What's your most frustrating thing about being paleo? page

[dimples]

What's your most frustrating thing about being paleo?

Mine is definitely the fact I can't eat sugar. I love it to death. I don't think I can totally eliminate it from my life, though I've been trying.

What about you guys? And how do you manage to handle it?

[Knifegill]

Thinking I have it right, only to find out I might need to change things up. Between low-carb, very low carb and trying to find out which people REALLY are the healthiest on which foods, one go nuts with all the contradictions. Inuit thrived vs. Inuit were slow, sickly and died early, etc. World's oldest poeple eating buttloads of starchy food. Tribal herdsman living on animal products who get lots of plaque in their arteries but stand all day so their GIANT arteries can never clog anyway. I'm Irish and Native American with other mutt-mix combo, and can never know my real ancestry to design a macronutrient ratio that would match the average of what they all survived/thrived on for the longest time - it's maddening. Just trying to get to the most rudimentary bits of info - it's not possible.

You've got THIS http://www.authenticireland.com/ancient+people

Because of the area they chose to live, we know these first Irish had an easy time finding food, and would have eaten fish, berries, wild pig, salmon, trout, pigeons and ducks, plus hazelnuts.

Versus THIS

The Native American population, including American Indians and Alaska Natives, once totaled nearly 24 million, with over 500 tribes. The diets of Native Americans varied by geographic region and climate. They lived in territories marked by specific natural boundaries, such as mountains, oceans, rivers, and plains. Hunting, fishing, and farming supplied the major food resources. Native Americans survived largely on meat, fish, plants, berries, and nuts.

The most widely grown and consumed plant foods were maize (or corn) in the mild climate regions and wild rice in the Great Lakes region. A process called nixtamalizacion (soaking dry corn in lime water) was used to soften the corn into dough, called nixtamal or masa. This was prepared in a variety of ways to make porridges and breads. Many tribes grew beans and enjoyed them as succotash, a dish made of beans, corn, dog meat, and bear fat . Tubers (roots), also widely eaten, were cooked slowly in underground pits until the hard tough root became a highly digestible gelatin-like soup. It is estimated that 60 percent of modern agricultural production in the United States involves crops domesticated by Native Americans.

Maple sugar comprised 12 percent of the Native American diet. The Native American name for maple sugar is Sinzibuckwud (drawn from the wood). Sugar was a basic seasoning for grains and breads, stews, teas, berries, vegetables. In the Southwest, the Native Americans chewed the sweet heart of the agave plant.

Many tribes preferred broth and herbed beverages to water. The Chippewa boiled water and added leaves or twigs before drinking it. Sassafras was a favorite ingredient in teas and medicinal drinks. Broth was flavored and thickened with corn silk and dried pumpkin blossoms. Native Americans in California added lemonade berries to water to make a pleasantly sour drink.



Read more: http://www.faqs.org/nutrition/Met-Ob...#ixzz2FCThzWJm

Tons to think about!

[Sasha the Cat]

For me, I think it's eating at other people's houses. A new friend has me over for dinner, asks if I have any dietary restrictions, I tell him I'm avoiding grains and he says "Oh, ok! How's corn chowder sound?" Grain soup. *facepalm*

I will often just make dinner at a friend's a "cheat day," because honestly, even if they were super-conscientious and awesome, it's sort of a laundry list of restrictions - no grains, sugar, beans-peanuts-lentils-soy, artificial stuff...I don't really want to subject people to that who are already going out of their way to make me something nice. And ordinarily, that's fine. But we move every 2 or 3 years with our jobs, so we go through periods when we're new and ESPECIALLY just before we leave where people are having us over every freaking night. It's worse than the holidays. I may figure out a strategy at some point, but for now I'm just prioritizing relationships over food and figuring that a few weeks of cheats every 2 or 3 years with people I love and may never see again isn't going to kill me. And we do tend to befriend really good cooks, so it could be a whole lot worse. :-D

[Damiana]

When all my friends want to get together at a pizza house/brewery.

[JoanieL]

Mostly that it's more time-consuming. One place for local this, another for pastured that, another for organic whatever. Let's face it, going to Wallyworld and throwing a bunch of chicken, pork, and ground beef in my basket, plus whatever frozen veggies, was no time at all. And they have paper plates and tp really cheap. heh.

In the long run, and as I'm getting it all down, it is really pleasurable to talk to the purveyors of various products and learn how to cook them, etc., so home-cooked food has become beautiful again which is an amazing thing. It's pretty easy when you're single/widowed/divorced to just cook what's easy and call for delivery food.

[Kochin]

Other people. lol
Offer you cake, even when you've said 1000 times you don't like it/are grain intolerant.
Feel sorry for you that you can't eat their "favourite" chemical sugar bombs.
Complain when the kitchen smells of fried liver...

Family are at once the best and worst. I love my family to death and they're accomodating enough (for my sister's birthday dinner, we went to an Italian, but they had AWESOME steaks and grilled veg starters. I strayed a bit with a slightly sweetened cream coffee for pudding. "Missing out" on what? ), but they genuinely fail to understand. Elder sister is STARTING to see my point, as she KNOWS she feels healthier and happier when eating mostly seafood and vegetables, so she can see the connection. She also understands that, being half-sisters, we're genetically linked enough that she may have trouble with grain too. But they don't seem to understand how I can genuinely LOVE eating the way I do, how I DON'T feel "restricted" and how IFing can be anything but uncomfortable.
We're a smart bunch, so they may come round a bit more as time goes on, even if they don't go Paleo themselves. *fingers crossed*

[SarahW]

I second the pain of having to shop at multiple stores. I mean, I guess whole Foods has just about everything, but then we'd be broke.

Also frustrating is looking in the cookbook section of the library or bookstores. Whole shelves of vegetarian/vegan/flexitarian cookbooks. If there are a few "gluten-free" books they're awful ones that use tons of fake ingredients. I found the cookbook "Fat" over the housekeeping section of my library. So annoying.

[Pilatesmom]

The worst part? That my 3 year old isn't a big meat eater. She is addicted to sugar and the best I can do to get her more primal is to offer a cheese stick for a snack instead of crackers. I keep no bread in the house, make sure she gets some veggies, but I cannot control every single thing she consumes. I just hope and pray as she gets older and I continue this way of eating that she will adopt it as well. I don't plan to force it though until I am able to explain to her why and she can thoroughly understand. I don't think it's fair to make a child be vegetarian just as much I don't think it's fair to force my child to eat the way I do. She does get maple syrup instead of pancake syrup and real milk and real butter. I have gone from baking bread from scratch to make cauliflower crust pizza. I keep eating my veggies and eggs and pray that it entices her soon.

[sarasue624]

I lve ice cream.

And hate sugar substitutes.

[Cha]

School parties. Nearly impossible to keep my kids away from all the artificial stuff they serve. I wouldn't mind so much a cheat day every now and then, but it sets off my oldest's ADHD.