I’m going to keep Cupcakes & rock ‘n’ roll around for adventures in baking and cooking, but everything else will probably fall into the other one. Follow Editorial Muffins if you please!

New England isn’t used to hurricanes, but the hype around Hurricane Irene is ridiculous. Downed trees and broken power lines in Manhattan just don’t compare to the ragged Atlantis that New Orleans became. Mainstream news media were bracing for another Katrina, and boosted coverage accordingly. TV stations like CNN invested so much money and so many resources in putting correspondents in the path of Hurricane Irene and making fancy touch-screen presentations, they have to follow through with non-stop coverage, regardless of whether Irene turned out to be a Category 3 hurricane or just a pretty bad rainstorm. Perhaps my memory does not serve me correctly, but the coverage of Irene and that of Katrina seems comparable. So, please allow me to illustrate my point with two pictures, and I’ll leave it at that:

Hurricane Irene in NYC

Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans

Since then, I’ve had a spotty track record with keeping plants alive. I went to Home Depot a few years ago and told the person working there I wanted something impossible to kill. He pointed me towards a nondescript green plant with long leaves. Sure enough, though my cats gnaw at its points, it’s alive and mostly well, hanging out in my living room window. I cannot speak the same for the remains of the African violets beside it.

But then last year, I tried growing all kinds of herbs and food from seed. It took forever to plant them all, and in mid-winter, it was hard to keep them happy. Despite my doubts, seedlings cropped up and I was pleased I hadn’t screwed it up! Then I put their little greenhouse boxes outside when it warmed up outside. Then every single last one of them froze to death. Sigh.

This year, the wife and I wanted to plant maybe just a couple herbs—not from seed, but with already-started growth. I spent Mothers’ Day with my stepmom at a pépinière (a plant nursery, en Français) and I went crazy. I bought basil, lemon basil, chives, garlic chives, oregano, edible panties pansies, peppermint, cilantro and parsley. I brought them home and set them up outside in the sun. I watered them, took them inside when it was too cold, and then finally planted them in composted earth we got from our composting service. Then a week later, we went to the market and came home with two little strawberry plants and a cherry tomato plant. Just this weekend, we came back with a giant basil plant. We even planted our own garlic. Keep in mind that all of these plants are living out on my balcony, the second floor of a triplex in St-Henri, Montreal. I dutifully tend to my little plant family every day, monitoring their progress and for some, their lack thereof. I enjoy their company when I go outside to eat a popsicle, or barbecue, or annoy my across-the-way neighbours with my mere presence.

Anyway, today, our first strawberry turned red and I feel like a proud parent.

So far, the oregano and peppermint are going nuts. The cherry tomato plant has doubled in height in just a few weeks. The lemon basil is faring better than the other two basil plants I initially bought, and the giant basil from this weekend is doing great so far. The cilantro looks a little beat up, as do the pansies (only because they got too tall and fell over on their side).

edible pansies!

peppermint!

cherry tomatoes!

giant basil!

oregano gone wild!

I didn't get a good picture of them, so instead, I've used this picture of almonds that I stole from the Internet.

Believe it or not, paleo muffins can taste good. They haven’t got any sugar, flour or milk in them, but still turned out to be pretty tasty. They were simple to make and are protein-packed, which makes for a filling snack.

tracey’s paleo muffins

1 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup of ground almonds
1 omega 3 egg, large
2 overripe bananas
1/2 cup walnuts
1 tbsp walnut oil* (any oil will do, but try to use a less-processed oil than the conventional ones)
1 tbsp almond butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract (or 1/4 tsp. of pure Mexican vanilla—it’s extremely potent!)
2 tbsp. almond milk, or can use water if you prefer
Slivered almonds, for garnish
Produces 10 small muffins.

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl except for the slivered almonds. Line a muffin tin with muffin wrappers and spoon the mixture into the moulds. Top with the slivered almonds, and bake for about 25 minutes.

The muffins are dense, and won’t rise much at all due to the lack of baking soda and powder, but they’re a good fake-carb snack full of good fats and protein. Just don’t eat too many of them in a day!

