Paleo Grocery Finds - What I Buy, Where: WalMart

If there's one thing that I learned long term from my years as a dedicated couponer, it is the mental exercise of skimming my grocers' shelves for price points on my regular paleo staples, and new-to-me paleo-friendly items. Even in few grocery store aisles that I shop every week, I find my eyes spontaneously flicking across each shelf, line by line, searching for novel information to plug into my brain's "product/price point" database.

Our WalMart has an
ever-improving gluten-free
section. Not necessarily
paleo, and I don't use it all the
time, but it's nice to have
there for certain occasions.

I recently realized how useful it might be to put my price points information out there - I have often been grateful to find out about paleo-friendly products at various stores from fellow real food enthusiasts, so perhaps my grocery lists will give those reading ideas about new things to look for as they're doing their grocery shopping errands. As you'll see, there are a lot of "in house" and conventional items that we buy right alongside more premium organic staples. Of course, most WalMarts with grocery sections and Super WalMarts carry a vast and varying selection of produce, eggs, meats, and fish, so your trip to WalMart may not necessarily look like ours below. But, hopefully, there will be an item or two we buy regularly that you haven't thought to check out at your own WalMart...and odds are that when you do find it, it will be very price competitive!

Prices subject to fluctuation seasonally and regionally; once you hear of something I've found, double check your own locations' stock and prices. I've put a bold  GF for "gluten free" where the product in question has been specifically marked as "gluten free".








My WalMart is not so good with its coconut milk selection. It used to carry Golden Star, which is just coconut milk and water, and comes in a green can. It wasn't always in stock, so I always grabbed a bunch when it was there. Even after I'd politely talked to a couple of managers about keeping it in stock more regularly, I mourned deeply when they instead stopped carrying it and replaced it with Imperial Dragon, whose ingredient list includes a couple of preservatives. Coconut milk is consumed so regularly at our house, including by my 3 year old daughter who has gut health issues, so finding a short ingredient list is very important to us. Now when I am in a pinch at WalMart I'll pick up Thai Kitchen's coconut milk, which still has guar gum in it, but if I plan ahead I can keep stocked with a BPA-free no-additive coconut milk via Amazon.com.

Imperial Dragon:
This is a coconut milk I avoid;
look at the ingredient list!

Goya: Another coconut milk to avoid

because of added preservative.

My Typical WalMart Shopping List

Label for WalMart's
in-house organic milk.
ALLERGY WARNING:
CONTAINS MILK.
No, really!?

Besides bulk meat purchases from local farmers, WalMart and Wegmans roughly tie for getting my most grocery dollars month in, month out. Here are the things I regularly buy for our family at WalMart.

• Organic Eggs: $4.18/doz.
• Silk Unsweetened Almond Milk: $3.18/half gal. GF
  (I like this brand because it does not have carrageenan)
• Organic Stonyfield whole milk (in-house): $3.58/half gal
  
• 1 lb. Earthbound Farm Organic Baby Carrots: $1.94/ea. (We usually buy several pounds each visit! They go in almost every lunch we pack.)
• Mariani honey bars: ~$4.99/5 pack - these are nuts, dried fruit, and honey  GF

  

  Mariani's Honey Bars. I find these by the produce section.
  I love their simple ingredient lists of nuts, fruits, and honey.
  My 6 year old daughter loves that they look like granola bars.

• Pistachios, 32 oz.: $10.99

  

  VERY nice prices
  on Thai Kitchen's
  red curry paste and
  green curry paste.

• Fischer nuts - walnuts, pecans, etc. Allergen info says processed in a plant with tree nuts but says nothing about wheat. Prices vary across sizes.
• Bananas: $0.47/lb.
• Blood oranges, around 8 in a 3 lb. bag: $3.88
• 6 ct. Marketplace single serve guacamole (WalMart's in-house version of Wholly Guacamole): ~$3.88 GF
  (These are also a lunchbox staple of ours! I sometimes stick a short straw in an opened one for my 3 year old to build her oral motor muscle tone as she sucks it up like a milkshake.)
• Wyman's frozen wild blueberries (these are teeny berries and thus great for baking): ~$0.20/oz, depending on the size bought.
• Mezzetta Pitted Greek Kalamata Olives, 9.5 oz.: $4.72/ea. GF
• Thai Kitchen Red Curry Paste and Green Curry Paste: $2.30/jar GF
  (This is at least a dollar cheaper than almost anywhere else!)
• Pace Salsas: ~$2.50/jar  GF
• Local raw honey: $8.99/35 oz. jar
• Hormel Natural preservative-free ham, turkey, and salamis: ~$2.50/pack  GF



Love me some olives!





• Zico 1 L coconut water: $4.48 GF
  
  
  

  

  WalMart has fair prices on coconut water. Zico is my favorite
  brand available at our WalMart as far as taste goes.

What paleo-friendly finds have you scouted out at WalMart?

~

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Sixty Second Frosting - A Paleo-ish Dairy Free, Grain Free, Gluten Free, Egg Free, Nut Free, Refined Sugar Free Option

My daughter's birthday party was this weekend. I created this frosting for her gluten free egg free dairy free nut free cupcakes - it is so simple, I couldn't believe how easy it was! You won't believe how easy it is, either. This recipe makes a buttercream-y fruit-flavored frosting that isn't shockingly, cloyingly sweet, but instead gently sweet.

I baked these cupcakes in unbleached parchment liners, and then transfered them to colorful liners after they had cooled.

