Contest: What Do You Want?
The Prize:
Tanka Bars. Snack food made of buffalo. That’s pretty much all that needs saying. In the pursuit of quick-fix meat-chunk eats, Tanka is offering up a handful of Tanka Bars, Tanka Bites, and Tanka Wild Sticks to the winner of today’s post. BONUS: Enter “MARKSDAILYAPPLE” when ordering from TankaBar.com for a 15% discount off of regularly priced items.
YouBars. Energy bars can be nasty business. 95% of the energy bars on the market are simply candy bars re-branded for the cardio crowd. Heck, even Snickers has its own brand of energy bar which – big surprise – contains almost the exact same nutritional breakdown as a plain, old Snickers. What’s a Grok to do with so few Primal options?
Enter YouBar. Don’t like the options at your health food store? Why not make your own! YouBar is a family owned company that lets you design your own energy bar using real, Primal ingredients. Here’s my version:
The winner of today’s contest will receive a free box of custom designed YouBars (or shakes or trailmix if you so choose).
The Contest:
“What do you want from me?” It’s a tired Adam Lambert song, but it’s also an important question. My blog, my books, what I do is constantly informed by the thoughts and ideas of my readers. Today is your chance to tell me what you’d like to see on my part for the future of the Primal movement. In the comments section below, tell me one service, product, tool, or feature you’d like to see in the coming year. I’m leaving this one fairly open ended, no idea is too small or big.
A winner will be chosen at random. Agreeing with other people is allowed (and encouraged), but only the idea comments will be counted for drawing purposes.
The Deadline:
Midnight, tonight!
Who is Eligible:
Like other consumables, these don’t cross borders well. A substitute prize of equal value will be awarded in the case of an international winner.
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
Wow! There have been a lot of great ideas so far! I would love to see a protein powder product from you. I know it’s not very primal, but it’s just so convenient sometimes.
Also, I know you’ve touched on raising primal kids in the past, but I would love more info in this area…particularly for infants.
Holding lectures and that in other cities would be great, but I would really love to see a DVD set with some lectures workouts and well pretty much anything else primal. I’m in a very rigorous graduate program so traveling isn’t something that I can do very often, but a set of DVD’s that I can pop in when I do have a little free time with the ability to pause and come back to would be phenomenal. I would love to make it to primal con but living on a student budget with a family makes that am impossibility. So something for those of us that can’t make it would be great.
How about a primal Halloween costume? Or a protein shake?
David
I’d like to see a series of articles on getting kids into theprimal living. Fun food, fun exercises, etc.
For real! This would be cool – besides the guesswork I’ve been doing on nutrition/cooking, I’m constantly wondering how to get creative and active playtime in for the kiddoes.
Another Primal Cookbook would be awsome. Maybe one that is geared toward families. The first one is great, but trying to convince my kids to eat animal organs is impossible.
I would love to see “The definitive guide to definitive guides.” A pdf, book, something that puts together all those great guides into one large primal collection!
Ditto!!!
I would love to see a primal fitness app for android. I keep track of my workouts/walking/play using a spreadsheet and it would be awesome to de-couple from the computer to work out outside without having to sacrifice the convenience (or carry pen and paper to the park).
Why not just use a notepad app?
DVD’s Primal workouts with Mark RRRRRRRRRRRRRRaaaaaaaaaRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
vol 1 sounds like a good start.
I’d like to see more of a focus on some women’s health topics… seems crazy to imagine Mark posting about this though, so maybe another guest post from Carrie? Things like hormone balancing, fertility, PMS, etc.?
I also used to love those spotlight-type posts on a specific vegetable or primal ingredient with recipes and background. More of those!
YES! Very interested in women’s (okay, and men’s, too) reproductive health through the lens of evolutionary medicine.
How about selling your personal advice time in 5 minute increments over the phone? You could limit it to one day a week and the extra specific help could put $ in your pocket and help the community.
I do think it would be great to a have more related to a woman’s experience, and womens’ health. I realize that you are a guy and this is all your brainchild, but I think it would bring more balance.
I saw the pic of the book signing in Miami. I’m not sure if you have done that already (I’m sort of new around here) or plan to…but it would be fun to have you travel around and meet the people that purchased the books. I know I would love to have mine signed
. My cookbook is getting pretty ugly though with splatters and such so I might be embarassed!
Also I am in desperate need of a children’s primal cookbook. I tried to have the whole family go on the challenge, and suffice it to say it was a challenge. I may have gotten them to day 2 before they demanded PB & J’s.
Other than that I think you have it pretty much covered for me.
Some articles on the blog aren’t as well referenced as other articles. “The Definitive Guide to Saturated Fat” is very well referenced (my favorite blog post), but “The Definitive Guide to Cholesterol” and “The Definitive Guide to Fats” do not give many links to outside sources supporting the claims made in the articles.
I’m not sure if this is done because the supporting references are maybe laid out in your book or previous articles on the blog, but with a title like “Definitive Guide” I was hoping to find that kind of information in the articles themselves.
To clarify: my idea is to make future (or existing) blog posts, especially the Definitive Guide ones, better referenced.
I completely agree with this. As much as I agree with the Primal diet, I try really hard to make sure all the health info I read doesn’t come from just one source (i.e. Mark). It’s always a pleasure for me to see links to where the info came from, because not only does it become more verifiable but it exposes some potentially really cool websites to poke around for other stuff.
I would really like to see more regular video posts. They could be user generated or done by Mark and the worker bees, it doesn’t matter.
