The new Paleolithic Diet Newsletter Just Released

Im writing this blog post because I wanted to share a newly evolved (pun intended) newsletter or group called  PaleolithicDiet.com and because Im hoping to score a ticket to the Ancestral Health Symposium this summer.

Firstly, let me share a little bit about what PaleolithicDiet.com will have going on.  It will be distributed via email and aims to "assist in stewarding Paleo/primal/evolutionary/ancestral eating responsibly as it goes mainstream."


Have you ever played that telephone game where you whisper something into someones ear, they whisper it to their neighbor and so it goes around the circle until the very end, where, the last person stands up and announces what they believe your original message was?  The point of the game is that no matter what, the message gets lost somewhere along the way and your original message of "I like to eat Buffalo beef jerky under a shade tree." turns into "I like to play roller derby while wearing a sock and chewing on Bubbalicious gum."  That is kind of how I see the whole paleo movement sometimes.  


There are so many people coming on board and usually they start because someone told them about it and its amazing benefits.  But, then they may add a little twist to it, they omit a few of the basic tenets, add their own fudge factor, etc, and before you know it, the original, simple message no longer rings true.  And the people at the end of the 'phone conversation line' wonder why they dont get results.  They get frustrated and walk away with a bad view of a way of eating, that if adhered to as originally stated, would have provided them with amazing results.


What I am hoping to gain from publications and user groups such as PaleolithicDiet.com is that they will provide a North Star for many of its readers to refocus on.  To allow us to find a centralized clearing house for great, up-to-date scientific literature, opinion, and products regarding the whole paleo way of eating.  I see the website or email newsletter to be a great tool to share with new converts or potential converts as well!


Now, as far as why I should get one of those coveted tickets I will tell you a little bit about my journey.  I think I discovered Paleo about 2 or 3 years ago.  I had heard about Robb Wolf through Crossfit while he was still the nutrition cert guru.  This was way before his book or podcast.  Before paleo I had been a Zone diet adherent.  As they say though, once I went paleo, I couldnt go back.  Once I found Robb I started finding other professionals and bloggers like Mark Sisson, Loren Cordain, etc.  From there I made it onto twitter where I was able to easily connect with other like-minded individuals.  It was great!  There was so much to learn and the information was so readily available!  


Then, in March of 2010 I happened upon a link or a webpage to something called the Ancestral Health Symposium.  This event had not been advertised at all, noone had been mentioning it either, but I was ecstatic that there were going to be all of these paleo pro's in one place.  I knew it was going to be a HUGE deal and I wanted in!  I emailed them and told them I wanted to be on the interest list to be an attendee.  Eventually, as word got out, this event became all the buzz in the paleo world and rightly so with all of the big paleo names sharing one stage.  At the point when tickets when on sale I was kicking myself for not having the available funds to spring for a ticket.  I was beside myself with grief when I discovered that shortly thereafter the event had sold out.


Now, I am really hoping that I can score one of the available tickets because this event has been a dream for me since I first heard about it.  I know that sounds silly to most people but it truly is a dream of mine to attend this event.  If I am able to go, I am sure that I will walk away with so much more knowledge that I can disseminate to all of my friends and family allowing them to reap the same benefits from eating paleo that I have.


Thank you for considering my entry and thank you for putting together the PaleolithicDiet.com email newsletter!


-Nick

What Community Means to Me

I wrote this speech back in 2008.  My family was hosting a movie night for our neighborhood.  The intent was to get people in the neighborhood more involved in each others lives.  I wanted to live in a community that looked after each other, that knew who belonged on our streets, and who didnt.  I just ran across this on my computer and I thought I would share it.  I hope that you can find something useful out of it.

Mako Lane Movie Night Aug 9 2008

Thank you all for coming tonight.  Before we start the movie I just wanted to say a few words about what tonight means to me and hopefully to you as well.

Look around you, we sit on approximately ½ acre of land and in that ½ acre there are approximately 600 people living together!  If you really boil it down and think about it, when you turn in for the night you are probably sleeping not more than 5 feet from your nearest neighbor!  But do you know their name?  Do you know what their favorite food is, or what they do for work or recreation?  I would be willing to bet that you know more about the characters from “The Real OC” that you do about the person that lives across the drive from you.  It becomes so easy to just come home, pull into the garage and forget all about the world outside our own 4 walls.  But who do you call If you forget to close your garage door?  Where do you go when you need to borrow a cup of sugar?  Who do you wave to when you pull into Lakeview Townhomes?