Sixty Second Frosting

Makes enough to frost 3 dozen standard size cupcakes

Ingredients
One 10 oz. jar of St. Dalfour jam, flavor of choice (I used raspberry)
    -> You can substitute 10 oz. of any no-refined-sugar-added jam
1.5 cups of Spectrum organic palm shortening
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract, preferably one without corn syrup as an ingredient
1/4 tsp. ground sea salt

Directions
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl, and whip at high speed until very smooth (about 30 seconds at the highest speed if use my stand mixer).

If desired, use a cake-decorating tip to pipe the frosting out onto the cupcakes.

For special touches, add fresh fruit, colorful cupcake wrappers, or other cupcake toppers.

***

Just for kicks, let's compare ingredients. Frosting from a can, a "rich and creamy white" flavor, from a popular national brand:

Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil, High Maltose Corn Syrup, Water, Corn Starch, Salt, Distilled Monoglycerides, Polysorbate 60, Color Added, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Citric Acid, Freshness Preserved by Potassium Sorbate. Also may contain milk ingredients. 

But hey, look, it's gluten free!

Here is the ingredient list for the above sixty-second frosting:

Red raspberries, concentrated grape juice, fruit pectin, organic expeller pressed palm oil, organic vanilla extract, ground sea salt.

I by no means classify frosting of any sort - paleo-fied or not - as a health food, or a weight loss food. But, birthdays are meant to be celebrated, so when you are celebrating one and baking your loved one some cupcakes or a cake, isn't it nice to know that you can make a frosting using 6 ingredients that you can recognize - in less than 60 seconds?


What do you like to do to decorate your cupcakes for birthday celebrations?



~~
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Star Fruit Magic Wands

This is a fun little project I dreamed up for my daughter's upcoming 6th birthday party. It is fast, pretty, and best of all, kids love the magic wand effect. What can I say? Kids love edible things that look like non-edible things.

Here's the scoop.

Star Fruit Magic Wands

Makes 6-8 magic wands

Ingredients

2 large star fruits

Tools

6-8 6" bamboo skewers, ideally the kind with one pointy end and one blunt end

Directions

Wash the star fruits, then slice into 3/4" thick slices. (You will have a couple of end pieces that don't work as well...so snack away on those!)

Insert the pointy end of the skewer into the bottom part of the star on the star fruit slice, about 1" deep.

Serve immediately, or for a colder popsicle-style treat, let the star fruit magic wands chill in the freezer for 20 minutes.

For a serving suggestion, consider a stout vase or two filled with glass pebbles or marbles, to hold the wands in place so that the magic wand star design really stands out!

~

What simple kids' birthday party ideas have you been trying out lately?

Dairy Free Paleo Cream Cheese, and Raspberry Cheesecake Truffles

Ever since we figured out that my youngest daughter had dramatic behavioral and developmental improvement when we cut dairy out of our diet, she has been dairy-free. Since I'm still in the home stretch of nursing her - now usually just a couple of times a day - I too have kept myself dairy free, since many problematic food proteins are able to pass through mothers' breastmilk. I've valued the experience for the fact that it has forced me to become much more inventive - and to have a solid understanding of how the dairy-free alternatives I craft taste for my youngest daughter.

Some things were easier to give up than others. I have not missed milk much. But pastured butter and ghee? Ohhhh, how I miss those. Another thing I've greatly missed is the class of ultra-rich full fat cultured cheeses, like mascarpone and cream cheese. Luckily, I recently came up with a cream cheese substitute that is based entirely in whole foods. I am proud to share that basic dairy-free cream cheese recipe - and to show you one example of how it can be adapted and applied in the creation of a decadent dessert!

Here is the basic cream cheese recipe. When the basic recipe is made as shown below, it will not be sweet - it will be fairly thick, and have the very tangy creamyness associated with plain full fat cream cheese.

Basic Dairy-Free Cream Cheese
Makes roughly 1 cup

Ingredients:
2/3 cup raw organic cashew butter
1/3 cup organic palm shortening
2 tsp. raw organic apple cider vinegar (this is available at most grocery stores now for around $3.50/bottle)
1/2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp. ground sea salt

Combine all ingredients at room temperature using a mixer, stand mixer, or powerful blender. The longer you whip, the smoother your mix will be. If desired, add in the vinegar and lemon juice to the mix slowly, tasting as you go, to customize your desired level of tanginess.

*****

Now, let's kick it up a notch in a easy-to-come-together special dessert: Raspberry Cheesecake Truffles. These puppies are so rich and deliciously satisfying, most folks enjoying them as a post-meal dessert will probably be content to savor one truffle in all its glory. I love the Cadbury-egg-style-surprise factor of biting into these and hitting a gorgeous, juicy raspberry!



Dairy-Free Raspberry Cheesecake Truffles
Makes 8 Truffles

Ingredients

• 1 batch "Basic Dairy-Free Cream Cheese", as shown above
• 1/3 c. maple syrup (this can be adjusted to taste/sweetness preference, or omitted altogether)
• 1/2 tbsp. vanilla extract

• 8 fresh raspberries

• 8-10 oz. chocolate of choice, for melting (I've used Enjoy Life allergen-friendly chips and Scharffen Berger 99%...see alternative sugar-free chocolate options below).

Tools

• 1 silicone cake-pop-style pan - I used the Wilton Round Brownie Pop silicone mold. I recommend a silicone molding option, because after your truffles have set it will be much easier to gently "pop" them out of their molds.

