So... as I mentioned in my last post, the entire family eats Paleo now and I promised to write our Paleo story. Here it is! Paleo is short for Paleolithic and is also referred to as the 'ancestral health' or 'caveman' diet. Briefly, it means that we only eat whole, unprocessed foods and we don't eat any dairy, any grains or any legumes.
Early last November, I thought I would give up dairy for a few weeks, to see if that had any impact on the on-going, nagging, upper-respiratory symptoms I had experienced since I was 18(ish). During that first week, I drank a lot of soy milk, tried the other milk substitutes and did not consume dairy; but I did not otherwise change my diet. My nasal congestion cleared up within the first few days and a chance encounter with dairy brought them right back. My self-diagnosis - milk protein allergy.
While searching for dairy free substitutes and recipes, I stumbled onto the world of Paleo. Intrigued, I read more about it and decided to give this a 30 day trial as well. I had actually heard about the Paleo diet a few years ago, watching an author being interviewed about it on the Colbert Report. I can't remember his name or the name of the book he was flogging, but I do remember that I was so unimpressed by that guy. He seemed too much like a hippie - not the "peace/love" variant, more of the Occupy Wall St./"I wear knit hats in warm weather" kind - a hipster-hippie if you would. I believe my exact thought upon hearing what Paleo eating entailed was "Give up wheat and dairy, F*%k that!", closely followed by, "How on earth do you find anything to eat?" (For the record, I don't really like beans, so the legumes ban did not present any issues for me, until I discovered that peanuts are actually a legume and are therefore verboten.)
To set the stage a little, before all of this experimentation, I started every morning with a slice or two of toast (multi-grain, very 'healthy'), peanut butter on that toast (natural PB, naturally) and a Chai latte. So essentially, I made sure I started every morning with grains, legumes and dairy. I had a serious, serious addiction to Chai lattes. They were my 'go-to' drink that I would both make at home and inevitably pick up at a Starbucks. My two oldest children were able to recite my Starbucks order from memory from the back seat of the car once they were able to talk. Usually starting at about 20 months, I would be in the Starbucks drive-through line up and hear: "Half-sweet, no water, 140 degrees" come from them with their adorable baby accents, as they were strapped in their car seats. In addition to my chai obsession, I would make delicious wheat-based baked goods. Home-made Parmesan chicken and spaghetti with meat sauce were family staples, and my two older children lived on wheat and dairy in the form of copious milk consumption and an abiding love of toast.
I was pretty convinced going in that wheat was no good and that we should not be consuming gluten. So as I tried my hand at Paleo, I had already decided that we would be gluten-free, regardless of the outcome of my trial. So I purchased gluten-free substitutes for bread, pasta and other baked goods for my children to eat. But I had thought that gluten was bad for us in an abstract, down the road sort of way. Certainly, I did not expect to see immediate changes in our health once I stopped the consumption of gluten. During that first week, two important things happened - all of these aches and pains I had been experiencing (that I assumed was just me getting old) started to disappear and my son had a dramatic change in his bowel movements. At this point, he was less than three years old and we were not having much success with toilet training. As such, I speak with authority when I tell you he was having between five and seven diaper blowouts a day. My son ate a lot of fruit (still does) and we had always attributed his 'elimination habits' to his fruit consumption. Well, when he simply made the switch to gluten-free toast and kept all of the rest of his habits the same, we had this stark contrast in his digestive health. I was not looking for this change, but one does notice when you aren't changing five, six or seven horribly messy pull-ups a day and things start looking very different in the few times you are cleaning up a child's backside. It was at this time that my "gluten-free" trial became much less of an experiment and more of an essential thing that I would ensure for my son's well being.
So I worked on ditching all of the neolithic foods from our diets and with introducing Paleo meals to the kids. I kept the gluten-free substitutes in the house for probably a month or more - I wanted to make sure I had a few go-to Paleo meals that my kids would both eat. This proved incredibly easy with my daughter and incredibly difficult with my oldest son, who is both picky and stubborn when it comes to food. Once I had some Paleo approved food that I knew they would eat, I went cold turkey with all of the old foods and brought in the new. This was not an easy transition to live through (except with the baby, or as I call him, 'my little blank slate who cannot ask me for toast'), but now that we are on the other side, it's great. Middle child is still the pickiest eater, but what he does eat is all good for him!
I was breastfeeding my youngest at the time I began my transition (I still am breastfeeding him at the time of writing). It was really interesting watching him for changes as we both effectively changed everything that we ate. The first week, when I drank more soy chai lattes than I can count, his pee smelled funny. Once I had transitioned to full Paleo, I noticed that he spit up much less and my milk supply seemed more abundant before. (I have always had supply issues when breastfeeding and have had to supplement each of my three children). For a time, I could feed him without needing any additional supplementation, at which point he began eating solids and that became his additional food source. Figuring out Paleo baby food became a whole new challenge, but I will save that for a different post.
Once I figured out what I could eat, it was pretty easy for me to transition as well. I'm not going to lie, for the first 30 days or so I involuntarily twitched every time I passed a Starbucks. About a month and a half into it, we were away for the weekend and I had some dairy unintentionally. So I proceeded to intentionally have a chai latte and it tasted gross to me. At first that made me a little sad, but after some thought, I was glad to have the dairy monkey off of my back. What I'm saying is that I don't spend my days longing for what I used to eat. What I eat now is what I want to eat. No one is making me eat this way and I don't lament not eating other things. I have found some really awesome recipes and since I discovered the Paleo chocolate truffles, even the lingering chocolate mousse regret has disappeared. This isn't some horrible diet that I am suffering through in order to achieve a certain result, only to switch back to my old habits and inevitably gain the weight back. This is a diet in the proper sense of the word. (Although I have lost 20 lbs and got down below my pre-baby weight. *pats self on back*)
Like any new convert, I am perhaps a bit overzealous with my love of all things Paleo. It is difficult to reign it in when you "discover" this awesome thing that has helped you and your family tremendously, especially when you have a sincere belief that it will also help others. I have made a few converts, some through my own raw enthusiasm (Hi!), some with gentle nudging (Hello) and some from a far ('Sup, Facebook people?). Others, I'm sure I have irritated the bejeezus out of with all of this Paleo/gluten-free talk. For that I am sorry and I will do my best to tone it down in the future. I am aware that this is what I talk about when I see you, but I don't spend much time with adults and it's either this or (likely) some gross thing the kids did. And I'm not trying to make a religion out of this - the whole family does eat non-Paleo foods from time to time. (Although gluten has a permanent place on our "no-fly" list.) My daughter has adopted this with her own unbridled zeal. She told me that if someone offers her food at school, she asks them if it is Paleo or not. I explained to her that they will have no idea what she is talking about. Her response was: "Oh, then I just tell them - it means no gluten, no grains and no dairy." I tell her that she doesn't need to stress about what other people are eating and that we will continue to make the best decisions for us within our own family. So far, it's working well for all of us and that's what counts!
* A note on kelp granules: Paleo diets are not particularly high in salt. When you don't eat any processed foods, you don't eat any table salt, which is the kind that is iodized. (When I do eat salt, it is either sea salt or kosher salt.) I also don't eat a tonne of seafood, another good source of iodine, and neither do my sons. (My husband and daughter eat a lot of sushi, so they're probably good.) To make up for the possible nutritional gap, I've purchased Maine Coast's "Organic Kelp Granules" and I shake it into my cooking where appropriate.
