Paleo Desserts For Dummies E-Book

Adriana Harlan

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 318

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

More than 125 simple and sweet recipes for Paleo-friendly desserts

Following a Paleo Diet doesn't mean you have to give up your favorite desserts and treats. Paleo Desserts For Dummies offers up more than 125 tasty and delectable dessert recipes that you can enjoy while staying true to the Paleo lifestyle. From chocolate cake and blueberry muffins to maple-walnut ice cream and cookie dough Oreo cookies—there's something to please every palate in this collection of Paleo-friendly desserts.

The Paleo diet is one of the hottest diet and healthy-eating approaches around, as more and more people discover an appealing and sustainable alternative to the restrictive diets that can lead to burnout and failed weight loss efforts. Using natural foods to achieve great health and a perfect physique, the Paleo diet can lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, blood pressure, and markers of inflammation, as well as help promote weight loss and optimal health. Plus, it has become a lifesaver for the millions of Americans with celiac disease who benefit from eating natural and gluten-free foods.

• Provides recipes that are all made with nourishing, whole foods with no added refined sugars, gluten, grains, or soy
• Includes Paleo recipes for holiday treats, like chocolate pumpkin pie, Halloween ghost truffles, and a fudgy peppermint bark
• Gives you access to a handful of additional Paleo dessert recipes on dummies.com
• Helps you discover the healthy alternatives to sugar and chemical-laden junk food

With the satisfying recipes in Paleo Desserts For Dummies, you'll soon discover how sweet it is to give in to primal cravings!

Leseprobe

Paleo Desserts For Dummies®

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Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014958562

ISBN: 97-811-1902280-0

ISBN 97-811-1902282-4 (ePub); ISBN 97-811-1902283-1 (PDF)

Paleo Desserts For Dummies®

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/paleodesserts to view this book's cheat sheet.

Table of Contents

Cover

Introduction

About This Book

Icons Used in This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Reaping the Benefits of Paleo Desserts

Chapter 1: What is Paleo?

Picking Up the Basics of Eating Paleo

Reaping the Benefits of Eating Paleo

Going Beyond Primal Nutrition

Having Your Cake and Eating Paleo, Too!

Chapter 2: The Paleo Kitchen Makeover

Decoding Food Packages

Clearing Your Kitchen of Toxic Foods

Restocking Your Kitchen with Nourishing Foods

Stocking Your Paleo Baking Pantry

Equipping Your Kitchen with Essential Tools for Paleo Desserts

Chapter 3: The Nuts and Bolts of Paleo Dessert-Making

Appreciating the Science of Paleo Baking

Sifting through Your Paleo Flour and Starch Options

Sweetening the Pot: Paleo Sweeteners

Baking with Paleo Fats

Rise and Bind: Working with Paleo Leaveners and Binders

Measuring Ingredients for Best Results

Part II: Guilt-Free Paleo Desserts — Time to Get in the Kitchen

Chapter 4: Brownies, Bars, and Fudge

Chapter 5: Classic Breads

Chapter 6: Cakes and Pies

Chapter 7: Decadent Chocolates and Truffles

Chapter 8: Cookies

Chapter 9: Ice Cream and Frozen Treats

Chapter 10: Muffins and Cupcakes

Chapter 11: Sauces, Fruit Spreads, and Nut Butters

Part III: Sweet Holiday Paleo Desserts

Chapter 12: Paleo Halloween

Chapter 13: Paleo Thanksgiving

Chapter 14: Paleo Christmas and Hanukkah

Part IV: Part of Tens

Chapter 15: Ten Tips for Making Paleo Desserts

Read the Recipe and Follow It Closely

Don’t Overmix When Using Almond Flour

Use a Combination of Flours, Starches, and Seeds

Bring Ingredients to Room Temperature

Adjust the Sweetness of Your Recipes

Make Sure the Oven Is the Correct Temperature

Test Baked Goods for Doneness

Use Parchment Paper and Silicone Bakeware for Nonstick Baking

Chill Dough Before Rolling and Cutting

Bake with the Finest Ingredients

Chapter 16: Ten Nutritious Paleo Food Substitutions

Milk Chocolate for Dark Chocolate

Peanut Butter for Seed, Nut, or Coconut Butters

Water for Bone Broth

Pasta for Zucchini or Squash Noodles

Soy Sauce for Coconut Aminos

Rice for Cauliflower Rice

Wheat-Based Pizza Crust for Paleo Pizza Crust

Wheat and Corn Wraps for Paleo Wraps

Traditional Breakfast Foods (Or No Breakfast) for Whole Foods

Energy and Sports Drinks for Coconut Water

About the Author

Cheat Sheet

Supplemental Images

Advertisement Page

Connect with Dummies

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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Introduction

Making changes to your diet and lifestyle is imperative for regaining a healthy body and the life you love. Living Paleo nourishes your mind, body, and soul, and it’s much more than a diet. It’s a template that guides you toward your healthiest and most-balanced self. When you go Paleo, you learn to eat whole foods designed for your own unique body. You also learn to manage stress and make time for sleep and exercise. These changes transform your body and life, giving you health, happiness, energy, and vitality.