When I joined the crossfit gym at the tail-end of December 2010, the first trainer to mention the paleo diet to me told me that she ate meat and vegetables at every meal—even breakfast. That didn’t seem very interesting to me, considering I do like lighter fare at breakfast, so I kind of discounted the entire diet as a result. But then a second trainer held some kind of information session about paleo, and though the wife and I didn’t hop on board then and there, it piqued our interest and we bought Dr. Cordain’s book, The Paleo Diet. We decided we would try it for a month, in May, because veggies and fruit would be more in-season than in the winter, and would therefore be cheaper and more delicious.

A month or two prior to adopting the paleo diet, I cut out wheat as per a naturopath’s recommendation. This made the transition to paleo a lot easier, because wheat and any grain are big no-nos according to the diet. The difference I felt after cutting out wheat (and beginning to take Bio K) was remarkable—no bloating, no major stomach pains or digestive issues, improved regularity. Now, a month in to my paleo adventure, I’m beginning to wonder if I was ever really sick at all. IBS is known as a catch-all term to define any digestive or intestinal issues that can’t be identified by medical testing. In short, doctors don’t have a way of telling whether you have IBS or not—they just assume you have it if you don’t have other, more important problems (like a gluten allergy or Crohn’s disease). So, was my IBS real, and I was just able to reverse it? Or was the food I was eating and the way I was eating it making me so sick it appeared as though I had IBS, even if I didn’t really? Robb Wolf’s book, The Paleo Solution, makes me think perhaps I was never truly ill, if his and his family’s experiences are any indication.

Before paleo, everything I ate made me sick.

Eat a salad, be in the bathroom in 20 minutes flat. Eat an apple as a snack, be subjected to stomach pains. Eat pasta, be extremely bloated. I couldn’t win, and I resigned myself to a lifetime of feeling like shit. I couldn’t lose weight anymore even though I was putting forth the physical effort. My weight plateaued for nearly an entire year and I was depressed. I was still 55 pounds away from my goal weight, and it felt pretty much like a battle I was destined to lose. I felt like shit all the time, and let me tell you—feeling like shit all the time is fucking exhausting.

Challenges of the paleo diet

As you are all well aware if you have read any of my previous blog entries, I love sweets. A LOT. I love baking, and I love things with sugar in them, and I’ll forever and ever have a sweet tooth. This was the biggest challenge for me, and one I frequently let get the better of me. I could resist grains, wheat, butter, chips, fast food—even popcorn, my most favourite snack on the planet—but I had an extremely hard time resisting sweets. Surely a handful of dark chocolate chips wouldn’t kill me, right?

Of course, it wouldn’t, and won’t. And Wolf speaks of an 80 per cent compliance/20 per cent non-compliance ratio—that is to say, no one can be good 100 per cent of the time, and to expect yourself to be compliant 100 per cent of the time is a sure way to fail a diet—any diet, not just the paleo diet.

But I found that when I ate anything sweet, it derailed my adherence to the diet by making me crave more sweets. Sweets beget sweets. Soon enough, I would have something sweet every other day. This is not 80/20. Because of this, I found my commitment to paleo waning toward the end of my 30-day challenge. Luckily, about a week ago, I went to Robb Wolf’s website for the first time, and discovered his online forum, where hundreds of paleo subscribers go to look for, and share, information. It’s infinitely reassuring to know that not only am I alone in facing these challenges, but that I had faced them better than some.

Former vegetarian, now voracious carnivore

I stopped being a vegetarian because of my IBS. Now that it looks as though I may not have IBS, will I return to vegetarianism? The short answer is NEVER!

Five reasons I won’t ever be a vegetarian ever again:

1. Many of the staples of the vegetarian diet (primarily anything soy-based) are so extremely processed, that your body doesn’t know how to handle them. Humans are not meant to consume vast amounts of soy. It’s not good for you, and anyone to argue this point has obviously not taken a balanced look at the facts.
2. Vegetarians primarily eat a very carb-heavy diet—pasta, oats, flour, rice, quinoa, couscous, bread, potatoes. As a vegetarian, I thought I was doing something good for myself by eating whole wheat pasta, whole grains and rolled oats. Truth is, grains are not good for you and they disrupt your entire digestive process. Starch is converted into sugar by your body and makes your insulin levels spike. That’s why you generally feel satiated right after eating grains, but then are hungry an hour later. The goal in life and in general health, particularly to prevent diabetes, is to maintain a steady level of insulin—don’t allow it to spike and drop many times over the course of the day. You’re not doing yourself any favours by allowing that to happen.
3. I developed a lot of cavities over the course of my vegetarianism, and it’s not because of poor dental hygiene (though I should floss more often!). Vegetarians often consume a lot of food throughout the day—healthy food, like fruit—but it’s been proven that your teeth don’t respond well to continuous exposure to sugars. If you eat a bowl of berries in the morning and then don’t eat fruit at all for the rest of the day, and only eat your meals and hardly any snacks, your teeth will fare better. As my dental hygienist told me, it matters how frequently your teeth are exposed to sugar. If you eat “healthy” food all day long, you’re putting your teeth at more risk for decay, cavities and enamel erosion, than if you were to just eat really satisfying and complete meals thrice daily.
4. I can honestly say that I am not as hungry now as I was before. As mentioned in the above point, I try to eat really satisfying and complete meals (and one or two snacks) every day. I eat a stupid amount of food, but it’s all good food. And I lost eight pounds during the first month of the paleo diet, so it mustn’t be all bad!
5. Bacon.