Directions
Melt 4 oz. of the chocolate, either using a double boiler or warming in the microwave for 2 minutes at half power. When the chocolate is melted, stir it with a clean, dry spoon until it's entirely smooth. Using a standard table spoon, spoon a couple of spoonfuls of the melted chocolate into each of the cavities of the silicone mold you've chosen to use. Use the back of the same spoon to push the melted chocolate up the walls of the cavities, so that the melted chocolate comes all the way along the sides to the top of each cavity in the mold. Wait 5 minutes, then repeat the process, so that the remaining still-melted chocolate at the bottom is pushed along and clings to the hardened chocolate on the walls of the cavities.

Add maple syrup and vanilla to the cream cheese batch and whip the cream cheese mix until smooth. The consistency will be like barely-warmed butter. Spoon 1/2 teaspoon of the cream cheese mix into the bottom of the silicone mold's chocolate-coated cavities. Press 1 fresh raspberry into the center of the cream cheese cheese mix in each cavity, then top each raspberry with another 1/2 teaspoon of the cream cheese mix. Put the silicone mold in the freezer for at least half an hour - the surface of the cream cheese mix must become very cold and firm up just a bit before adding the last bit of melted chocolate on top.

Once the cream cheese is sufficiently cold and firm, melt the remainder of the chocolate. Remove the silicone mold from the freezer, and spoon the melted chocolate onto the top of the cream cheese mix in each cavity until the chocolate covers the cream cheese entirely and is the melted chocolate is level with the top of the cavity.

Place silicone mold in the fridge until chocolate sets fully. Very gently, peel back the silicone as you ease each truffle out of its cavity. Serve within 24 hours of creation - so the raspberries are at their juicy best!

*****

Truffle Adaptations and Other Suggestions

• Try other fresh berries (strawberries, blueberries, etc.) or small pieces of fresh fruit in place of the raspberry.
• If you like, you can make these with unsweetened dark chocolate, or stevia-sweetened dark chocolate, and the truffles will then be entirely free of refined sugars. In our house, I used both Scharffen Berger's unsweetened 99% (I buy mine at Wegmans) and Enjoy Life allergen-friendly chocolate chips with great success.
• If you or your loved ones are nut-free, you could easily substitute unsweetened organic sunflower seed butter for the cashew butter above when making your batch of "cream cheese" for the truffles. You will not get the same cream-cheese flavor effect, but instead of cheesecake bites, you'll end up with what I'd call sunbutter-and-raspberry-jam truffles. Yum!
• If you want sweetness in your cream cheese mix without adding the carbs from maple syrup, you could add just a few drops of organic stevia extract instead.
• As shown in the top photo, you can skip the chocolate aspect of the dessert entirely, in favor of spooning the sweetened vanilla-added cream cheese mix over fresh berries in a pretty bowl. This makes a simpler, faster, colorfully fresh option for a company dessert!

What dairy-free alternatives have you been enjoying lately?


~

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On The Folly and Heartache of Perfectionism

There's a lot of hullabaloo on the paleosphere right now about an eyebrow-raising study, in which the lead content of bone broth made from organic chickens was found to be roughly 10 times more concentrated than in the tap water used to make the same broth - and the researchers say that this because bones are where lead is sequestered in the body. Of course, since our family eats a lot of soups made from homemade broth, you can imagine my panicky gut (no pun intended) reaction to this revelation. However, I am trying to not. freak. out. First of all, I know next to nothing about a) the source journal in which this study was published, and b) about lead concentration levels and their associated dangers. Secondly (and I thank God for this), there are so many brilliant minds heading up the real food community - many of whom are MDs and PhDs, so I am looking forward to reading their blogs' soon-to-be posted analyses of the study's data. That's not to say that I should not research and come to conclusions of my own, but so often I appreciate some dots being connected for me due to my lack of professional or educational expertise.

Still, my heart was heavy yesterday afternoon as I tried to soak up yet another situation where I thought I was doing well by my daughters, but ended up with at best a murky conclusion. After all, hang around the interwebs long enough, and you'll find that there's a conviction rendered against just about anything you can put in your mouth...spend any time searching specifically for dietary interventions for neurological disorders (as with my daughter's sensory processing and speech delay issues), and you're down an even deeper rabbit hole of often conflicting nutritional advice.

So, what am I now to do? I think, mostly, to remember Teddy Roosevelt's advice:

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

That is the most that I can do as a mother. Ya know better, ya do better. So for the next week or so, I will suspend bone broth from our diets until further conclusions can be reached. In the meantime, I rely heavily on grace to sustain us where my well-intentioned dietary decisions have failed or may fail in the future.

There may not be a perfect dietary plan to support my daughter and her quirks; we may be tinkering with what helps her or hinders her for years to come. But, I'd like to think that despite the trial and error, in the aggregate, over time, we are averaging an uphill climb.

By this, I mean to say that even though there may be hiccups over food sourcing, contamination (besides this current lead/broth imbroglio, as with arsenic in rice, chicken, and apple juice), trying to make decisions over what is worth buying organic and what is not...on average, our choices have improved. I may not witness this week to week or even month to month, but I can testify to that improvement when looking over years.

You'll recall from a previous post of mine that I was once an extreme couponer. Here is one example of one of my coupon runs...I think this one cost me somewhere around $25. This run happened somewhere around 2008, if memory serves me rightly.

I was laughing to myself today as I pulled into our driveway after a trip to Wegmans. I thought to myself how fun it would be to recreate a grocery run lineup on our front porch...4 years (give or take) later!

Boy, I wish I could say this run had cost me $25...ha!

