So, in preparation for our Resolve 2011 Contest, I was planning to write up a big article of Paleo recipes and shopping lists. However, when I stopped and thought about my own experience, I realized this would be overkill and counter-productive.
When I decided to eat strictly Paleo, the first thing I decided was that I needed to work out exactly what I was going to eat, planning all my meals ahead to avoid any food wastage. Also, this would guarantee that I got a good variety and food never got boring. In retrospect, this was exactly the wrong way to approach it...
The thing about eating Paleo-style is that you have to approach it not as "what am I going to eat?" but "what am I going to avoid eating?" This makes it much easier, not necessarily in sticking to the diet (I personally found grains very easy to give up, and dairy much more difficult) but in stocking your kitchen. Taking this approach, you'll find that almost everything in the produce section is available to you except corn and potatoes. I'm sitting here thinking right now of the produce section at the closest grocery store (it happens to be a Kroger) and I doubt I could name everything in it, but here goes in no particular order: onions, garlic, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips, butternut squash, acorn squash, zucchini, leeks, spinach, collard greens, tomatoes, eggplant, oranges, apples, kale, avocados, peaches, limes, lemons... OK, I'm spent. And as a quick review of all those preceding links will show you, that doesn't even scratch the surface... there're loads more veggies out there. You'll also notice that as you click through all those several recipes come up more than once, because of course they share ingredients in common.
This is the point I'm getting at; you can try to painstakingly plan out every meal, but you could also cruise through the produce section during your weekly shop, look around and say, "I haven't eaten that in a while," or "that's on sale this week, I'll have some of that!" and then go home and Google a bit, or even just nose around the Paleo recipe blogs linked from this article, and finds lots of ways to enjoy the foods you've just bought.
The meats section is the same story; for the most common items there such as chicken (whole or breasts), beef (ground, steaks, roasts), and pork (roasts, chops, sausage), you'll find many many recipes, most of which will involve some of the items from all those links above. Now, meat being a little more expensive than produce, you'll want to approach this with a little more care: maybe you'll buy a chicken or two, and a couple of steaks. Or maybe a nice roast, some chicken breasts, and a couple pounds of ground beef. But know that however much meat you need to get through the week, there are many, many recipes at your fingertips which will utilize many of the common items from the produce section, so you don't have to have everything planned out in minute detail.
This is another of the great things about eating Paleo; it's flexible. Baking, as in the making of cakes, breads, etc., requires precision. Chemistry is happening in there, and if you don't get it right your end results can be a complete failure. However, there is no such baking in the Paleo diet (though our Loretta's amazing explorations into Paleo muffins and other treats probably puts the lie to that gross generalization), so if you're going for a recipe which requires lemons, but you have limes, it'll still be pretty tasty. If you're roasting a bunch of root veggies and you have beets and turnips instead of parsnips and carrots, just substitute; it'll be fine.
Almost every veggie which isn't a root veggie or a hard squash lends itself magnificently to stir-fry. If you've not had time to plan something fancy, grab the broccoli, onions, zucchini, and garlic, chop up that chicken breast, and throw together a stir-fry.
Having said all that, there are some things which are best planned. Snacking, and lunches at work, for instance... Paleo can sometimes be tough to do on the fly. Here are some helpful tips:
Keep nuts and seeds handy. Whatever nuts and seeds (or mix of them) you like, keep a jar handy at your desk, or keep a baggie in your backpack. Failing any other snack options, a handful or two of nuts is usually pretty satisfying as snacks go. A variation of this is to keep nut butters such as almond or cashew butter handy; once a week, take a few minutes and slice up some carrots, celery, broccoli (if you're partial to that, as I am), or whatever nut-butter-delivery-system veggies you like, and pack those along with a jar of nut butter to satisfy snack needs.
Love the leftovers. Whenever you do cook, try to make enough that there's a bit leftover to be breakfast or lunch for the following day (or, if you're opposed to the same meal within 24 hours, the day after that). The logical extension of this idea is, of course...
Cook in bulk. Our last post was all about crock pot cooking, and this is a fantastic way to make a nutritious meal which you can easily save some of and munch on later.
Meats can be snacks. When you cook up a roast, chicken breast, or whatever... take a couple minutes and pre-cut some of the cooked product into bite sized pieces, and stick them in a microwave-safe container. Presto, you have a quick meat snack. All you need is access to a microwave, and I haven't worked anywhere without one of those in... ever. A variation on this idea is the hard-boiled egg; boil a dozen eggs at once, and now you have pre-cooked snackables for the rest of the week.
Love the greens. There was a previous post about this, but learn to love greens; they are a fabulous plate-filler!
Love the fruits (but not too much) Fruits makes a great snack; they're usually no-prep and easy-to-eat such as oranges or apples. Of course, they're also sugary, so keep this to a minimum.
Find a few recipes you really love. For most people, whatever their diets are (even if they're eating an unhealthy, "typical Western" diet), if they mostly cook at home you'll probably find that they have maybe a dozen recipes which they prepare very often, and occasionally make something different. This means, of course, that their shopping list is reasonably constant, too. There is no reason that you can't do this exact same thing eating Paleo.
Over the next two months, I'm going to post on this blog how we eat, and how we shop. You'll see that eating Paleo isn't scary or complicated; it's just a matter of finding things you like which avoid grains, legumes, dairy, and potatoes. It might be a lot at first, but hang in there; it'll settle into a habit soon enough!
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