Do you remember the epoch of Paleolithic beings? Whether yes or no, that is the genesis of paleo diets. It is believed the Paleolithic era recorded the least number of diseases in human history.
That is why the founders of the paleo diet came up with a dietary plan like the one used in the stone age. A time interval that goes from approximately 2 million to 10,000 years ago.
With this plan, the consumers of paleo diets believe they can be able to live a healthy life and avoid diseases.
So, what is Paleo cooking? Simply put, Paleo cooking is the process of preparing your meals following paleo recipes and principles.
Before delving into the discussion and to avoid confusion about the terms used on the web, remember that the Paleo diet is also called the Paleolithic diet, caveman diet, or stone-age diet. So if you ever want to deepen the discussion with further research around, remember that we are always talking about the same thing.
Purpose Of The Diet
The purpose of the paleo diet is to bring modern people back to a way of eating similar to what early humans ate.
The underlying region is that the human body is genetically incompatible with modern agricultural practices where chemicals, such as pesticides, are on the agenda.
These changes, according to the hypothesis of the paleo diet, are no longer endured by our bodies. It is believed that they are elements that contribute to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.
A Typical Paleo Daily Meal
Paleo recipe answers the question of what to cook and eat. Preparing a paleo meal is uniquely done. It may be harder or simpler than other meals depending on how you perceive it.
There are paleo recipes for different types of paleo meals. There is a recipe for preparing breakfast, lunch, supper or even snacks for biting. While these recipes may differ in terms of ingredients and procedures, the purpose of paleo meals remains the same.
Paleo Recipe For Breakfast
The first rule of preparing a paleo breakfast is keeping away dairy products. Focus on cooking fiber-rich foods while avoiding processed consumables. With that in mind, let’s dive into cooking a paleo breakfast.
For breakfast, you may use the following ingredients to prepare paleo meals:
- Mushrooms
- Sweet potatoes
- Bananas
- Eggs
With the above fundamentals, you can prepare 80% of the paleo meal options available. For instance, you want a mushroom meal. How do you prepare breakfast in the paleo way?
Mushroom Meals
A mushroom paleo meal is common and one of the most cooked. Did you know there are more than thirty paleo recipes you can use to prepare mushroom meals? Now you know.
You may prepare mushrooms with chicken, eggs, beef, or vegetables for a heavy breakfast. You may use tomato, red onions, garlic and other spices including salt to give your meal taste. Whether you like your breakfast light or heavy, mushrooms are an important ingredient in paleo cooking.
Sweet Potatoes
Doctors insist it is healthy to have a heavy breakfast and a light dinner meal. That is why sweet potatoes are a good breakfast option for paleo cooking.
There are several options to consume this healthy vegetable. Some eat sweet potatoes raw like Paleolithic men. Others boil it while others love deep-fried sweet potatoes. Whichever option you choose, sweet potatoes are rich in potassium and vitamin C and are one of the best ways to start your day.
Bananas
Rich in potassium, banana is another popular paleo ingredient. It is used in most paleo meals whether cooking breakfast, lunch or supper. For breakfast, you may cook banana pancakes. Add vegetables to make your meal more nutritious.
Eggs
You are probably already cooking eggs for your breakfast. Is it enough to make that paleo cooking? No, it’s not. Cooking eggs the paleo way entails more. There are countless recipes for cooking eggs in the paleo style. Some of the paleo egg meals you may prepare:
- Egg salad
- Baked eggs
- Paleo omelet
- Paleo egg muffins
- Paleo banana eggs
The beauty of paleo cooking is you are free to improvise your meal. The most important thing is ensuring you do not have processed foods as part of your ingredients. Another important rule in preparing paleo breakfast is using natural oils like coconut and olive.
Paleo Recipe For Lunch
When it comes to lunch, you have the right to prepare as heavy a meal as you wish. A heavy lunch meal is important in helping you restore the energy you’ve lost during the morning activities. It also gives you the energy to go on with the day strongly.
