Releasing my inner Grok

In case you haven’t heard, this year’s Primal Challenge is going to begin on September 7, the day after Labor Day.  It looks like this year’s challenge is going to be better than ever.

For those of you who weren’t around for the challenge last year, here’s how it worked.  In addition to encouraging individuals to make a personal commitment to the primal lifestyle for 30 days, Mark would post a new contest on his blog every day.   The easier contests only required you to do something like leave a comment or friend him on Facebook.  Other contests required more work – like making a recipe video or writing an essay.  Each contest had a prize with a primal theme, some bigger than others of course.  I was a finalist in both the fitness and recipe video contests last year but didn’t win.  Mark did send me a t-shirt, though, which I thought was kind of cool.

Mark plans to focus this year’s contest on “aligning your lifestyle behaviors with each of the 10 Primal Blueprint Laws.”  Maybe they talk like this all the time at the Sisson household, but I always chuckle a little when I hear ‘The 10 Primal Blueprint Laws” because it sounds like some sort of kooky religion.  Until, of course, you find out what the “laws” actually are.   Need a refresher?  Here you go:

1. Eat lots of animals, insects and plants.

2. Move around a lot at a slow pace.

3. Lift heavy things.

4. Run really fast every once in a while.

5. Get lots of sleep.

6. Play.

7. Get some sunlight every day.

8. Avoid trauma.

9. Avoid poisonous things.

10. Use your mind.

(Question: why are insects specifically mentioned in the first law?  Are they not animals?)

As cooler weather moves in and we settle into new routines, it is a wonderful time to focus awareness on the diet and lifestyle choices that you want to include in your life this coming year.  Use the challenge as an opportunity to set in place a well-practiced consistency that will allow you to avoid the binge and restrict drama that accompanies the holiday season and new year.

If you are new or new-ish to The Primal Blueprint, there are a lot of resources these days to help you get going.  Mark has even put together a fancy Primal Blueprint Essentials Kit which walks you through your first 30 days step-by-step.  People generally lose 4-8 pounds of body fat in their first 30 days, but in my experience huge changes in energy levels and an increased sense of well-being come in just a week or two.

For those of you more experienced with the The Primal Blueprint, the annual challenge is a fun way to revisit the fundamental principals.  In typing out the Primal Blueprint Laws just now, I see that I really haven’t put made play a priority in my life.  I happen to be recovering from a sprained ankle at the moment, but I need to do some thinking about how I can make active play a regular part of my life.  Also, for me, if I’m not paying attention, my diet tends to slip back into something that may be more convenient but less healthy.  I intend to use this month as a chance to focus on being more consistent.  I also look forward to the inspiring transformation stories that always emerge during this time.  Mostly though, I want to win the cow!!

In the spirit of the challenge, I’ll be having a few giveaways here at This Primal Life in the coming month.  Check back for a chance to win some free stuff.

So what about you?  Whether you are new to primal or have been at this a while, are you planning to participate in the challenge this year?  Which of the Primal Blueprint Laws, if any, do you plan to focus on?

Pardon my absence as of late.  I haven’t been feeling like posting much mainly because I haven’t been cooking much.  Here it is the fall harvest season and I’ve done little more in the kitchen this last week than whip up a few meals for the kids and cut up a rotisserie chicken.  The reason?  In a very un-primal manner I have been drinking protein shakes for breakfast and lunch followed by a simple meat-based dinner followed by another protein shake.  I gave up whey protein earlier in the year when I decided I’d rather eat actual food following a workout.   But now I am, temporarily, subsisting off them as I conduct a 6 week experiment following the dietary guidelines in the Eades’ new book The 6 Week Cure for the Middle-Aged Middle.  The fact is, since starting this blog, I have put aside my body composition goals for the sake of expanding my primal cooking repertoire.  As nice as it is to know how to make a primal-friendly muffin or cake, I am generally better off without either.  So I am taking a month off from any serious cooking and am back to a regular weight training schedule.  Oh, and did I mention I’m going on vacation to Costa Rica next month?

