Paleo for kids

I have been inspired and motivated to cook creatively recently.  After reading about the dangers of protein to kids at the PerfectHealthDiet, I understood why I have been struggling in feeding my kids meat. I was already coming to the conclusion that there need to be a variety of vegetables on the tables for kids to choose from in order to have a happy and peaceful family meal.  Now I understand why.

In brief, breast milk is composed of 7% of protein. Increasing protein to even as much as 9% in formula leads to problems.  Cordain recommends limiting protein to no more than 20-25% of caloric intake for pregnant women.

So how much is exactly right for kids? There isn't enough evidence to suggest a specific number, but it is clear that they should not eat any more than they are willing and happy to do. This means, no brow-beating them into finishing their meat or clearing their plate. Presented with healthy options, they should naturally gravitate toward a good balance. This means, plenty of dishes to choose from at every meal and lots of choices among different types of calories: protein, fat, carbohydrates.

Truthfully, it's not so hard to do.  I often start meals with a veggie dip appetizer:  A ranch dip with carrots, cauliflower, celery.  (While I normally buy the ranch dip at the store, having run out I was delighted with this incredibly easy home-made ranch alternative. If made for kids, wait to add garlic & onion powder, adding a little at a time to taste.  Otherwise it's deliciously spicy for adult palate, but I had to quadruple the recipe to get it back to tolerable for kids!)

I often slice tomatoes and bell peppers to serve on the side of any meal. They are our family favorites!

A cup of tomato soup or home-made beef/chicken stock garnished with bacon bits & cheese is a very popular option.

Salads are time-consuming, but these easy veggifiers create a splendid-looking table and guarantee that they won't leave hungry. In the meantime I am also increasing the amount of fat present in all of our meals, using the tips I worked out earlier for myself.

Finally, I am beginning to experiment with super-energy deserts.

In a food processor, mix heavy cream or coconut milk with any frozen fruit or berry and you have instant ice cream. The whole family can work together to prepare - then to enjoy. I like adding shredded coconut to mine, but the texture is too much for the kids. For them, melted dark chocolate does so much more! Making ice cream right on the dinner table with a food processor is a fun after-dinner activity and eating it right after is a tasty bonus.

Five ways to add fat to your meal

Just in case you are new here, you might be wondering, "ADD FAT??"  Yes, Add Healthy Fat! This means:

•  saturated fat, the storage medium for pure energy employed by animals and humans alike. It is stable, easily accessible and, if you are trying to lose weight, represents the most filling calories you will encounter.  (In other words, replace 500 calories in sugar with 400 calories in fat - you'll be less hungry, avoid those cravings and lose weight. In other words, skip the 500 calorie Jamba Juice and enjoy10 pieces of bacon (40 calories each) - which of those will leave you feeling full?
• Omega 3 fat, available in grass-fed meat, fish oil, macademia nuts.

For more information on relative health value of fats (yes, some fats are actually bad!) see the definitive guide to fats.  A long time ago, when I was first getting started with paleo, I did a bit of digging on saturated fat and found that there is little evidence all the hatred is based on.

Sharing meals with family members who have not been convinced by the paleo argument, I am forced to find extra nutrition to add to meals,  which have been purposefully deprived of it.  Here are my tricks:

1. Home-made beef stock.  In Russia, the quality of the broth was judged by marbling one could see on the surface.  Real broth, not made from a box, will boast beautiful golden marble-lines on its surface.  Preparing it is super-easy:
   
   Buy soup bones at the grocery store, usually sold at $1-$1.50 a lb, optionally get additional bony meat or organ meat.  Place 3 lbs in a crockpot with two cups of water and your favorite spices. Remove the bones.  Strain.  Keep the meat for a future meal.
   
   You will wind up with the richest broth you have ever seen.  Freeze Add it to a lean soup. Thicken it with tapioca or arrowroot powder and use it as gravy for a lean meal.
   
   
2. Rendered bacon or salt pork. Remember bacon bits, that stuff apparently made out of cardboard and vaguely resembling bacon you get on top of salads? What you should do to create flavorful rich bacon to go on top of almost any meal: salad, mashed potatoes (I do sweet potatoes or mashed cauliflower), lean meat dishes, even steak sauce.
   
