Hangin’ with Cro-Magnan Man
Never did I think being a 40 something female would I find myself identifying with a Palaeolithic man but here I am, 3 years into a new health journey, modelling what I eat on a caveman from 2.6 million years ago. I know there are a lot of skeptics out there who are like ‘Yer, it’s just the next fad diet/eating plan’ but there is real scientific merit to this way of eating and I have been transformed by the Paleo Diet. Let me also just say, I’m a foodie. I LOVE FOOD, in all it’s glory, the good bad and the ugly but never the bland!
I have been on a journey to heal myself, and create a healthy but super tasty way forward so that I can be fit and healthy late into my life and able to enjoy my kids and my kids kids. I was diagnosed with Coeliacs Disease 15years ago now after spending most of my life miserable. Eating always came with a gamete of problems and I was never able to pinpoint the root cause as I had so many different symptoms and complaints. The diagnosis was really the start of my journey.
I had always eaten healthily and was brought up eating whole foods but if you’re not eating the right whole foods for your body even those can be poisonous to you. Even after removing all gluten out of my diet and beginning the gut healing process, I still continued to suffer from a raft of digestive issues. I spent the years after diagnosis reading every single research paper and experts blogs I could get my hands on to try and educate myself on nutrition and food. Its amazing how you can think you know everything until you realise you actually know nothing.
At school I was taught the healthy diet pyramid of food and what you should eat in what quantities and had pretty much always eaten according to this plan. Amazing, 25 years later and all the experts are saying we got it SOOOOOO wrong. The pyramid doesn't look anything like what I was taught. Modern science, tiny cameras and research into our microbiomes have enabled us to see that so many foods we have eaten from our earliest years are just not good for us. Gluten (as incredibly tasty as it is) is an evil that affects every human being just on differing levels yet I’d say 95% of the population does not know this and eats it every day. Dairy is homogenised and pasteurised which almost voids all nutritional benefits besides the fact that by the age of 1½, most humans no longer produce the enzymes capable of breaking down lactose. So this becomes yet another food we take in that causes inflammation in our bodies. These are just two examples of food groups we eat that have a negative affect on our bodies.
Now don’t get me wrong, these two in particular taste fabulous and hence one of my dilemmas. How do I create tasty satisfying food for both myself and my family that we will actually WANT to eat yet removing all the foods that cause inflammation, side effects and long term disease. Lets be honest, we all want easy wins when it comes to cooking food we actually want to eat so I’m going to share the love with all the best recipes I cook so you too can live healthy happy lives.