For someone like me who spends a good portion of their time planning, procuring and preparing food, it can be a relief to devote attention to other endeavors for a while and just let someone else decide what’s for dinner.  And who better to decide than Michael and Mary Dan Eades, that friendly, low-carb husband-and-wife-doctor-team from Arkansas?  The Drs. Eades, authors of the NYT bestselling book Protein Power, are on-board with primal principles and from what I can gather, it is somewhat unusual of them to be recommending something like a protein shake in lieu of real food.  What they’ve devised is a high-protein regiment that supposedly gets the liver in optimal shape so that maximum fat loss can occur without the usual losses in lean body mass too.  By the way, I have absolutely no idea whether the Eades can back up their claims in the book with actual research.   I’ve read some criticisms that call it gimmicky.  I decided I didn’t really care.  Here’s how the diet works in a nutshell:

Stage 1 (2 weeks): 3 whey protein shakes a day and 1 meal consisting of protein and some veggies.  No caffeine, no alcohol (ouch!).
Stage 2 (2 weeks): 3 meals a day consisting mainly of meat.  Limited veggies, no dairy.
Stage 3 (2 weeks): Maintenance mode – your standard low-to-moderate carb diet.

Mark Sisson makes an appearance in their book, although I’m not completely sure why.  The Eades recommend an abdominal exercise called Laplace.  After describing it’s execution they show a shirtless photo of Mark and tell us that he achieved his current physique through no other abdominal exercise than this one.  Of course, not only was Mark Sisson never overweight but he also didn’t come to look the way he does by virtue of some funky sucking-in exercise… but whatever.

I am not yet middle aged (I checked!) and I also don’t have a lot of visceral fat so I may not be the target audience for this diet.   Even though I am already at a good weight for my height I still wouldn’t mind leaning out a little.  In less than 2 weeks, I’ve lost nearly 5lbs of scale weight.   I took into account an initial drop in water weight, so as far as I can tell – that’s real poundage.  So, yes, this diet ‘works’.  But just to be clear, there’s nothing magical going on.  Switching things up can help when you’re at a plateau, but there’s definitely some plain old calorie restriction going on here.  Also, in an effort to stay compliant with this temporary plan, my eating behavior has changed in that I haven’t been eating out, snacking, drinking, or partaking in small indulgences that I might not resist otherwise.  If you are interested in losing fat and are at a standstill, you might give the 6-week cure a shot.  I’ve also learned a few things, such as that I can survive without fruit and sugar in all of its forms (at least for a while), and that it might not be so bad to try intermittent fasting again at some point (hated it).

Once these shake weeks are over after Wednesday, I’ll be back to posting recipes.  After the two ‘meat weeks’, I’ll look forward to resuming my usual primal eating style – in Costa Rica!

Agave Nectar

Sometimes I wish I were one of those people who could casually take or leave a chocolate-caramel brownie.  Or better yet, one of those strange specimens who actually find the taste of sugar too sweet and mildly unpleasant.  But I am not.  I am slave to my physiology and people evolved to enjoy sweet foods.  In nature, sweet foods are rich in nutrients and carbohydrates (think carrots) making them a good bet for a foraging human.  Fortunately or unfortunately, what was once the simple pleasure of a wild berry or two is now conveniently achieved tenfold by scarfing down a chocolate chip cookie 3-pack in the McDonald’s exit lane.  When those sweet molecules meet our taste receptors, it sets off a series of reactions resulting in the release of various neurotransmitters, including dopamine.   In case you missed psych 101 in college, let me fill you in on what happens when people encounter a scenario where pleasure-invoking neurotransmitters are released in the brain.  We tend to do that thing again and again like little robots with a short circuit.  Sadly, it’s hard for a rational counterbalance such as “will make me unhealthy and feel bad at some nonspecific time in future” to compete with much effectiveness.

It is not surprising then that the selling of sweeteners is huge business.  I imagine there are probably teams of food scientists across the globe whose sole job it is to come up with the latest greatest sweetener.  There’s the cheap stuff food manufacturers use to sweeten food (forms of corn), and then there’s the stuff marketed directly to consumers.  While we’ll happily feed little Sally the chemically altered corn starch already in her cereal, it makes us feel bad to actually sprinkle or pour it on top of the cereal.  Luckily, food marketers are ready in the wings to bring us some sweeteners that can make us feel good about ourselves.  Enter agave nectar.