Now, most, if not all, of you would agree that we live in a community.  But what is a community? Webster’s defines “community” as

1: a unified body of individuals: b: the people with common interests living in a particular area; c: an interacting population of various kinds of individuals in a common location d: a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society

To me, though, community means so much more than that dry, drab, depressing definition.  Community is when I can call Bryan, my neighbor, and ask him to feed our cat for us while we are gone.  Community is being able to trust your house with your neighbors, knowing that they will look after your house while you are out of town.  Community is baking your neighbor a pie because you know that they like it, or saying hello to those that you pass by while you are on a walk.  Community is knowing that your kids are safe when they are playing outside, knowing that they have many pairs of eyes watching to make sure that they are always ok.  Community is knowing that if, by chance you accidentally leave your garage door open one of your neighbors will close it for you.  Community is offering to help pick up a water heater from Home Depot (thanks Jeff).  Community is calling your neighbor, whom you know is alone, when there is an earthquake, just to make sure that they are ok.

I feel blessed that you all came out tonight.  I hope that you are enjoying yourselves and I hope that you have met someone new and feel that you are now more a part of this community than ever before. If you still feel that you haven’t met someone new then I will help you out with that.   

My name is Nick Cruz and I live at XXX Mako Lane.  My wife’s name is Susan and we have two wonderful kids, JT and Eden.  We are born and raised Orange Countians.  All four of us were birthed at St Jude Hospital in Fullerton (no, not at the same time).  We recently started going to church in Yorba Linda, and we have season passes to Disneyland.  Susan plays in a women’s adult soccer league and I like to do Crossfit.  Both of us are card carrying SCUBA divers.  Both JT and Eden are in gymnastics, Eden loves to sing and JT loves to read.  Susan is a librarian at JT and Eden’s school and I am mechanical designer.

Now you know some things about my family.   I would like to encourage you to share some things about yourself with someone new.  Community is not about one night per year, it’s about a continual building of relationships with those around you.

In order to stay in good graces with the HOA I would ask that you please pick up after yourselves when the movie is over.  There is a large trash can over here for your convenience.  We also have fresh popcorn over by the tables.  Please silence your cell phones and pagers at this time.  I hope that you will enjoy our presentation of Nim’s Island. 

Thank you,

Nick, Susan , JT and Eden

What Community Means to Me

I wrote this speech back in 2008.  My family was hosting a movie night for our neighborhood.  The intent was to get people in the neighborhood more involved in each others lives.  I wanted to live in a community that looked after each other, that knew who belonged on our streets, and who didnt.  I just ran across this on my computer and I thought I would share it.  I hope that you can find something useful out of it.

Mako Lane Movie Night Aug 9 2008

Thank you all for coming tonight.  Before we start the movie I just wanted to say a few words about what tonight means to me and hopefully to you as well.

Look around you, we sit on approximately ½ acre of land and in that ½ acre there are approximately 600 people living together!  If you really boil it down and think about it, when you turn in for the night you are probably sleeping not more than 5 feet from your nearest neighbor!  But do you know their name?  Do you know what their favorite food is, or what they do for work or recreation?  I would be willing to bet that you know more about the characters from “The Real OC” that you do about the person that lives across the drive from you.  It becomes so easy to just come home, pull into the garage and forget all about the world outside our own 4 walls.  But who do you call If you forget to close your garage door?  Where do you go when you need to borrow a cup of sugar?  Who do you wave to when you pull into Lakeview Townhomes?

Now, most, if not all, of you would agree that we live in a community.  But what is a community? Webster’s defines “community” as

1: a unified body of individuals: b: the people with common interests living in a particular area; c: an interacting population of various kinds of individuals in a common location d: a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society

To me, though, community means so much more than that dry, drab, depressing definition.  Community is when I can call Bryan, my neighbor, and ask him to feed our cat for us while we are gone.  Community is being able to trust your house with your neighbors, knowing that they will look after your house while you are out of town.  Community is baking your neighbor a pie because you know that they like it, or saying hello to those that you pass by while you are on a walk.  Community is knowing that your kids are safe when they are playing outside, knowing that they have many pairs of eyes watching to make sure that they are always ok.  Community is knowing that if, by chance you accidentally leave your garage door open one of your neighbors will close it for you.  Community is offering to help pick up a water heater from Home Depot (thanks Jeff).  Community is calling your neighbor, whom you know is alone, when there is an earthquake, just to make sure that they are ok.