Side note: Having practiced extreme couponing, I did not walk away from it having learned nothing. Am I still using my savings strategies? You bet. At Wegmans today, I put most of our dollars to the "highest value added" items that we eat: organic meats and vegetables. (We also like to save by purchasing naturally raised meats from local farmers in bulk, but we are between bulk orders right now.) Apples and pears, coconut milk, and jarred pasta sauces rounded out the run. I picked up that butterflied organic leg of lamb because it was marked half off, and my organic chicken drumsticks were selected because they were the cheapest in cost per pound of organic chicken meat, as compared to breasts, wings, and whole chickens. I bought organic grassfed beef chuck roasts and ground beef, similarly, because those are cheapest per pound.

It does not take a rocket scientist to conclude - especially when comparing the two pictures above - that the ongoing habit of improving thousands of tiny little decisions over the course of days, weeks, months, adds up to a very different health trajectory in the long run. I may not ever know precisely the optimal foods to feed my family, but I certainly know that the bottom photo comes a whole lot closer to that elusive ideal than does the my grocery run from the top photo. (I do find it very funny that the only commonality between the two pictures is bacon.)

So take it to heart: Even if you have arrived at the point of delving deeper into your choices, and you are starting to feel confused, know that a handful of big decisions (avoiding sugar, for one) will have the greatest impact for your family. Yes, there are plenty of more minor decisions that remain for my family to research and tinker, but, instead of feeling the immense pressure of perfectionism, I try to rest in God's grace to keep us humming along, and thank Him for the progress that we've been able to make thus far.

Do you have a before/after grocery picture that you like to use as a reminder of how far you have come?

Edit to add: Chris Kresser published his first take on bone broth / lead here. It is a worthwhile read, and I definitely recommend following Kresser's site and other major players' sites in the next week or so to see what other information comes to light.

~

DIY BBQ-Flavor Kale Chips - Gluten Free, Grain Free, Dairy Free, Paleo, Primal

True confessions time: I have been having a really hard time with this nutrition challenge. You'd think a challenge vet like myself would not have difficulties with a challenge - I've done 3 on my own and this challenge makes the 5th with my Crossfit box. And it is true - the more challenges I've done, the better I've gotten with economies of scale, sourcing my food, planning ahead, and honing the recipes that really work for me and my family.

For me, this time the difficulty is boiling down to a) motivation - it is so hard to keep it going when I am not able to work out the same way that I did in past challenges (due to rehabbing an injury), and b) boredom/monotony, because I haven't been proactive about mixing it up with different foods, instead falling back frequently on my usual stand-by recipes. Also, during this challenge I am trying something new and combining the J.J. Virgin recommendations with the paleo challenge portion, so I am not eating eggs, which has proven far more difficult than I'd have guessed - eggs are my breakfast go-to, after all!

The monotony thing has really gotten to me, because even a good 12 days into the challenge, I am finding myself drawn to taste-bud-hijacking junk foods (sweet and salty both) and prepaleo comfort foods. I have managed to not slip up, but these cravings tell me that I need to get some new challenge-legal snacks in my life!

Speaking of challenge-legal snacks, I'm already thinking ahead to a classic comfort food occasion: the Super Bowl. I don't even care about football, but boy, do I love football-watching food. We are hosting some friends, and I'm planning ahead this year to have challenge-friendly fare at the ready: Some slow-cooked shredded carnitas in a crock-pot, maybe some hot wings (if it's not too cold for grilling), veggies and guacamole, Clementines, and so on. Perhaps I will also make kale chips! After all, nothing says, game food like something crispy and savory.

Today, I tried out my first go at kale chips - I've had them store-bought before from the company Brad's, which does a marvelous job - but I was hoping to get similar results at home for a fraction of the price. The cashew butter combined with the apple cider vinegar and seasonings lends a rich umami "cheesy" flavor, to these, as well. This is what resulted, and my daughters and I enjoyed the chips so much that I couldn't resist sharing!

Barbecue Flavor Kale Chips
Makes about 2 cups of chips

Ingredients

• Bunch of fresh kale, about the size of two fists, with stems removed and chopped into roughly chip-sized pieces
• 2 tablespoons cashew butter (can sub nut butter of choice, or tahini, or sunbutter - though I don't recommend the final toasting at 450 with these due to oxidation concerns)
• 1 tablespoon bacon fat
• 1 tablespoon oil of choice (I used macadamia oil, which has a higher smoke point)
• 2 tsp. apple cider vinegar (raw organic apple cider vinegar is usually cheapest found in stores, around $3/bottle)
• 4 drops organic stevia extract (optional, adds to the BBQ flavor, could also sub honey or maple syrup depending on your goals)
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp. onion powder
• 2 tsp. paprika
• 4 drops fish sauce (optional; I used Red Boat, which is free of junk - made of just anchovies and salt)
• Sea salt to taste (I used 30 cranks from my sea salt grinder)

Directions

After washing the kale pieces, use a paper towel to get as much moisture as possible off of the kale. Put the kale pieces in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag.

In a blender or mini food processor, blend the remaining ingredients until smooth. Mixture will be thick unless bacon fat was already warm/liquid.

Spoon the blended seasoning mix into the Ziploc bag with the kale pieces. Close the bag and "massage" it for a couple of minutes to get the seasoning mix into as many crannies of the kale as possible. The mix will warm just a bit from the massage action and probably become a little less thick, so this will help your task.

Spread the kale chips in a cake pan or cookie sheet, and bake at 350 for 30 minutes, gently stirring the chips around the pan every 10 minutes or so. The kale will get a little limp before it starts to dry and crisp up during this process. Finish the chips with 1 minute of the broiler set on 425 just crisp the chips just a little more. Enjoy hot, fresh, and crispy, straight out of the oven!

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On Reward Alternatives to Food

I sat this morning amid a cluster of people on the floor, as we listened intently to our fearless leader - the Crossfit box's nutrition coach. She was giving an overview of the upcoming challenge; paleo nutrition options, and Zone nutrition options. Much of it I had heard before, but this time I really tuned in to something that she emphasized.