Agave nectar is made from extracting the juice from the agave plant (a succulent grown in Mexico also used to make tequila) and heating that juice to form a runny syrup.  You can buy it in light or amber forms, the latter having gone through less filtration and containing more plant solids.  Agave nectar (notice it’s not called agave sugar, or agave fructose) has been marketed to us as a ‘natural’ sweetener, used by the Aztecs for centuries, with various anti-microbial properties and a low glycemic profile.  It’s really perfect for the health-conscious, microbe-hating, Aztec-loving consumer.

I have only tried the amber form but I find agave nectar to have a pleasant, neutral sweet taste.  Unlike honey or maple syrup which have very distinctive flavors (that I also enjoy) related to their source, agave nectar doesn’t remind you of anything.  It’s just sweet.  The main benefit in my mind is that the glycemic index of agave nectar is so much lower than your average sweetener – something in the realm of 20-25.   Low glycemic index means less impact on blood sugar which in turn means a little agave isn’t likely to kick off a 10pm sugar binge.

Now for the sad part.  The reason agave nectar scores so low on the glycemic index is that it contains only 10% glucose. What comprises the other 90%?  Fructose.   Well, as it turns out, too much fructose isn’t so good for you, either.  Drat!   Even though fructose does not cause the kind of immediate insulin response that glucose does, too much over time can lead to all the same old problems associated with a high carb diet, like insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and increased serum triglycerides.  Furthermore, there is some question about the presence of saponins in agave.  According to an article I read at the Weston A Price Foundation website entitled Worse Than We Thought: The Lowdown on High Fructose Corn Syrup and Agave “Nectar”, saponins are toxins that can cause diarrhea, vomiting, and even miscarriage.  Finally, the process by which agave nectar and high fructose corn syrup is made is very similar.  Agave nectar is produced from the starch of the agave (not from boiling the sap or juice of the plant as the Aztecs would have) just as high fructose corn syrup is manufactured from the starch of the corn.  This brings about the desire to boycott agave nectar just to punish the industry for its deceptive marketing tactics.

So what’s the bottom line?  My conclusion is that agave nectar is less desirable than honey and maple syrup in terms of its nutritional profile.   However, I also think it can be useful in moderation for those who react to the glucose in honey and maple syrup by speeding off to the nearest 7-11 for a bag of Oreos.    In my observations, “okay in moderation” isn’t something that people are very good at.   But here we encounter a nuance of the primal lifestyle – the occasional vice.  Eating large amounts of sugar, in all its forms, is bad for our health.  But adding a few tablespoons to a batch of primal muffins, or opting for the occasional drizzle on some blueberries and yogurt isn’t going to send you to the dialysis clinic.   As long as it is eaten in small quantities consistent with a primal eating style, I think the type of sweetener you use is a matter of personal preference.

What are your thoughts on agave nectar versus other ‘natural’ sweeteners?

Kombucha in my yard

Somebody in my microbiology class last semester home-brewed kombucha and gave a presentation on the process as her term project. At the time, being the nerd that I am, I’d never heard of it. Apparently, kombucha has been part of the cultural lexicon for several years now. It is not unusual for me to learn about ‘new’ products or fads long after the fact. Of course, once I heard about kombucha I started seeing it everywhere. I finally grew curious enough to buy a few bottles and look into its many health claims.

Before we get to its dubious status as a miracle drink, let me give any other culture-nerds out there a little Kombucha 101.   Essentially this stuff is a fermented tea beverage.  You start off with a batch of tea, sugar, and a culture of yeast and bacteria that looks like a gelatinous, milky pancake.  Screw the lid on tight and let the mixture sit for a while and it will ferment.   The yeast metabolizes the sugar so the end product isn’t really sugary.  I’ve never tasted home-brewed kombucha but what you get at the store comes in a myriad of flavors.   Some are mixed with exotic fruit juices like mango or pomegranate.  Ginger appears to be a popular flavor addition.  So if you’re wondering what it tastes like, think sparkling apple cider or ginger beer.  You’ll find a glop of residual culture at the bottom of each bottle which may gross some people out but I imagine only adds to kombucha’s mystique for others.