I feel blessed that you all came out tonight.  I hope that you are enjoying yourselves and I hope that you have met someone new and feel that you are now more a part of this community than ever before. If you still feel that you haven’t met someone new then I will help you out with that.   

My name is Nick Cruz and I live at XXX Mako Lane.  My wife’s name is Susan and we have two wonderful kids, JT and Eden.  We are born and raised Orange Countians.  All four of us were birthed at St Jude Hospital in Fullerton (no, not at the same time).  We recently started going to church in Yorba Linda, and we have season passes to Disneyland.  Susan plays in a women’s adult soccer league and I like to do Crossfit.  Both of us are card carrying SCUBA divers.  Both JT and Eden are in gymnastics, Eden loves to sing and JT loves to read.  Susan is a librarian at JT and Eden’s school and I am mechanical designer.

Now you know some things about my family.   I would like to encourage you to share some things about yourself with someone new.  Community is not about one night per year, it’s about a continual building of relationships with those around you.

In order to stay in good graces with the HOA I would ask that you please pick up after yourselves when the movie is over.  There is a large trash can over here for your convenience.  We also have fresh popcorn over by the tables.  Please silence your cell phones and pagers at this time.  I hope that you will enjoy our presentation of Nim’s Island. 

Thank you,

Nick, Susan , JT and Eden

Crock Pot Pork-Stuffed Peppers

Todays Recipe. - This morning I loaded up the crock pot with a primal dish from Marks Daily Apple.  The Crock Pot Pork-Stuffed Peppers recipe promised all the ease of a traditional slow cooker, comfort food meal with a paleo, or primal, spin.  So, how did this recipe fare in my, sometimes, incapable hands?  Read on to find out.

Ingredients - This recipe didnt require any hunting for veggies.  Everything was well known to me and was easy to find.  I did take my time in picking out the green peppers though.  I wanted something with a good base that would support itself and a belly full of ground pork.

I changed up the recipe only to add 2 peppers because my crockpot could hold them.  This allowed me to fill the peppers and not have extra filling to stuff into the cracks of the crock pot.

FitDay Calculations - FitDay Gave me the following macronutrient breakdown.

Entire Recipe
Total Calories:3,095
Fat: 212g
Carbs: 128g
Protein: 178g

Per Pepper (Total divided by 6):

Total Calories:515
Fat: 35.3g
Carbs: 21.3g
Protein: 29.6g


Cost - The total cost for all of my ingredients came out to about 18 dollars.  

Preparation - Ok, this is getting ridiculous, the third review Ive done and this is the third time that Ive had to mash up ground meat of some sort with my hands!  Not that Im complaining or anything,  I think its fun to get all mucky, but I really need to pick something that doesnt have ground meat in the ingredients list.  Mark's recipe mentions that you can either use the food processor or manually chop your veggies.  After about 5 minutes of earlier morning, coffee driven conversation with myself, we (both myself and I) decided to go ahead and use the food processor.  It's really not that big of a deal to clean and its pretty fast and convenient.

There really isnt much to this recipe in the preparation phase.  The magic all comes later while you are at work and the peppers are magically cooking themselves.  A word of caution though, be gentle when stuffing your peppers.  I split one of mine open when I got a little too vigorous with the stuffing.  In fact, I think I was thinking back to that scene in Little Mermaid (Dont judge me I have a 6 yo daughter) when the chef is stuffing the crab with lettuce, lol.  Ahem, anyways, just take it easy on those poor peppers.

Cooking - The cooking step was as easy as plugging in the crockpot and turning it to low.  The hardest part would be remembering to come back home in time to turn the crockpot off.  If you arent going to be home for longer than 9 hours, I would suggest getting a timer at home depot to set the crockpot start time with (unless yours already has a built in timer)

Eating, tasting - This recipe was another winner for me.  The peppers tasted great right out of the crockpot and actually only seemed to get better over the next few days as left-overs!  I could have done with a little more spice and I would actually like to try a hybrid of this recipe using the Meatza seasonings.  I think that would be fantastic!


Verdict - Another keeper!  A delicious and easy to make dish that makes your whole house smell delectable!

Sources - 

Marks Daily Apple
Crock-Pot Pork Stuffed Peppers
FitDay Nutrition Calculations

JT's Review of the Garden Fresh Meatballs

My name  is J.T., I am nine years old, and this is what I thought of the Garden Fresh Meatballs.  They were very good and almost sweet.  They were also juicy.  It took me a couple minutes to eat it because it was so HUGE! I've been thinking  what if you could make one as big as your face!  Any questions about the Garden Fresh Meatballs?