"Find other rewards for yourself besides food..."

Oh, how familiar I am with this need! She had willfully acknowledged the common battle that many face, of using food as an emotional salve. There is just something about the end of the day that beckons for a treat to take the edge off - a minicelebration for making it through another gauntlet. A glass of wine, some chocolate, some toasted nuts (or how about all three!).

While processing her encouragement on that topic, I vowed to draw up a list of non-food rewards that I'm going to look to during this challenge. Here are mine:

Sometimes mini mental escapes are
the best form of nonfood reward.
Via Flickr Creative Commons/The Smithsonian.

1. Mobility sessions. Rewarding? Maybe not immediately. But, I always come away from 10 minutes with my roller feeling much better and a little more supple all around. Even better, our challenge awards bonus points for mobility work. For small sessions at home I'll be looking for pointers from MobilityWOD.com.
    
2. Words with Friends. Any time the urge for junk food strikes, I know I can depend on the 5-10 games of Words with Friends that I have going on at any given moment. Sometimes taking a few turns is all I need to be distracted from that craving.
    
3. Planned TV time. Hear me out on this - I'm not talking mindless TV consumption. I mean deliberately seeking a TV show or movie to watch as a reward. Being a Star Trek and sci-fi junkie, I luckily have quite the vast selection of favorites. I will still be honoring my earlier bedtimes though, per challenge sleep recommendations!
    
4. Hot salt baths. There is nothing quite so relaxing for me as a long soak in the tub. I will add in some Epsom salts for enhanced relaxation and mobility, thanks to the magnesium!
    
5. Magnesium oil. Magnesium oil does an even better job of getting magnesium to muscles when applied by rubbing on the skin. I plan on using some every day, if I can manage it.
     
6. Hot yoga. Another mobility-enhancer, I see the reward of exercise in the optimized hormones, the delicious muscle exhaustion, and the boosted mood for the rest of my day. Though I won't be attempting a return to Crossfit WODs for a few weeks yet, I embrace whatever workout reward I can derive through hot yoga!
    
7. New reads. I'm going to find some good reading material in the next week or so. I especially like biographies. Does anybody have some to recommend?
    
8. Home DIY pedicures. A hot foot soak in Epsom salt water, followed by some Piggy Paint. Amazing what prettier toes can do for one's mood!
    
9. Scent therapy. Lighting a scented candle, or putting on some of my favorite junk-free fragrance - Lavanila's Vanilla Grapefruit - are often enough to brighten my mood. I love the portability of the Lavanila, too, for mood boosts on the run!
    
10. Earlier bedtimes. Yup, instead of seeing earlier bedtimes as a drag, I'm going to embrace them as a reward in and of themselves! So when the nighttime itch to snack strikes, if nothing else on my reward list sounds good, it's off to bed with me.
    
    Maybe, though, I'll squeeze in a play or two of Words with Friends before I go to sleep.

What are your favorite non-food rewards that make you sigh contentedly at the end of the day?

~


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Paleo DIY Challenge-Friendly Cobb Salad

Ah, the flurry of whole30s, sugar detoxes, and other noble nutrition challenges has taken hold of the Twittersphere. Every other tweet seems to be folks ready to cast aside their dalliance with sugar and other less savory characters in favor of the basics, fuel-wise: meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and natural fats.

When embarking on such challenges, I've come to appreciate the value of having ingredients ready to go at a moment's notice. This is why the paleo-fied version of a Cobb salad makes a great fast meal: everything can be chopped and ready to add way ahead of time. The DIY aspect also makes salad assembly company-friendly.

Also get yo'self some romaine.

This is what we made today when we had my inlaws
for company. I like my Cobb salads to be as colorful
as possible, so I go for as many contrasting hues
as I can manage. Red peppers, orange carrots,
yellow egg yolks - delicious!

Our ingredients included:

• Cubed cold chicken
• Bacon, cooked crispy
• Fresh sliced red pepper
• Fresh shredded carrot
• Some hot-and-sweet seasoned/baked pecans and almonds
  (These pictured I made at home...you can make your own seasoned nuts low carb and challenge-friendly by coating them in the barest splash of hot sauce and macadamia oil before toasting in the oven, 425F for 20 minutes, stirring throughout.)
• Hard boiled eggs
  (We kept them in their shells until chosen for a salad so they'd go right back in the fridge if we didn't use them all.)
• A batch of my homemade ranch

Part of the appeal when serving to company is presentation, and nothing presents more beautifully than simple, fresh ingredients. 

 

 

What salads are you throwing together in a bid to clean up your diet in the new year?

~

New Year's T-Shirt Giveaway Winner

Thanks to Random.org I was able to pick a number to determine the winner of my T-shirt giveaway - number 4!

That means that commenter #4, Nancy West Johnson, has won herself a free Primal Kitchen t-shirt. Hooray! Nancy, please contact me at primalkitchen at gma¡l dot com and we can work out getting your shirt sent your way.

Thanks to everyone for participating, and I hope that you have a happy 2013!

~

The Year Ahead {2013 Dawns} - a Primal Kitchen Giveaway

Now a couple of days on the other side of Christmas, we've cleaned up a lot of wrapping paper and packaging, and I'm finally getting a handle on planning to use some of the neat gifts I've been given.