   Cut bacon into 1/4 inch strips. Stir-fry in a pan until bacon is somewhat crispy and golden-brown. You don't have to get those as crispy as you might a full piece of bacon as with a greater total surface area, less worry about bubbles that never reach the pan, etc, you get far more crispiness even while preserving much of the body that would be absent in a crumbly-crisp piece of bacon.
   
   
3. Coconut! Yes, it's the greatest source of pick-me-up one can have in a diet. Unlike caffeine, it does not leave me jittery, but makes a real difference in what I can accomplish in my day
   
   Add coconut cream or milk to curries, sauces, gravies. Try substituting dairy milk & cream for coconut. Despite similarly hated fat content, coconut just seems to do more for my body than cream can hope for. I am starting to suspect that perhaps non-dairy paleo crowd isn't far off from the truth.
   
   Sprinkle shredded coconut, raw or roasted, on top of any meal that can benefit from a little crunch in its texture. It's particularly good in place of granola on your yogurt. And on those days when you absolutely must have chocolate, make an instant mounds of joy (with much less sugar) by melting the chocolate with shredded coconut.  Or, to skip the mess and make a coconut/chocolate sandwich.
   
   
4. Avocado/ Guacamole. Personally, I think avocado is boring.  It's ok chopped up in salads, but does little for most meals.  Guacamole, on the other hand, is hard.  But it works as a great side/sauce/dip for a lot of different meals, from steak & roast to veggies or crock pot creations. Here is a simplified version that works quite well:
   
   Mash an avocado with a fork. To peel an avocado, cut it into quarters, around the pit, then pull the corners of the peels down, while popping the meat up.  Add several drops of lemon juice, plenty of cumin, salt & pepper. This will do in a pinch, though throwing in chopped onions & tomatoes will go all the way.
   
   
5. Ghee.  What's that?  Clarified butter. It is healthier, a much better grease that tolerates higher
   temperatures and lasts longer and it happens to have greater saturated fat content than butter (you get it by separating the oil from everything else butter contains).  Rub ghee on your steak prior to placing it in a pan; add it to gravies in place of butter, use it to cook or heat up left-overs.  (Oh, and while we are at it - despite everyone being afraid of the fat content in ghee, some studies have shown it actually reduces cholesterol, according to this wikipedia article on ghee).

Each one of these things makes a difference between a meal that leaves me feeling ok and one after which I feel I can fly.

Perfect bacon every time

Surprisingly, I am still doing great with my paleo. I am sick, overworked, overcommitted, don't have time to blog - but eating great and loving it!  Big changes.  I am continuing with the ideas of simplifying paleo diet: finding quick and easy goto recipes, learning the fast way to cook big meals, taking advantage of leftovers.

Today, I want to share the latest discovery, which has taken our breakfast to the next level: perfect bacon! A fellow paleo mommy wrote, "The one downsdie to feeding your baby bacon: Greasy little paws after breakfast!"  I decided, she was right and I needed to find a bacon recipe that does not take so much time and effort.  And I did! From now on, bacon is easy enough, we can have it on school mornings!

I started with a baked bacon recipe. The idea is brilliant: instead of laboring with a fork over a hot pan of sizzling bacon, put it in the oven, set the timer and walk away. After some experimentation, I came up with several important principles:

• There are two phases to baking bacon: the rendering of the fat and the crisping
• The rendering should take about ten minutes at a temperature of or below 300 F.
• The crisping takes under 5 minutes at  400 F.
• The crisping time is critical and depends on the thickness of the bacon, your particular oven and your preferences with respect to crispiness.

This principles generate a couple methods, each useful for its own circumstances.

Step 1.  Lay it out.

Line the baking sheet with foil to avoid Lay the bacon strips on a baking sheet. Put the sheet in the oven.  (Multiple sheets simultaneously are ok for a lot of bacon!)

Step 2. The baking.

Set the temperature to 400F. Timer to 15 minutes.  Walk away. Come back and peek - wait till it looks as crispy as you like it!  Record the total time for future reference. Done.

