Our feast of gratitude was a smashing success! Lot's of yummy local vegetables and meat.
Now I want to try something else. A month long paleo/zone/primal/locavore experiment. Many CrossFit boxes have been doing the paleo or zone challenge as a way to increase awareness of the food we consume. I would like to take that a step further by not only applying the paleo/zone principles but also considering where the food is coming from. I do not see the point of advocating a paleo diet without also stressing the importance of quality meat. Even if we bracket off the ethical and political concerns of eating meat from CAFOs (industrially grown concentrated animal feeding operations) we are still left with the question of healthy meat. Our ancestors did not eat meat that was saturated in corn, wheat, hormones and antiobiotics. The paleo diet must give consideration to the diet of the animal. Whatever the animal eats you eat too.
Remember that the word diet simply means "way of life." If we keep this in mind we can stop thinking about diet as a gimmick or as the latest fad. Zone and paleo as a way of life is really as simple as eating meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, no sugar, little starch, etc.
Please, please check out the link below to Robb Wolf's blog. Here you will learn all about the paleo and zone way of eating. There is so much valuable information including links to other health related matters. Also, lot's of delicious recipes. http://robbwolf.com/
Here is a link to a fair assessment of the differences between grass fed and finished beef and CAFO factory farmed beef.
So what is the challenge? One month of a heightened consciousness and a re-evaluation of our most naturalized assumptions regarding food.
There is oodles of info on the zone and paleo diet on the CrossFit online journal. If you do not already subscribe, consider doing so. At $20.00/year it is a steal of a deal.