Hard core kombucha-ers associate the drink with a huge variety of health benefits ranging from digestive aid to cancer cure-all.  The label on the bottle of GT’s Organic Raw Kombucha that I purchased lists ten benefits to the drinker that all, amazingly, start with the letter “r”.  These are: rejuvinate, restore, revitalize, recharge, rebuild, regenerate, replenish, regain, rebalance, and renew.  The label also says that Kombucha supports digestion, metabolism (this one makes me chuckle), immune system, appetite control, weight control, liver function, body alkalinity, anti-aging, cell integrity, and healthy skin and hair.  Wowza!  Pass the kombucha!

I fancy myself a skeptic, so a little red flag goes up in my mind when I see health claims for a product that could be considered ‘too good to be true’.  Another red flag goes up when the product is also an ‘ancient Chinese remedy’.  In such cases, the majority of health claims tend to be based on anecdotal evidence and lack scientific foundation.  Sadly, this seems to be the case here.   Of course this doesn’t mean that kombucha imparts no health benefits to the drinker, just that it probably doesn’t do all that it is purported to do.  Kombucha has probiotics, which we know are good for intestinal cells, antioxidants, and there is evidence that fermented foods can be beneficial for immune function.  I tend not to think I need to be ‘detoxed’, but if you do, there is some evidence that kombucha may help with that, too.  One question to consider is, “Currently, as a non-drinker of kombucha, is my health deficient in any way that would be best helped by drinking kombucha”?

That said, as long as the consumer is a normal, healthy adult, kombucha doesn’t seem to have any ill effects aside from a few cases of people drinking bad home-brew or combining it with certain medications.   So if you can afford it  (I bought it on sale for $3 a bottle) and feel like it benefits you in some way, then I say go for it.  If you have cancer, though, I’d go to the doctor.  I found the taste somewhat pleasant and noted it only has 60 calories and 14g carbs for a whole big 16oz bottle.  Dave, on the other hand, was reminded of his first taste of beer.  The bottom line for me is that the price and the cloudy stuff at the bottom will probably keep me from indulging very often.

Compare and contrast. Left: Hungry townspeople closing in on the lonely produce stall at my town's farmer's market. Right: One of many gorgeous, overflowing produce stalls at the farmer's market in Portland's south park blocks.

I know that some parts of the country have really great farmer’s markets.  I know this because I used to live in Portland, Oregon.  The farmer’s market in the South Park Blocks while unappreciated by me at the time, would now rock my world.  I also know this because I read food blogs whose authors live in large metropolitan areas or on the West Coast.  These authors talk about the farmer’s market as being the cornerstone of their weekly food shopping.

I live in a small town in Michigan.  The farmer’s market in my town spans 6 or 7 booths.  You’ll find a table or two of produce  but generally the market sells stuff like quilted placemats in loud prints, homemade soap and baked goods.  Even if I drive to the Ann Arbor farmer’s market, the “big” one around here, I won’t find anything like those bountiful, lush produce stalls full of interesting and inspiring vegetables that I remember from Portland.

I may have audibly sighed the other day when I read Mark Sisson’s post at Mark’s Daily Apple about primal gazpacho.  He writes, “I headed down to the farmers’ market for some bulbous, dark red heirloom tomatoes. Three large ones did the trick. I also picked up some parsley, Persian cucumbers (seedless), fresh oregano, green bell pepper, red onion, and cilantro.”  Heirloom tomatoes? Persian cucumbers?  Okay, I’m jealous.

So what’s a primal eater to do if the gas station in town rivals the farmer’s market in fresh produce? I suggest looking into CSA Farms in your area.  CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.   You pay a certain amount at the beginning of the season and then you receive a share of the crop weekly throughout the growing season.  I pay $500/year and every week in late May-early October I receive a huge box of fresh, delicious, and occasionally unusual produce.  I pick up my share box directly at the farm on Wednesdays.  The kids come with me and they get to explore the farm, watch the chickens, and have a ‘farm snack’ from the share box on the way home.