Modification A.  Warm oven.  

If you are using an already warm oven, don't despair.

Set the temp to 300 F, timer to 10 minutes.  Come back, set temperature to 400F, timer to five minutes.  After that watch it till it's done.

Congratulations! You have just created the best bacon that has ever resided on your breakfast table, and you can repeat this success every time.  Always be careful when buying a different kind of bacon. Everything depends on the thickness of your slices! And don't forget to come back a little early when you get a new oven or move.

I am thrilled with my results - not the bacon - my husband's pleased face.  He is the pickiest bacon eater and we've had perfect bacon for a whole week!

Paleo mommy success!

After many attempts, I finally made a yogurt flavor rivals store-bought vanilla and strawberry that are my son's favorites. And I am not telling!

No, really, I am telling.  :-)  If I weren't telling, this wouldn't be a blog but one of those add-filled splash pages.  Only no ads.

I mixed my full-fat Creamline Village plain yogurt from Trader Joe's with honey. Not only is honey better than whatever they are likely stuffing vanilla yogurt with, but here I have complete control. Switching over to honey yogurt means, I can gradually reduce honey or even replace it with other flavors.  (Lily has been eating yogurt with palm sugar for a long time - but Alex stuck with the flavored alternatives till now.)

This is just one in my many attempts to trick my non-paleo family into eating healthy and natural.  While I am on the topic, here are some principles I have developed:

• To avoid snacking, feed them early! Kids snack all day because they are hungry.  Stuffing their tummies before they think of it keeps the ice cream away.  I had no idea just how hungry they were after school till I started  making an after-school meal.  I am planning on having dinner ready at 3:30 pm and a healthy snack at 6 instead of the more typical vice-versa.
• Always offer a healthy desert after a meal: strawberries with whipped cream, fruit, meringues, dark chocolate.  Just discovered something to try: paleo cupcakes. If you are lucky, they'll think they are getting something special and won't go looking for cookies. I think, it's generally valuable if kids recognize that their parents value things that are valuable to them! 
• No forbidden fruit. If they want a bagel (and daddy loves bagels, so they will!) they get a bagel. The conflict involved isn't worth it.  If their friends are going for ice cream, we are coming - no guilt, no shame.
• Create replacements.  We just discovered that sun flower seed butter is just as yummy as peanut butter and now we have it in the house. Also, apple/seed butter sandwiches are even better than peanut butter bagels! 
• If they are used to sugar, give them healthy sweetness.  Palm sugar is great; so is honey, maple syrup, stevia. So, I am slowly learning to replace store-bought sweet options with home-made sweet better options.  :-)
• If they are not used to a lot of meat, always have lots of vegetable options for them to choose from. I sometimes say, "Alex, you have 1-2-3..-7 dishes to choose from! Surely, you can find something you like!"  With pressure gone, he is slowly turning into a meat eater. I am thrilled!
• Relax! Stressing about it will make things worse.  It'll create conflict inside the family, turn your kids into picky eaters and will cause you to consider giving up the whole thing.  That's what happened to me.  Since I allowed myself to go easy - things have been great! 

It hasn't been long since I failed at paleo.  Surprisingly, I am finding it fun and easy this time. Part of my success, I know, has been due to the abundance of paleo mommy blogs.  Here are some I have discovered lately:   Wellness Mama with lots of kid-tested recipe, Whitney at the Paleo Child who posts her child's lunch boxes, Anita at Paleo On a Budget who made me realize, fresh ingredients are out there.  I would like to put together a paleo kids resource page as there are seem to be so few out there and we need each other! Please leave me a comment with your blog url if you should go on it!

Simplifying: an almost Paleo diet

Mark Sisson's newsletter this week says:

It's nice to have goals, but you have to have a plan of attack to succeed. Full health is achievable, certainly within a year. But break it down, start with a few specifics. Make this "the year I stop drinking soda!" or "the year I go camping once a month!" Let total health blossom as a result of achievable goals.  

