Guest Post - Real Food Diets: Raising a Paleo Child, by Mamapoekie

This last year I have been trying different ways of eating to try and regain some of my balance, energy and overall health since bearing and rearing our 2 tinies. Over the next few months I'm bringing you a whole host of wonderful guest posts on a variety of Real Food Diets, from Raw to Paleo. Join me in this series and find the best real food for your mind, body and soul.



This week's post comes from Mamapoekie. Miss last week's? We heard from sexy raw chef Russell James on eating raw. Go check it out!

Real Food: The Paleo Diet

My family has been on the paleo diet for almost two years now. The paleo diet (also primal or caveman diet) is not so much a diet as a way of life. It is basically a modernized version of the hunter-gatherer diet, renouncing grains, legumes and all processed foods. Some versions of the diet exclude dairy, but as my family has no digestive issues with dairy, we do eat a small amounts of cheese, butter and the occasional yoghurt.


The main goal is to eat food as close to nature as possible in order to retain nutrients and maintain a healthy body, though, unlike the raw foods movement, cooking is involved. It also involves a healthy amount of the right kind of activity, like our caveman ancestors would have had. 


The diet is based on the idea that our bodies have not adapted to our fairly recent sedentary eating style, that of agriculture, with grains and legumes as staple foods, which only exists for about 10 000 years (depending on where you live) - which is, given man’s long evolution, a fairly short amount of time. 


Proof of our failure to adapt to this regime is the high amount of gluten intolerance found today (30% of all people in the Western World are said to be gluten intolerant), lactose intolerance and the many many ‘prosperity ilnesses’.


As we’re also unschoolers, enforcing a diet upon all the people in our household is not an option. Neither do we see the paleo diet as a religion, we get to wander out of it a little if it so pleases us, and when we’re invited to people’s houses, we won’t frown upon a piece of cake. Whenever we’re on holiday, we indulge ourselves with the occasional pastry, or chocolate (we are Belgians after all), but by now, we have learned that swarming outside of the paleo diet does us more wrong than the short pleasure of munching down on non-paleo foods.


Before we lived in Congo, the rule was: no non-paleo foods at home and outside, everyone could get what they desire, we did get the odd cookie or candy for our daughter when she asked for it.


Right now, all meals are paleo, except the occasional pizza or pasta dish (about once a month) and we still have some cookies and candies available for our daughter when she wants them. Wherever possible though, I try to bake paleo cookies.


We feel it’s important for her to make her own choices concerning food, and have the occasional talk about which foods do what to our bodies. Even though cookies, some chocolate and candies are available, she rarely eats them anymore, and is happy to watch a movie while munching down on a stick of cauliflower.


As we’ve always been very relaxed about who eats what, we’ve never had any issues regarding food. My daughter is a healthy eater and in great shape. As she grows older, she might want to eat paleo only, or she might not... That will be up to her.



Paleo Recipe: Exotic Coconut-Cabbage Mince
Ingredients
1 TBS olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 Bok Choy (Chinese cabbage), in thin slices
1/4 white cabbage, sliced
1 green pepper, diced
1 leek, chopped
2 large tomatoes, diced
1 cup coconut milk
1 TBS tumeric powder
1 TBS curry powder
pepper
1,5 pounds mince meat

Fry the mince in a pan with oil until it's nicely brown. Get it out of the pan and put aside. Fry the onion, add the garlic when the onion becomes translucent. Add green pepper and leek, stir and cover. Simmer for 2 minutes. Add Bok Choy and white cabbage. Add the spices, stir and cover for about 10 minutes (or until the peppers have softened) then add the tomatoes and put the meat back in. Pour the coconut milk over the dish and stir. When the tomatoes have thoroughly warmed, you're ready to serve. Enjoy!


Laura Schuerwegen a.k.a. Mamapoekie is a Belgian expat mother and wife, currently living at the banks of the Kasai river in DR Congo. She has an unschooled three year old and a little one due December. She writes about Life, the Universe and Everything at Authentic Parenting.

What We Planted Wednesday

Lots of rocket - woo! Well, Matt (and his Mum) will be happy anyway. I'm not super keen. Mixed salad also popping through. And basil seedlings just starting to show... hurrah! No news of carrots, tomatoes or coriander yet...


In other news, our alfalfa and mung bean sprouts are also coming along nicely :) 

What We Planted Wednesday

So this weekend we made good use of the lovely weather and started ourselves off on a bit of self-sufficient living at last by planting some seeds. At the moment we get a lovely veg or salad box from Boxfresh Organics (when  we're organised enough to order it in time). They do a fabulous range of stuff that is both grown locally and abroad (though not air freighted) so we can enjoy all the usual British staples but also staples we've got used to over the years like bananas (organic AND fairtrade, which is impossible to get anywhere else!), peppers and so on. 


However, I'd still much rather grow our own! In the past we've dabbled and grown some pretty fine herbs, carrots, tomatoes and salad, and as those are some of our mainstays (especially when they're super-tasty homegrown ones) we've started with those. 

So what's in the pots? 

• Basil
• Coriander
• Tomato (Moneymaker)
• Carrot
• Mixed Salad
• Rocket

We've also got some cucumber to go in but those will have to wait a month or so when hopefully it will be a bit toastier for them!


Hurrah for homegrown veggies :)

Taking Charge and Feeling Revived

For the last year or so and in particular the past 6 months I have been physically, mentally and emotionally knackered. Exhausted, fatigued, pooped. Many are the reasons, not least that we had one small child 18 months ago and have recently added another. But I've been seriously so knackered I've considered all sorts - drugs, therapies, counselling... you name it. My pride has prevented me from going down any of these routes and in the end it has been the resolve to lose my baby-weight that has done the trick. Within a couple of weeks of eating more raw foods, cutting out bread and most wheat products and drastically reducing dairy and limiting treats significantly as well as drinking copious quantities of green tea and water, I already feel hugely energised and more mentally alert, positive and confident. I wouldn't have believed it possible.

Increasingly over the last few years I have started to believe in taking charge of my own health rather than tripping off to the doctor every time something seems amiss. This has not always been an easy road - far from it - but it seems to work for me on the whole. My biggest hurdle has been depression, not least over the last year or so whilst coping with the many and varied new responsibilities and demands of motherhood, coupled with another pregnancy (nevermind the hardships of living on a half-built canal boat in Winter with a toddler!). Whilst pregnant I was offered referral to NHS help, should I want it. I didn't. I know that I am the only one who can successfully manage my depression - drugs only numb and confuse and therapies make me dwell on the problem(s). My way of dealing with it has to be just to take the good days and the bad together, and get on with things as much as I can.

I do feel that as a society we must take more responsibility for ourselves, particularly in terms of our health. Empowerment is the key. Talk to any woman who has had a beautiful, natural home-birth and she will mention the enormous feeling of achievement and empowerment. The same goes for our general health. If we continue to defer our healthcare to those who hold no personal knowledge of us and whose expertise is heavily sponsored by the most dominant drug companies, how can we have confidence that we are finding the best solutions for ourselves? As a result we end up feeling belittled, insignificant, lost, and our healthcare issues go largely unresolved. We all have choices when it comes to caring for our own health, and I implore you to use them. Nobody can know you and your own unique health issues better than yourself, much like you know what kind of foods you like best, or which types of exercise you're most suited to. So go on, take charge and find the healthiest you you can!