Eating like a cave woman

For the past ten days I’ve been eating like a cave woman. Plenty of WordPress people stick to the paleo diet and I’ve turned my nose up at it because I really hate fad diets. There always seems to be a new way to lose weight – I remember my mum doing different diets when I was young. The worst was the Cabbage Soup Diet – she stank for weeks.

Like most faddish diets, the paleo seems to work. And it seems to make sense – eat no processed food and cook everything yourself.  For me, it has the added bonus of being a meat-based diet. As a voracious meat eater, this makes it a great option.

It’s been going well but there have been a few stumbling blocks:

1) The paleo diet could be renamed “shop like a well-off-middle-class-person-at-an-overpriced-farmer’s-market”. Everything is supposed to be grain fed and organic and blah blah blah. Basically, spend more of your money. When I’m shopping I feel like I’m being scammed. So I tend to not stick to the grain-fed, organic food.

2) I’m having problems with breakfast. If anyone has any suggestions for breakfast I would love to hear them. One proviso: I don’t eat fruit. I never have – I hate it. This reduces breakfast to bacon and eggs, boiled eggs with asparagus, and omelettes. I also made some paleo breakfast bars, but they’re a bit dry. I missing eating a quick bowl of Weetabix in ten seconds and getting on with my day.

Apart from that, I’ve been enjoying eating paleo. I love to cook and having certain restrictions means that I am forced to think about what I eat and to plan my meals.

Here are some of the things I’ve been making:

• Steak Tartare (3 times!)
• Courgette and leek soup
• Smoked duck, roast beetroot, walnut, and ricotta salad
• Trout with Mediterranean roast veg
• Aubergine Caviar
• Roast chicken with vegetables
• Globe artichoke with paleo mayo
• Home-made trail mix

If you eat paleo and you have any staples I’d love to hear about them. I’m looking for things that I can add to my growing cave woman repertoire.