My parents gave me some credit at my local yoga studio, for which I am extremely grateful. They also gave me a gift card with the stated purpose of finding some yoga clothing. My hope is to find some good on-sale fitness wear that I can use for both yoga and Crossfit - and since I've dropped a lot of weight, I now can really use that gift card to find more tops and bottoms in smaller sizes that fit. Though a year of Crossfit certainly made me stronger and generally fitter, yoga exposed a lot of my weaknesses, like flexibility and balance. I look forward to seeing what a couple of more months of yoga will bring to the table fitness-wise.

My in-laws really surprised me, with a smoker! (It was this year's Christmas gift and next year's birthday gift rolled into one.) Wow, it is cool! There are so many possibilities, but I am really excited about being able to buy pork in bulk locally and being able to smoke my own ham and bacon. How great to select the ingredients for our family's ham and bacon, so that my littlest can also enjoy it, too! And, admittedly, I cannot wait to smoke some roasts and baby back ribs in this bad boy. So, there are a lot of fun experiments and projects wrapped up in that present as well.

Wow, I wonder if this
model was hired because
of her resemblance to
Michelle Dockery...?

Fitness fun and kitchen fun. What can I say? Those made for a great Christmas, in my book.

Now, I want to throw a little more holiday cheer back out into the world to say "thanks" to all of my readers and commenters for a great 2012:

I'm giving away a Primal Kitchen classic lunchbox/kettlebell design T-shirt in the size/age/gender of the winner's choice! Yes, that means the winner can pick size of kids', women's, or men's tee!

Look for this, in the right hand column of Primal Kitchen,
and click "Join this site" to join!

If you are a follower via Google Friend Connect and you make a comment in this post with your favorite part about visiting Primal Kitchen, you are officially entered to win. I will use random.org to generate a random number to chose the winning comment. I will also verify that your comment belongs to somebody in the "Google Friend Connect" list, so be sure that you also join there if you haven't already so that you aren't disqualified! To follow Primal Kitchen via Google Friend Connect, please go to the right hand column of the Primal Kitchen web home page and click the blue "Join this site" button!

So, three easy things: Join this site via Google Friend Connect (if you haven't already), make a comment (one per person, honor system!), and include in your comment your favorite part about visiting this site. Entries must be made before 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2012. The winner will be announced on New Year's Day (January 1, 2013).

Winner must claim prize within 48 hours of award being announced, otherwise winner forfeits prize and a new winner will be selected.

~

This post contains an Amazon affiliate link. Shopping Amazon through Primal Kitchen affiliate links supports Primal Kitchen at no additional cost to you (i.e. the item's price does not go up for you), so thank you!!

On Embracing Progress However It Comes

Via Flickr Creative Commons,
the George Eastman House Collection

There is nothing like a collection full of loved ones' Christmas newsletters to remind me of the way people use the end of the year to mark milestones and achievements.

Admittedly, on the subject of human milestone celebrations, I've read some really, truly amazing testimonials in the two and a half years since I ditched processed foods in favor of nutrient dense whole foods. Some folks turned their lifestyle around on a dime, and dropped a ton of fat in their first few months, all while reversing one or many chronic illnesses like diabetes and autoimmune conditions. Some even manage to have their extended families on board after a few months, which I always consider to be a miracle, their magnificent transformations notwithstanding.

After I had spent an intense while reading up on nutrition, I fairly swiftly made the decision to eat more healthfully by avoiding processed grains, sugars, and vegetable oils. But while my decision was swift, my transformation has been a long term work in progress of fits and starts.

Maybe some folks reading can identify. For instance, it took me a solid year and a half of primal eating before I realized how dearly I needed to combine exercise with my improved diet. Once I started Crossfitting, I learned within a few months under my coaches' guidance and encouragement how to better monitor my carb intake and really watch some of my weaknesses (like for chocolate) while carefully tracking my personal performance and body comp data - thus allowing me to finally drop about 40 pounds.

It took a break from Crossfit this month while I recover from a lingering injury to discover the mobility-enhancing calm of hot yoga - and the fact that I can manage to keep my body comp steady or even more lean by carefully managing my carbs, despite the fact that right now I'm not working out at my Crossfit box at my firebreather frequency.

In other words, the last two and a half years have involved a lot of personal growth, and not necessarily at the pace I'd have originally liked to see. I think, though, that each person's pace is set the way that it is for a reason, and in my case, there were lots of humility-building, sometimes painful realizations within each of those lessons. Had I experienced all of my milestones in a few months' time, I'd have also had to experience all of those painful humility-building moments - and maybe not have learned as thoroughly from them!

So, my desired pace of progress is not always the ideal pace of progress. It's for this same reason that I fully embrace the progress that comes from those around me. With my parents and my in-laws, I learned a while ago to compromise in some areas where I can (as in allowing my older daughter some wiggle room). Meanwhile, I celebrate any concession, or adaptation, they graciously elect to make for my sake and my family's sake. I realize that for any parent, watching a heretofore "good child" embark on a thoroughly countercultural path to what seems like Crazytown, U.S.A. has to be worrying at best.

However, I think over the last two and a half years, my folks and my in-laws have had a long time to witness my personal growth and a growing acknowledgement of ancestral health principles by mainstream media and peer-reviewed research journals. They have seen my weight loss, my fitness gains, my ongoing journey to provide my youngest daughter with optimal nutrition for her neurological disorder. They've also seen mainstream and academic sources embracing coconut oil, shunning refined sugars, acknowledging inflammation as a driver of heart disease, and even outright suggesting gluten-free diets as a path to avoiding inflammation and obesity. For example, the Today Show recently had Drew Ramsey, MD advocating lard and butter as healthier choices for the 2012 holiday season. Even Dr. Oz had shows in December featuring modern wheat's impact on health (link is 1 of 3 parts, features cardiologist William Davis, MD),  and how to take a closer look at what cholesterol numbers really mean (link is 1 of 3 parts, features cardiologist Stephen Sinatra, MD)! If it takes a TV cardiothoracic surgeon to help my folks and in-laws to think of me and my principles as a little less "out there", then I will gladly accept it as one more marker of progress.