There are tons of recipes available for lunch. After having a breakfast full of vegetables, eggs and/or mushrooms, you surely want your lunch to be quite different and more nutritious. You also need a meal rich in energy-giving nutrients.
Chicken, pork, fish and beef are foods you may choose between for your lunch. Paleo cooking permits have more than one of the options in the same meal. The fact that you had eggs and mushrooms should not stop you from having the same for lunch. You may interchange them as days go by.
When preparing lunch the paleo way, paleo cooking rules stand. They include:
- Do not cook processed foods
- Use natural oils when cooking
- Balance your diet
- Avoid sugary foods
- Again, keep away dairy products. This is critical.
- Only cook lean proteins and fresh foods
- Shy away from artificial sweeteners
Paleo Recipe For Dinner
Legumes, grains, sugary and fatty foods are to be avoided at all costs when preparing dinner, the paleo way. Instead, the paleo diet dictates you cook and eat seafood, white and red meat. Since you are avoiding unhealthy fatty foods, if it is not easy to find olive and coconut oils, avocado is another good option. It has enough oil to meet the body’s oily needs.
The beauty of paleo cooking is you are free to come up with your own modified recipes as long as you are not going against the paleo guidelines.
About Paleo Drinks
Food is good for our health when taken in the right amounts and accompanied with the right drinks. Once done cooking the paleo way, you will need a drink to quench your thirst. Sometimes, you will need the drink when eating, so let’s have a look at the most common paleo drink.
Definitely Paleo Drink
It is important to read the ingredients to make sure there are no artificially added sugars. Even if we are talking about water, it is always advisable to check the label with the list of ingredients. For example, tonic water tends to be loaded with sugar, so try to avoid them and choose brands of sparkling water that have a little added natural aroma.
Below is a list of certainly Paleo drinks:
- Obviously filtered or spring water
- Water with or without natural flavors
- Non-milk fermented drinks
- Herbal tea
- Club soda
- Soda water
- Seltzer
Other Paleo Drinks To Be Taken In Moderation
As in all food styles and even more in diets, it is sometimes useful to change the routine to not make things monotonous and single-flavor.
In addition, sometimes you will find yourself on special occasions where drinking only water might seem “strange” and if you really don’t want to hurt some dear friend who wants to prepare you something special, here’s what you can drink moderately and stay in line with the Paleo diet:
- Alcohol: mostly dry wines and non-grain based spirits.
- Coffee and drinks that still contain caffeine
- Freshly-juiced fruits and vegetables with their pulp
- Drinks containing natural sweeteners such as stevia, coconut, honey, maple syrup and so on…
Not Paleo Drinks
To complete this short part about Paleo drinks it is the case to take a look also at the drinks that are not Paleo at all. In a few words you should avoid these drinks if you are sure you want to follow this diet:
- Milk and other dairy-based drinks
- Cheese
- Yogurt
- Pudding
- Beer and other gluten drinks
- Sodas, colas, sweet teas, and diet drinks
- Whiskey
- Tequila
- Rum
- Energy drinks
- Fruit juice that you commonly find in the supermarket
- Electrolyte beverages like Gatorade and others consumed by athletes
- Any drinks with sweeteners, artificial colorings, and preservatives
Benefits Of Paleo Cooking
At this point, you know the main types of food you can eat and what drinks are tolerated. The next question related to this diet is whether or not there are any particular benefits.
Paleo Cooking Gives You Space To Be You
You surely want to have your food cooked in your own style and taste. Paleo cooking allows you to prepare food the way you like as long as you stick to the rules.
Paleo is about healthy dietary practices from food selection, to cooking to eating. It is about avoiding contaminated foods and settling for nutritious eatables.
As much as paleo cooking allows you to prepare a meal your own way, it is strict when it comes to what and how you are cooking.
