The Paleo Diet - Loren Cordain [58]
• Cheese
• Deli meats
• Frankfurters
• Ham
• Hot dogs
• Ketchup
• Olives
• Pickled foods
• Pork rinds
• Processed meats
• Salami
• Salted nuts
• Salted spices
• Sausages
• Smoked, dried, and salted fish and meat
• Virtually all canned meats and fish (unless they are unsalted or unless you soak and drain them)
Fatty Meats
• Bacon
• Bacon bits
• Bologna
• Breakfast sausage
• Chicken and turkey skin
• Chicken wings
• Deli meats
• Fatty lamb chops
• Fatty pork chops
• Pepperoni
• Pork sausage
• Salami
• Spam
Soft Drinks and Fruit Juices
• All sugary soft drinks
• Canned, bottled, and freshly squeezed fruit drinks (which lack the fiber of fresh fruit and have a much higher glycemic index)
Sweets
• Candy
• Honey
• Sugars
As you can see, there’s a bounty of wonderful foods you can eat on the Paleo Diet, so you’ll never get bored. Use your imagination and have fun with these delicious foods.
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The Paleo Diet User’s Manual
Stocking Your Refrigerator and Pantry
You know those diets where you have to buy their food, in their packaging, at their stores? This is different. You don’t need to buy any special foods to follow the Paleo Diet. Just about everything you need is right in your local supermarket—particularly if it has a health food section. Even if you live in a rural area, the basics of the diet—lean meats, fish, fresh fruits, and vegetables—can be found in small grocery stores. If you choose, you can order specialty oils and game meats through the mail (some suppliers are listed below). But you don’t need anything out of the ordinary to get started.
Look for Lean Meats
The mainstay of the Paleo Diet is lean animal foods. Always choose the leanest cut of meat you can find.
Beef
If you can get it—it might be at the butcher’s counter, not out in the main meat aisle—“range-fed” is better than grain-fed beef because it’s leaner, and it has a better ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids. Note: The words “natural beef” are no guarantee that the animal hasn’t been fattened with grains (or pumped full of antibiotics, for that matter); check with your butcher. A simple visual inspection of the fat on any cut of meat lets you know if the animal was raised on pasture or on grains. Pasture-produced meat has fat that is orange to dark yellow in color, whereas grain-produced meat has fat that appears white.
Poultry
“Free-range” chickens are almost always better than broiler chickens, because—like range-fed beef—they’re not as fat. Here, too, the natural foraging diet (of insects, worms, and wild plants) guarantees a healthful ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids. Free-range chickens can be found in many upscale or health-oriented supermarkets.
Turkey
Turkey breast is one of the best and cheapest sources of very lean meat—it’s even leaner than most game meat—and fortunately, it’s available almost everywhere. Tip: Before you cook very lean domestic meats, rub them with olive oil. This will add flavor and help keep them moist during cooking.
Pork
Some pork is even leaner than chicken. Lean pork tenderloin, for instance, has 28 percent fat compared to skinless chicken breasts at 37 percent. Naturally grown pork—similar to free-range chickens—is leaner, too.
Other Choices
What about organ meats? Many people mistakenly think organ meats are fatty. Organ meats are low in fat and are rich sources of vitamins, minerals, and omega 3 fat. Bone marrow is another overlooked food that’s seldom eaten in the United States but is considered a delicacy in Europe. Even though it contains about 80 percent fat by weight, almost 75 percent of the fat is monounsaturated—which means that marrow is a good fat that won’t raise your cholesterol.
As for lamb, if you can find grass-fed, free-range meat, go for it. The type of lamb produced in Australia and New Zealand is leaner than American grain-fed lamb and contains more healthful omega 3 fats. Remember, leaner, grass-produced meat is the key to making this