The Paleo Diary - Day 8 - Is it expensive and Dessert

I was reading a post on Robb Wolf's Paleo blog earlier today, musing on whether eating Paleo is expensive or not.

The guy is pretty sarcastic, but I think he hits it right on the mark - it's only as expensive as you want to make it. I think we're very lucky here in New Zealand - it's almost impossible to buy grain-fed beef and lamb. That is, if you can afford to buy them in the first place. Pork and chicken are, of course a different story, but they're really cheap, and most of us can't afford to buy free-range.

I tend to buy my meat from the Mad Butcher in Albany - a so much better grade of meat for the hoi polloi than that available in Henderson or Massey, lol. Sometimes we'll get our meat at Pak N Save - but only if it's on special.

For veges, it's a toss up between the local, usually Asian-run fruit and vege shops, or Pak N Save - their high turnover means most of their stuff is fresh, but there's little variety, and a lot of it gets bruised from the rough handling. I was in there last night, watching a woman tossing tomatoes back in the box, complaining they were all soft - gee, I wonder why? The local vege shops have a dozen different varieties of 'choy' - I really need to get brave, don't I? I wish they spoke more English tho! Or that I spoke more Chinese than 'Ne how mah' ('thank you' - 'scuse the spelling)

Robb argues that you should buy what you can afford, as long as you're eating healthy Paleo. Balanced Bites makes the same argument. Here's the food pyramid, nicked from their site:

Look at that! Doesn't that firmly contradict the 'normal' healthy eating pyramid! Noooooo it seems so wrong!

So, why the ramble? Well, I was thinking about how much I've spent in the last year, and in the last week, trying to get healthy. The battle with the FODMAPS intolerances has been fun, but my blood glucose levels have continued to rise, because although I was cutting out gluten (and all that other stuff), there were still grains in my diet, and I was still having too many carbohydrates for my battered system to process.

I've just bought a selection of Digestive Enzymes and Proteolytic Enzymes which I hope will help my digestive system actually digest things, instead of just throwing them back at me in various unpleasant ways.

Last night, as I said earlier, I went into Pak N Save to do some shopping. I spent about $100. This included 2 trays of chicken mince (about $12), which I turned into 10 chicken patties for breakfasts, and a 1kg bag of Prawn meat (deshelled, but not cooked) for $14. Becca and I shared 1 cup of these, cooked with a little bit of butter, salt and lemon juice in a saucepan, for breakfast this morning. It was really really nice, and left us both feeling full, even tho it didn't look like much. The rest was on a packet of bacon (I suspect that was the next most expensive thing, as it was Henderson's Dry Smoked), veges, and coconut milk.

But ... if we stop buying Vogels bread, at about $5 a loaf, and all the other grain carbs ... oh well, hopefully it will all balance out sooner or later!

Now, on to something even more important!!!

Paleo Chocolate Cake in a Mug

Doesn't get much more important than that, does it!

This woman, Juli, has some fantastic dessert ideas - and food stuff in general:

And this one just leapt out at me:

Chocolate cake, in a mug!!!!!

Ingredients

• 1.5 tablespoons coconut flour
• 1.5 tablespoons almond flour
• 2 tablespoons walnut oil
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons raw honey
• 1 egg
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• pinch of salt
• pinch of cinnamon

Instructions

1. Add all ingredients to a mug.
2. Mix all ingredients well with a spoon.
3. Microwave for 2 minutes.
4. Consume.

There's lots more yummy stuff on her website - go see!

Made the 'chocolate pudding in a cup', used tapioca flour instead of almond, coconut milk instead of walnut oil, and drinking chocolate + cocoa powder instead of honey. Very rich, very nice. Saved half of my one for tomorrow!

Lunch tomorrow: salad, and chicken patties - funny that!