Conclusion

Being on the paleo diet and reading about how it affects my body has taught me a lot about nutrition and food, but most importantly, it’s taught me a lot about how to understand my own body. It seems to me a lot of people are painfully unaware of how the food they eat is the reason for all the minor ailments they experience. I was, and just because I’ve read a couple of books doesn’t mean I know it all. But I know a lot more than I did, and it’s taught me that a lot of people think they’re doing right by their bodies when really all they’re doing is causing harm.

If you feel like shit, cut out grains, dairy, legumes (beans, peanuts, etc.) and starchy vegetables for a month. Eat lean meats, omega 3 eggs, 1-2 oz. of nuts a day, healthy oils, fruits and especially vegetables for a single month, and see how much better you feel. This is what the paleo diet is, essentially—it’s an extremely simple way of eating that does require a lot of preparation and planning ahead, but in the end, it’s all worth it.

ahhhhhh... refreshing!

Citrus can be so refreshing on a hot summer day (or a warm spring day, but I’ll take what I can get here in Montreal!). I went crazy buying tea at David’s Tea this past winter in an effort to stay warm and caffeinated, and I ended up with a lemon, so to speak. Lesson: lime tea is not good warm. No.

But cold? It is delicious.

I brewed the tea with hot water to get the essential oils out of the tea leaves—the tea is named Lime Bang, by David’s Tea, and it’s a green tea blend. Be forewarned that this is really not a project to do in a rush, since it took at least an hour in the freezer to cool off completely. I steeped a few tablespoons of the tea in the hot water for about 10-15 minutes, which made it pretty strong. By adding ice cubes, I ended up diluting the strength anyway.

While the tea was working its magic, I sliced up some lemon, lime and navel orange. I also picked a small handful of peppermint leaves off their stems. I put about a tablespoon or organic raw agave syrup (a sugar alternative) in the warm water since the volume of citrus made the tea a bit tart. After leaving the tea on the counter for about a half-hour, I popped in the ice cubes, whole citrus slices and the mint, and put my jug in the freezer.

I’ve never attempted to poach and egg, but I’ve heard of the wife’s failed attempts a number of times. And so I adopted a technique that requires little supervision and is more or less foolproof based on the way I make crème brulée.

It’s simple, really—you need a ramekin, a little oil (I use flaxseed oil as per the paleo diet), an egg (an omega 3 egg, paleo again), a pot and some water. Boil about an inch of water, or enough so that when the ramekin is placed in the pot, the water comes up its lip/edge. Boil the water, covered, on high until bubbling rapidly, then turn the water down to about medium until the bubbles die down and it simmers.

While the water is coming to a boil, grease the ramekin with a little bit of oil and crack the egg into it. Season the egg as you please—I’ve taken to putting some chopped, fresh basil and cracked black pepper. Then carefully drop the ramekin into the pot of simmering water and cover, allowing the egg to cook for about five minutes. Depending on how well-cooked you like your eggs, you can keep them in for a minute less or a minute or two more. I personally like my poached egg when its yolk is halfway between firm and liquid. If the cooked egg doesn’t slide out of the ramekin, you can slide a spoon around and pop it out that way.

Basil is an excellent companion to eggs, especially fresh basil. In the picture above, I just popped a fresh sprig of it onto the egg, but I also put it in with the raw egg and cook it along with it. Both are great options, and taste especially fresh with some avocado, and if you please, smoked salmon.