My brother has undeniably been an unintentional testimony to the power of fueling responsibly; he recently participated in his Crossfit box's first paleo nutrition challenge, and in one month's time added around 20 points to his Fight Gone Bad score - which any seasoned Crossfitter will recognize as an incredible leap! His performance jump was impressive enough to earn him the men's top prize at his box, including a free month of membership! His slimmer physique and features were plain to see when he returned home for Thanksgiving with our family and my folks.

Meanwhile, my mom has been working hard this year to learn more about gluten-free baking. She made an impressive gluten-free dairy-free bread at Thanksgiving, and a bacon-embedded gluten free cornbread stuffing that I dearly hope she plans to repeat. My mother-in-law has plans, too, to make a gluten-free grassfed beef prime rib roast (which we helped her to source) for the meal she is hosting on Christmas Day, which means that my youngest daughter can eat the same meal alongside everyone else.

Though my parents and in-laws do not fully accept the path we have chosen, they yet try to meet us where we are on it many times each year for our get-togethers, and to that end I count it progress, and I thank God for blessing us through another year of fits and starts as my little family continues along our ancestral-health-anchored path, even as our extended family makes progress of their own in learning about why we do the things we do.

Thus, my Christmas wish for my readers: This Tuesday, may you embrace your family and your progress - the small, the big, the in-betweens of 2012. Count as a blessing, too, the God-ordained pace at which you hit your milestones and lessons, even if it isn't the pace you'd have originally desired. Progress is progress, and the path you are on is yours and your family's to run! May you also anticipate a 2013 of increasing self-knowledge and challenging but achievable victories of all sizes - and I pray that God's grace sustains you in the pursuit of those victories!

Merry Christmas! What progress will you celebrate as 2012 draws to an end?

~

Paleo (-"ish") Cookie Exchanging, And A Sun Butter Buckeye Bon BonRecipe

This is what I call a cookie group hug.

Heh heh. Nut sack. :)

Our Crossfit box's cookie exchange was today! We did things "paleo-ish" - gluten free and no canola oil or soybean oil. I was blown away by how many signed up to participate.

We had a great turn out, and so many different kinds of cookies - almond biscotti, no-bakes, pistachio-cranberry bark, chocolate chip, eggless egg-nog, samoas, soft ginger, and many more. One creative lady brought decorative favor bags filled with nuts as her contribution!

We gathered around and sorted cookies into boxes - some kind souls brought in some mimosas for the volunteers. Within about half an hour we had the boxes mostly packed and ready. 

I'm so grateful - even though I'm my December sugar detox has tapered off and my youngest can't eat refined sugars, my husband and oldest daughter will get to share some daddy-daughter dates over hot chocolate and some wholesome treats as Christmas draws near.

Noms!

I mean, will you look at those beautiful paleo samoas?! My friend used the Real Sustenance samoa recipe.

And of course, always nice to have classic (paleo) chocolate chip cookies around.

Sun butter buckeyes. Legume-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free.

My contribution to the exchange was sun butter buckeyes. I saw a recipe for peanut butter buckeyes here and adapted it with sun butter and also made it dairy-free. I subbed coconut oil for the vegetable oil. I also halved the powdered sugar with no noticeable detriment to the taste.

Sunbutter Buckeye Bon Bons
Makes approximately 5 dozen

2 cups sun butter (mine for this came in bulk sweetened with sugar but you can order organic unsweetened, too)
½ cup palm shortening
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups crispy rice cereal (I used Erewhon organic cocoa; 1 box is 6 cups so this recipe uses half a box)
2 cups powdered sugar
Semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Enjoy Life allergen-friendly chocolate chips)
1 tablespoon coconut oil

Warm the palm shortening on the stove or microwave until soft. Mix with Sunbutter and vanilla in a bowl with a mixer until blended through. Add rice cereal and powdered sugar, and continue to mix until thoroughly blended.

Using a teaspoon, measure out balls of the sunbutter "dough" onto wax paper on a cookie sheet or cake pan. Freeze thoroughly - at least an hour. You will probably need a lot of free freezer space for 5 dozen of these.

Melt the coconut oil and chocolate chips in the microwave and stir until smooth.Take the frozen balls out of the freezer about a dozen at a time. Using a slotted spoon, lower a frozen sunbutter ball into the melted chocolate and drop it back on wax paper. Every dozen that you finish dipping, place them back in the freezer to set some more (another 30 minutes).

Store in the freezer in an airtight container (for up to several weeks) or in the fridge if you are consuming soon.

 

What more wholesome treats did you bake up this year?

This post contains Amazon affiliate links. Shopping Amazon through Primal Kitchen affiliate links supports Primal Kitchen at no additional cost to you, so thank you!!

Safer Bath Products in 2012: Shampoo Edition

I'm not going to make a claim that any commercially-sold shampoo is perfect for people in general or for any specific person. Even the most cleaned-up ingredient lists probably still have one or two ingredients whose merit could be debated. That said, our family went from being a reflexively-Pantene family to reading toiletry product labels a lot more carefully, especially after my youngest daughter's diagnosis of sensory processing disorder. So far we've not found a no-poo solution, so my stop-gap is shampooing my littlest's hair every 2-3 days, using less noxious options when I do shampoo, and using as little shampoo as possible to get her hair clean, often just a teeny drizzle. So, it is an ongoing process of reducing usage and product evaluation for us.