For me, this was the encouragement I needed to proceed with a plan that I had made for myself. A while ago, I blogged about the advice I gave my dad to start paleo gently. Recently, I have taken a page out of my own book and relaxed the requirements I had set for myself initially, focusing on the following principles:

1. Paleo is a high-fat high-protein diet. I tell my kids, "meat is what gives you energy to do the things you want." For me, what I want is to be a successful parent who is not too exhausted for the patience, creativity and physical activity the job requires. I can also use the extra kick a good Paleo meal gives me for my after-hours personal and professional activities.
2. Grain is not acceptable as a food group. However, I will use it as an herb, if you will: boy, does flour-based gravy taste good! And while Trader Joe's sweet potato fries are far better than anything I can create, they contain gluten to give them the shape and crispiness.
3. High sugar fruits should be avoided. But fruits, particularly the healthy variety, can be part of many quick and wonderful snacks. Better than bagels, eh?
4. A little healthier is better. I just don't sweat it so much any more. When we go to have sushi, I get some sashimi, but the sushi rolls are my favorites. I've quit torturing myself and eat the whole thing.
5. There is such a thing as healthy desert: dark chocolate, fruits/berries with whipped cream, cheesecake, even meringues. I want just plain unabashed decadence to be part of my lifestyle.

This is enabling me to cooperate with my non-paleo family in creating meals. As a result of making this change, I am working with my live-in mother-in-law and depending on her to create meals that are pretty good, instead of facing the lonely task of planning, shopping and cooking strict paleo.

One of the tricky parts she is actually helping me is: introducing more fat into the already-cooked meals. My husband is trying to lose weight in the mainstream way, by avoiding fat and counting calories. So how do we sit down at a single table?

Here are some ideas I have worked out:

1. Adding butter into sauces at the table.
2. Rendered (which I figured out means fried) salt pork fat, resulting in delicious bacon bits (only much better than bacon) sprinkled in with the food.
3. When we bake chicken, we use a mix of low-fat white meat and high-fat dark.
4. I sprinkle almond slices & shredded coconut on top of meat sauces
5. Avocado is frequently a good side.
6. My dad is going to buy me some Russian salt pork, called "salo". I remember it from my childhood. It is intended to be eaten raw, on top of a sandwich, or fried up like bacon bits. The difference is, whether raw or rendered, it melts in your mouth, losing the stringiness of bacon due to a different salting process. I have to write about it once i have some!
7. If all else fails, I round out the meal with a high-fat desert (see dessert listings above).

I feel good again. My kids are not aggravating me. Even my mother-in-law is pretty good company. Yesterday I was completely sleep-deprived, having stayed up half the night for no good reason.  I was falling off my feet - but I never lost my temper, went shopping, cooked dinner and passed out cuddling with the babies. I will put this get-back-to-paleo operation as an unqualified success thus far.

Fruit indulgences

The hardest thing for me to give up on Paleo is fruit. As far as I am concerned, world peace has got nothing compared to a steady supply of grapes.  I am currently on a mission to make Paleo easier and more comfortable for me.  Here is how I have integrated fruit.

1. Grape fruit - the red kind - turns out to be absolutely delicious!
2. On apples, I stick to Granny Smith as a low-sugar option. They've always been my favorite anyway.
3. Berries berries berries. Pricey, but well worth it.
4. The most important discovery: fruit is always better with a good doze of fat & protein:
• Apples & nut butter. I make a sandwich of two thin slices of apples with nut butter inside. Yum!
• Whipped cream. Not enough sugar to count and it turns a sin into a win.  :-)
• How about both? Yesterday, it was pear + peanut butter (I didn't have any other kind, *sniff*) + whipped cream. What a delight!
• Yogurt. Everyone knows, it works well with berries, but oh my god peaches!!! Then sprinkle roast coconut on top.  You could almost call that a meal. Or, if dinner fails - a backup option.
• Heavy cream. When I was a little girl, I used to love eating berries in a bowl of milk, as a cereal. It's even better - and way more filling with cream.

So, I've relaxed and I am enjoying it. If I had a good meal, I won't turn my sweet fruit tooth down. A few days ago, a friend sent over a fruit basket filled with all my favorites, including a pineapple! Have you ever had pineapple with whipped cream? "... you should. For this is fun and fun is good!" just as the doctor [Seuss] ordered.