I have a weirdly distinct memory of me as a child—maybe about four years old—sitting in a car with my dad eating tons of cooked shrimp. I remember having to use my teeth to peel some of them. I’m pretty sure this happened, since I don’t do drugs or drink nearly enough to have imagined this. So, I must’ve like these creepy crustaceans at some point—and for a kid to like them? A finicky kid, to boot? Weird.

Anyway, the basic guiding principle of the paleo diet, in my opinion, is to eat simple, wholesome food that has been processed as little as possible. Every single bite should mean something—nothing should be filler. It’s hard, when you realize how much EVERYTHING is processed. But when it comes to the caveman diet for the 21st century, I think it’s a matter of interpretation and choosing the lesser evils.

I am trying really, really hard to like fish and shellfish, since it’s so much higher in protein than things like chicken, beef and pork. So for lunch, I bit the bullet and made a shrimp stir-fly.

shrimp & veggies (makes two portions)

12-15 (uncooked frozen) shrimp
1 clove garlic, minced
A few basil leaves, chopped
1/3 cup of red onion, sliced
1/2 to 3/4 cup of red and yellow peppers, sliced
1 cup of broccoli
4 mushrooms, sliced thinly
1 large carrot (or, in my case, two small sweet carrots)
1 tbsp flaxseed oil
Cracked black pepper

Heat the flaxseed oil in a frying pan on medium heat. Cook the onions first, until they’re translucent and aromatic. Toss in the broccoli and carrots and allow to cook for a few minutes; then add mushrooms, peppers and shrimp. Toss ingredients together in the pan to ensure even cooking.

The shrimp are done when they turn orange/red. The veggies should be cooked al dente—halfway between being completely cooked and completely raw.

It’s a pretty simple recipe, and it took me all of 20 minutes to make. But as I said, paleo’s all about eating simply. I actually enjoyed this—the texture and flavour of the shrimp didn’t gross me out. I win!

Three days into the paleo diet, and I’m already dreaming about cookies. May is going to be one long, long month. I better see some results by May 31, or I’m giving up to live life in a muumuu. OK, that’s a bit extreme. I actually am enjoying the paleo thing, though it’s so extremely hard to deny myself anything and everything with even a little bit of (non-natural) sugar in it.

Anyway, breakfast. The one thing I haven’t compromised on is my morning coffee, so I had that with a splash of skim milk. But today was a good day, starting with a good breakfast.

For the past month or two, I’ve typically started my day with a smoothie before actual food. My favourite is a banana-blueberry-almond milk smoothie with cinnamon and chia seeds (see below). Chia seeds are insanely good for you, but so little-known. They’re high in omega 3 fatty acids, fibre and protein, and also help you feel full. However, they turn into gel when mixed into liquid after about 15-20 minutes, so if you’re going to use them in a smoothie, you best be planning to drink up. 

After that, I poached an omega 3 egg in a ramekin in a pot of simmering water. I lightly coated the ramekin in flaxseed oil to improve the nutrition of my food and to prevent the sticking of the egg. While the egg was cooking, I slice a quarter of an avocado, rolled up two pieces of smoked salmon from the fish store at the Atwater market and made a quick strawberry-honeydew salad.

Depending on who you ask and which list you consult, many of those things are superfoods—blueberries, avocados, chia seeds, salmon, omega 3 eggs, cinnamon, almonds. But, most importantly, I felt good after breakfast, and my stomach was pretty OK all day, which is a fairly rare thing. Around the same time I started eating the chia seeds, I also started taking a powerful probiotic, Bio K, which has really helped my digestive health, too. 

My boyfriend is a cereal or toast-eatin’ kind of guy in the morning. And I used to be, too—for a long time. Some may think eating this way, especially in the morning, is simply just too time-consuming, and to be perfectly honest, it is indeed more time-consuming than opening a box and pouring stuff into a bowl. But I’d rather sacrifice 30 minutes of sleep if it means I’m getting healthier each and every day.

Now pardon me while I go to bed, so that I may wake up early to get tortured at crossfit.

chia smoothie

1/3 to 1/2 of a banana (I put the other part in the fridge for the following day)
1/2 cup of frozen or fresh blueberries
1 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk (I use Blue Diamond’s Almond Breeze)
1-2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tbsp chia seeds

Blend with an immersion blender under the mixture is smooth. Drink up!