We progressed through a few "more natural" brands this year - and here I rank them by recommendation. I did also try using Dr. Bronner's liquid castille soap, which is great when used sparingly for cleaning in general, but despite its ideal ingredient list it strips hair far too harshly for me to recommend. Maybe next year we will discover other brands we like even better! - and maybe you can suggest some to try in the comments.

Aubrey Organics Green Tea Clarifying Shampoo

Out of what we've tried this year, this is my top recommendation, for both performance and ingredients. A little bit (a dime sized amount) can easily lather a whole head of hair, and it genuinely clarifies. It has no parabens, sulfates, phthalates, or petrochemicals. The green tea smell is pretty refreshing, too!

It is available through many online retailers, including Amazon and Vitacost.

The ingredient list follows: Alcohol denat. (38b lavender ) aqua hamamelis virginiana (witch hazel) extract aloe barbadensis leaf juice glycerin camellia sinensis leaf oil panthenol simmondsia chinensis (jojoba) seed oil oenothera biennis (evening primrose) oil rosa mosqueta (rose hip) seed oil chenopodium quinoa seed extract pelargonium graveolens flower oil panax ginseng root extract ginkgo biloba leaf extract chrysanthemum sinense flower extract magnolia biondii bud flower extract angelica archangelica root extract.

Burt's Bees Very Volumizing Shampoo with Pomegranate

This is my second choice out of the three we've tried out this year. True to the label, it does have a deliciously fruity smell, but does not clean quite as thoroughly as the Aubrey green tea option - and in fact my past-shoulder length hair usually gets two rounds of sudsing with this one to feel sufficiently clean. The ingredient list is mostly good - I love that like the Aubrey one, it has no parabens, sulfates, phthalates, or petrochemicals involved. I could do without added fragrance, though. This one I've found at WalMart and other major retailers, as well, so it's been a good stand-by option for us when we've been waiting to order more of the Aubrey green tea shampoo.

The ingredient list follows: Aqua (water, eau), sodium bis-hydroxyethylglycinate coco-glucosides crosspolymer, sodium cocoyl alaninate, glycerin, disodium cocoyl glutamate, oryza sativa (rice) extract, hydrolyzed jojoba protein, sodium cocoyl hydrolyzed soy protein, punica granatum seed oil, origanum vulgare leaf oil, thymus vulgaris (thyme) oil, arginine, parfum (fragrance)*, sodium lauroyl lactylate, sodium cocoyl glutamate, guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride, lauryl lactyl lactate, sodium chloride, lactic acid.

Garnier Fructis Pure Clean Shampoo

This shampoo is the one I'd pick if I were on the road in the middle of nowhere, needed shampoo, and still managed to find a WalMart or Target that wasn't carrying the Burt's Bees. In other words, it's commonly available and is free from a certain amount of junk, but at the same time it's far from ideal. Its ingredients are said to be 94% biodegradable, and it is free of silicone, dye, or paraben. Not my favorite: it still has sulfate, preservative, and fragrance

The ingredient list follows: Aqua/Water; Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate; Cocamidopropyl Betaine; Sodium Chloride; Hexylene Glycol; Pyrus Malus Extract/Apple Fruit Extract; Parfum/Fragrance; Sodium Benzoate; Hydroxypropyl Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride; Citric Acid; Salicylic Acid; Benzoic Acid; Niacinamide; Pyridoxine HCl; Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride; Linalool; Hexyl Cinnamal; Saccharium Officinarum Extract/Sugar Cane Extract; Citrus Medica Limonum Peel Extract/Lemon Peel Extract; Camellia Sinensis Extract/Camellia Sinensi

What "more natural" shampoos have you tried this year? Do you have any with ingredient lists that you adore?


~

On Being the Antidote

Via Flickr Creative Commons,
the Tyne and Wear Archives & Museums

After Friday's horrific school shooting in Connecticut, life went on in our corner of the world this weekend. Christmas gifts were bought. A party was attended. And yet, there is nothing that we did that wasn't somehow chilled by the shadow of what had happened. The unfathomable horror of one's own child being mercilessly slaughtered does not swiftly depart any parent who allows even for a moment such a contemplation to enter their thoughts.

We received papers from my oldest daughter's school today - discussing the school's own actions and plans, and also offering cogent advice to parents on how and/or whether to discuss the situation in depth with their own children.

The only thing I could keep thinking was, I shouldn't even be in the position of having to wonder whether my 5 year old has already heard anything about this at school, because things like this shouldn't happen. The shooting such an angry red wound on the end of 2012, which has forever altered December and Christmas for countless families. It is all symptomatic of a deeply troubled, ill world.

I have not much in the way of comfort to offer my readers...to be honest it has been exceptionally hard to comfort myself on this count. One thing I remind myself in terms of safety and managing fears of is the real risks we undertake every day to live our lives: driving cars, for example. Beside this pragmatic analysis, I also grasp at positives. I embrace my children, I treasure a quiet evening at home with my husband, I laugh with my friend over the little bumps and bends in the road that are a mom's life. I try to go out of my way to relate to my friends and family a little more patiently, a little more graciously. In the face of the worst of what humans can do, the best of what life has to offer starts with us and our attitudes. It starts with our abilities to cultivate the right priorities, and to cherish those around us. We are the antidote, and every day we get a chance to celebrate that duty.

As the days until Christmas approach, savor your time. Savor your errands and your baking. Try hard to maintain your patience in the face of the usual stresses. Offer grace wherever possible. Say prayers, if you say them, most especially for the victims' families and loved ones. Be the best human you can be. Be the antidote.