Last year we split the share with another family.  This year we’re eating the whole share.  It is a lot of produce so you have to stay on top of things.    Here are a few lessons I’ve learned over the last year:

My CSA Share this week: strawberries, turnips, radishes, green onion, garlic scapes, spinach, lots and lots of lettuce, sugar snap peas, asparagus, rapini, black-stemmed peppermint

#1:  Be prepared to spend some serious time each week washing your produce, especially during lettuce season.  The produce might be dirtier than you’re used to.  I’m always happy to wash off real DIRT in lieu somebody’s germy handprint from the supermarket.  Regardless, nothing will guarantee that your bundle of bitter greens will rot away in the back of your fridge like leaving it untrimmed and unwashed.

#2:  When you’ve got this much produce on your hands, it’s best not to think about how you will incorporate a little here and there into your weekly primal menu.  The produce IS your menu, and other foods are along for the ride.   I have 8 heads of lettuce and 3 bundles of spinach in my fridge, and 5 days until I get my next share.  This is not the time for “side salads”.

#3:  Get some of those bags that extend the life of fruits and vegetables.  This way, even if despite your best efforts you couldn’t get around to the spinach, it won’t go to waste before you can freeze it.

#4:  Be open to expanding your vegetable horizons.  I think this is the fun part.   You’ll get stuff in your share that you wouldn’t normally buy (like tatsoi, or garlic scapes) and you’ll have to figure out how to eat it.  If you don’t think you’ll be able to eat your whole share, you might want to look into how to freeze or otherwise preserve what you get.  I recommend getting a cookbook that deals exclusively with vegetables.

I have to drive 20 on the expressway minutes to buy organic produce in a supermarket, but I am surrounded by CSA’s.  Especially if you live in the Midwest or Eastern U.S, this may the case for you, too.   You can go to this cool web site, local harvest, to see if there is a CSA near you.

That said, since I stumbled across this stuff a few weeks ago, erythritol has been very useful in my primal diet.  No matter what sort of resolve I work up the day before, I usually end up putting some sugar in my morning coffee.  Before starting to eat primal, I used to just dump it in.   Later I started limiting myself to 3 cubes/day.   Even with this small amount, however, I end up consuming sugar here and there for several hours every morning.  So may main motivation for trying erythritol was use it in my coffee.  I was also curious to see how it would work in a recipe as a sugar substitute.

The primal brownie I made with erythritol. The batter turned out more like dough so I had to bake them in muffin tins.

Turns out that erythritol makes a fairly good substitute for sugar in my coffee.  I don’t notice a weird aftertaste like I do with pretty much all fake sugars.  It’s not as sweet as sugar, but it does the job… kind of like sugar’s less charismatic but friendly sibling.  So far, I have only tried erythritol in one baking application.  I made what were supposed to be brownies.  Erythritol does not have the same bonding or solubility characteristics that sugar does so it can make baked goods come out dryer and of course, less sweet.  The brownies were certainly edible, even enjoyable, but a little dense.

Erythritol has been fairly common in Japan since the 1980′s but isn’t so easy to find in the U.S.  It is sold under the brand names ZSweet and Zero (guess ‘erythritol’ just doesn’t have that ring).  I’ve seen both ZSweet and Zero at Whole Foods.  Zero is sold in little single-serve packets and is expensive.  You can also buy erythritol online which is probably your best bet if you plan to use it in quantity.  I bought a 4lb bag for $23.99 online at Honeyville.

In summary, here are the major pros and cons to erythritol as I see them:

Pros
Does not cause rise in blood sugar levels
Does not have gross aftertaste (like splenda or some of those other fake sugars)
Does not cause gastrointestinal upset like other sugar alcohols can, such as xylitol
Only .2 calories per gram (95% less than sugar)
Can be used in drinks or recipes

Cons
Arguably not a real “food”
Not found in its pure form in nature
Only 70% as sweet as sugar
Not easy to find

As time goes on, I don’t expect erythritol to be a daily part of my diet.  My ultimate goal is to drink my coffee black… or even cut out coffee altogether (imagine that!).  For the time being, however, erythritol lets me enjoy my coffee without having to use sugar and I can’t find much harm in it.   If you can’t stand the taste of artificial sweeteners but struggle to get the sugar out of your diet, you might find this stuff useful, too.