Balanced Diet And Weight Loss
Paleo cooking dictates you prepare nutritious food only. The essence of that is at the end of the day, you have a meal with a balanced diet. It also restricts you from other foods that would have injected your body with harmful substances. This not only helps your body in maintaining good health but also shields you from lifestyle diseases.
In addition, many people have started to follow the Paleo diet to try to lose weight and apparently following the guidelines have succeeded. A pre-2008 study found that 14 healthy volunteers lost an average of 2.3 kilograms on this diet over a 3-week period.
Options
Paleo cooking allows you to choose whichever option you like. These options are well researched and tried. The recipes are easy to follow and the end products are both healthy and delicious.
The beauty of having options is it eradicates boredom. Imagine using a diet that frees you from daily food routines. You may be eating the same food repeatedly but paleo recipes give you ways to cook the meals differently to give it a completely different taste.
Paleo Cooking Is Simple
Preparing food in a paleo way is not difficult. You can imagine what the stone age beings used to prepare their meals. It was as simple as lighting fire and roasting or boiling foods. Paleo somehow takes the same approach. Although, with the upgrade in cooking technologies and more ingredients there are few adjustments.
Many times cooks get lost in the middle of complicated recipes. In fact, some recipes are so complicated that it is almost impossible to find all the ingredients required.
Unlike these recipes, a paleo step-by-step cooking guide is simple to execute. Furthermore, most of the ingredients a paleo recipe lists are readily available. Since paleo calls for naturally occurring constituents and not processed foods, it is easier to obtain them.
The Fate Of Your Health Is In Your Hands
The rate at which manufacturers of processed foods spring up is alarming. It is more worrying that these businesses are booming. Well, you do not have control over the businesses but you have control over what you choose to eat.
Paleo cooking takes back the fate of your health to your hands. You are free to cook healthy and at the end of the day, you lead a healthy life.
How To Start Paleo Cooking
We have found how simple Paleo cooking is. This does not mean that you will grab everything easily. However, this shouldn’t worry you because you have the opportunity to attend paleo cooking classes where you will learn the basic rules for cooking paleo meals.
Indeed, with advances in technology, there are many who offer these online lessons in the form of audio, video, and text. Youtube also has a series of videos with the latest recipes of specific meals and it is easy to find channels of people who have more experience than you.
We advise you not to spend hours and hours searching for and consuming only videos but to take action. You already have everything you need at your fingertips: your kitchen.
The Future of Paleo Cooking
Who knew the twenty-first-century man would look back at the Paleolithic age and create a dietary plan? Absolutely no one. The fact remains even with the emergence of new processed foods, paleo still exists. The only change is experiencing is the advancement in cooking equipment. In terms of ingredients and recipes, most were in use long and are still in use now.
That means paleo is relatively static. No one knows what the future holds for paleo cooking. In terms of cooking guides and paleo diet, nothing looks like to change. The only change that will most likely happen is perhaps more people adopting the diet.
There is so much junk under consumption right now. People are adding weight and developing lifestyle diseases at the fastest than ever before. This is a health hazard manifestation likely to increase in the near future.
The more cases of unhealthy disease rise, people will start to focus on living a healthy lifestyle. With that need to improve on lifestyle, paleo will be one of the options many will consider because it is simple and works naturally.
In the end, the number of people engaging in paleo cooking will rise.
Final Thoughts
Those who decide to follow the paleo diet aim to eat as our prehistoric ancestors did. The goal is the constant search for whole and unprocessed foods avoiding cereals, legumes and dairy products.
This is because on the basis of the thought of those who follow the Paleo diet there is the idea that our bodies are unable to process foods that emerged after the development of agriculture.
We want to underline the fact that the paleo diet may not be safe for everyone and it is always best to speak to a doctor before making major changes to your diet.
We conclude by saying that the growing popularity of paleo diets and the natural approach to achieving a healthy lifestyle we believe that it is destined to last and that following it in the right way one must have discipline and consistency.
Anyway, good cooking!