If you were wondering... a day of simple Paleo meals

If you were wondering... a day of simple Paleo meals

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• 7.12.2013

Food time! For those of you who are interested. (If you're not, skip this one. ;) ) I've been talking about food more lately, now that I'm happy with my diet and am proud to share it with you. (My raw vegan-to-Paleo transition here.) Some of you have asked about the kinds of things I eat every day, for snacks, for breakfast... I'm happy to share some of what we've found works for our budget and tolerances on a nutrient dense, whole foods, Paleo diet.

So how about some photos?

Years ago I was so impressed by Angela Hardison's gorgeous photos of her meals as part of an effort to eat at least 50% raw foods. I don't have nearly as good a light box set up (or as much Arizona sunlight) as she apparently does (oh, food photography is hard!!), but I tried to show you in simple photos what I often eat on a typical day.

I took these on a weekend day a couple weekends ago: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Breakfast

• Poached eggs
• Steamed spinach
• Nitrite-free bacon ends & pieces
• Bulletproof Coffee (I add some cinnamon sometimes, like in this pic)

Lunch

• The most delicious bratwurst ever... from a local farm, made at The Meating Place--great local butcher shop we visited recently
• Paleo broccoli salad (I used this recipe for Paleo Broccoli Crunch, made our own mayo and everything!)

Dinner

• Ropa Vieja from The Paleo Slow Cooker (see my review here, even a picture of the page!)
• Homemade guacamole. Currently have 8 avocados and this is reminding me we need to eat them!!

Snacks:

Not pictured: I sometimes snack on raw cashews (buy them for $2.77/lb in the bulk foods at Winco), coconut oil, 85% dark chocolate, and homemade almond butter. But, now that I eat plenty of FAT at each meal, I'm not hungry between meals and can go hours without the blood sugar swings I used to have all the time on my old high carb raw vegan diet. So I don't need to snack much.

Veggies, protein, and fat...

I try to eat veggies with every meal, but sometimes I'm low on time so I like one-dish meals like stews that have veggies in them already. Loving our CSA this summer with tons of veggies each week and pressure to use them before the next one! ;) We also grow salad lettuces on our porch.

I really enjoy all our meals when we put some effort into them. Like those above--but that's a common weekend day! On the weekdays, I try to make sure we have left overs for lunches.

For breakfast on weekdays, sometimes I just have Bulletproof Coffee (low-toxin coffee blended with butter and MCT oil), which keeps me totally satisfied and full of energy till about 2PM (shocking for me, used to have to protein/fruit breakfasts and be starving at lunch! Needed the fat!). This "Bulletproof intermittent fasting" sounded completely insane to me until my husband got into it and felt good. I tried it and am a convert. Recent post on fueling your morning here on one of our favorite researcher's sites. Amazing how my hubby has lost 35 pounds of fat and gained muscle by eating more healthy fat!

This is so fun!!

I love learning new recipes for meat (cooked a whole chicken the other weekend and was SO proud of myself!!!!), and we get a chance to since we buy cow shares from a local grassfed beef farm and never know exactly what we're going to get. (More on my husband's blog Grassfed Geek about that.) I feel so grateful and positive about this nourishing diet we've adopted, and so glad he introduced me to it! I love the delish meals we've been cooking, and have no cravings like I used to. It all works for me. =)