatoes, scallions, and red and green bell peppers. Cover and simmer for fifteen minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork. Garnish with cilantro. Serves four.