I personally get really pumped when watching videos and they would really add a nice spin to the site.
I’d like to see more Primal iPhone apps
It would be awesome if you made a children’s illustrated book featuring plenty of pictures of primal food and fun grok games. Would be a useful and fun way to get kids on board at an early age.
I agree with the other women: more stuff specific to women and primal families. I have a 2 1/2 and a 5 year old and getting them primal is sometimes challenging. Perhaps a separate forum section for families? For womens issues?
Mark, I want you to go hunting and tell us all about it. In the spirit of oral tradition, tell us the story of your hunt, maybe talk about how you feel about killing an animal, how much of the animal you used, how you cooked it, etc.
There’s always a lot of joking about grok and tongue-in-cheek references to literally living primally, sure its not for everyone, but I think without some sort of spiritual connection to our past, it’s kind of boring to just talk about nutrition and fitness from a unique standpoint.
I rather like this idea.
I second that. It gives you more respect for, and awareness of what you’re eating. If you ever come to New Zealand you’re
welcome to come hunting and seafood gathering with my family and I (hopefully will get a chance in the next few days to go collect some seafood for our grokfeast!)
Thanks for the offer, Dan!
Arguments to use on your vegetarian whole grain loving girlfriend. Seriously. My partner is the one I most need to convince and have the hardest time with.
Maybe get her to watch Tom Naughton’s “Fat Head”. I sat down w/ my family to watch that and they all stood up converts. Hubby started reading “Good Calories, Bad Calories,” and he’s more rabid than I am now!
Here’s a product I would buy from you in a heartbeat:
The Primal Blueprint for Picking Up Girls
I think a sub area of your web site (Cave?), perhaps synced with the iphone app, that would let members group up (Clan?) and track key bio markers, share their process, set goals, as they do their own 30 challenge. This could be graphed in different kid of ways, perhaps using many of the existing collaborative sharing formats that are out there. But you seem to have access to pretty good web building skills. Perhaps you could have a questionnaire to help foster groups (type of work, goals, geography, age etc…). I could see push notification if someone hits a personal goal, a public board for comments related for that specific group, polls – basically ways to make the 30 day challenge more personal and allow other ways for people to connect beyond the forums.
The only thing I can think of is a Journal Club, like the kind we do here in med school twice a month. It’d be cool for you to review/explain a couple articles that show how scientific research is behind this way of eating/living. Hell, why just science articles? Anthropology or archaeology would be cool, too. You often cite papers, which is great, but maybe have it be a regular part of the blog?
Everything else is great. What a resource. Thanks, Mark.
This is recycled from my idea for a contest that I thought of long after the contest contest was over. My idea was “Tell us how you sneak Primal movements into your day.”
I’d like to see more posts on how to sneakily incorporate primal lifestyle changes into your otherwise CW life, especially little workouts and other hacks.
Not all of us can run around in 5Fingers and such because we work 9-5. But I take the stairs two at a time at work and I sneak in Grok squats in the bathroom or between the shelves when I’m filing. Half the fun is trying not to get caught! Stalking coworkers (not in the criminal sense) might be entertaining… Anyway, I love posts about simple and low cost ways to be primal. (I think you’ve covered the food budget thing very well, but those are good reminders to have occasionally.)
Just imagined a guy doing Grok squats in the elevator, only to have the doors suddenly open for coworkers to get on and he straightens up as if “nothing to see here!’
You could try parkour in cube-ville – not subtle! You might be able to do that in a stairwell, though, if you have one.
I’d would certainly like to see a page that would have information on the most primal friendly gyms around. I love the idea of StrengthBox and The Exuberant Animal, and have always wondered if there were something like that around me.
I would love to get more ideas about children and the primal lifestyle. Cookbook for primal kids, more posts on children eating primal, etc…
Your site is already pretty perfect, and seeing as how you offer most of of your knowledge for free, not only can I not complain, but I’m hard pressed to think of what else I could possibly ask for. I guess maybe my only request, because I live in the Midwest where the winters are long, are some primal movements that can be done outside in the cold weather. And when I say cold, I mean really cold. Like we gotta bundle up in long underwear to check the mail. But still, it’s nice to get outside, but it’s hard to move around when packed in layers of clothing.
Information on whether or not one should limit eating certain foods. I mean, is eating 6 eggs per day really all that healthy for the long term? I don’t currently do this but am thinking about it because eggs are so damn cheap yet packed full of nutrition.
And, what about coconut? Or other foods? What about nightshades?
In general, should one limit eating too much of one thing on a regular basis?
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-much-is-too-much/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-much-is-too-much-round-2/
More posts for teens would be nice. I also second a primal magazine.
I’d love to see a series called GONE SHOPPING ( or something like this) that shows primal food options you, or other Primal followers, find at your local “Hunting Grounds” (Vons, Ralphs, Whole Foods, etc, etc).
I’m talking about the diamonds in the rough that may be overlooked in our quest to find primal foods that are easily accessible.
For example: Vanilla Almond Macaroons by Laughing Giraffe, at Whole Foods. GREAT FATS!!!
Things like this are awesome to discover.
This comment made me think of talking about “wild” options you can source in different areas. For example, I found out from a friend that the fruit trees I’d seen and admired for there beauty were actually producing a lot of edible fruit that was just going to waste on the ground. Or then there are certain greens that you can find locally for salads or whatnot. Basically, the hunt is awesome, but what about some tips on gathering?
A podcast would be nice.
But more importantly more articles on kids. Be it recipes that kids might accept easier, or general nutritional information regarding kids.