What you don’t do is give up on indulging your natural craving for treats. The genetic makeup of the human body has changed very little from our hunter-gatherer ancestors, and even they had a sweet tooth. Therefore, the only nutritional approach that helps you stay strong, lean, and healthy is to consume a diet rich in essential minerals and vitamins and free of processed modern foods. Paleo Desserts For Dummies helps you do just that without depriving yourself.

Whether your goal is to lose weight, look your best, improve your family’s health, or simply discover the healthy alternatives to sugar- and chemical-laden junk foods, Paleo Desserts For Dummies is the resource you’ve been waiting for. In this book, I give you my best cooking tips and healthy Paleo dessert recipes so you can enjoy life more without having to deprive yourself of your favorite foods.

About This Book

Paleo Desserts For Dummies is a reference guide as well as a cookbook. Transitioning to the Paleo diet and lifestyle is simple; you may already be following many of its principles. Choosing unprocessed and nutritious ingredients to make savory desserts also help you stay focused and motivated.

This book introduces you to the basic principles of the Paleo diet and lifestyle. You discover how to stock your kitchen with real foods and natural ingredients to make sweets and treats. I explain the basics of Paleo baking and list some essential kitchen tools to make cooking easy and enjoyable. Oh, and you get 11 yummy chapters with more than 100 Paleo dessert recipes, including cakes, pies, cookies, brownies, ice creams, breads, muffins, candies, jams, nut butters, and other delectable sweet sauces. Some chapters even focus on special holiday celebrations such as Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, and Hanukkah.

I’ve also included some information in shaded sidebars; these bits are interesting but not essential to your success as a Paleo baker/chocolatier. If you just want the down-and-dirty essentials, you can skip the sidebars, as well as anything marked with a Technical Stuff icon.

Finally, I’ve used a few conventions in the recipes:

All temperatures are in degrees Fahrenheit. You can find Fahrenheit to Celsius converters online.

All coconut oil is unrefined. Goods made with unrefined coconut oil may have a slight coconut taste; if the flavor bothers you, you can use refined coconut oil.

When I refer to “Paleo-friendly chocolate,” I mean chocolate that’s at least 70 percent cacao and is soy-free.

I use the scoop-and-level approach for measuring dry ingredients and measure liquid ingredients in dry measuring utensils, which may different from techniques you’ve used previously.

Chapter 3

has details on using these methods.

A final note: You may find the recipes in this cookbook extremely delicious, but they’re still treats, so don’t overindulge.

Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, I have included helpful icons that highlight key concepts and information about the Paleo lifestyle and Paleo dessert-making:

This icon points you to helpful cooking suggestions and information that — when applied — creates changes that result in a healthier, happier you!

The Warning icon is a signal for potential pitfalls that may trip you up, either in Paleo baking or in your overall Paleo lifestyle.

Whenever you see this icon, keep an eye out for important information you should always keep stashed in your memory.

The Technical Stuff icon flags text that’s interesting but nonessential. You don’t have to read it to benefit from this book, but I recommend you do anyway!

Foolish Assumptions

As I wrote this book, I made a few assumptions about you, dear reader; if any of the following applies to you, this book is for you:

You want to be healthy and feel your best without having to give up sweets and treats.

You want to discover a world of delicious, healthy desserts that are easy to make.

You want to get off the sugar-rush roller coaster.

You love baking but want to discover how to bake with healthy, unprocessed ingredients.

You’re new to the Paleo approach to health and want to know more.

Beyond the Book

Beyond all the recipes and information in this book, I have reserved some special goodies that you can access anytime for free on the web. Check out the eCheat Sheet at www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/paleodesserts and the bonus content at www.dummies/extras/paleodesserts I created just for you to help you get started living a healthy lifestyle and creating delicious Paleo desserts.

While you’re online, come say hi to me on my blog, ask me questions, and check out all the new dessert recipes I create at www.livinghealthywithchocolate.com.

Where to Go from Here

This book is organized in such a way that you can read the chapters in any order that you prefer. Feel free to look over the table of contents to find specific subjects of interest or use the index to look up specific keywords and information.

Consider starting with Chapter 3 if you want to get a handle on the nuts and bolts of Paleo dessert-making, the different natural ingredients available, and the importance of measuring those ingredients. Then move over to Chapter 2 for info on stocking your Paleo baking pantry. You also may want to just skip straight to Parts II and III and check out all the dessert recipes available, which start with Chapter 4 and go through Chapter 14.

And don’t skip Chapters 15 and 16. You get all kinds of tips and tricks for making Paleo desserts, which make your life easier and your sweet treats more yummy.

If you’re not sure where to start and you’re new to Paleo, my advice is to read the chapters in order. This approach gives you the knowledge you need to get started living a healthy Paleo lifestyle while also adopting its nutritional principles. Reading through the beginning chapters helps you understand why this lifestyle is so effective in improving your health and quality of life.

Part I

Reaping the Benefits of Paleo Desserts

Visit www.dummies.com for great Dummies content online.

In This Part . . .

Learn the fundamental principles of the Paleo diet and find out why this is a lifestyle, not just a diet.

Get an insight into which essential macronutrients humans depend on to sustain a healthy body, and which toxic foods to avoid.

Discover why food quality plays an important role in further creating health and wellness.

Find out why the Paleo diet goes way beyond eating healthy foods and how the lifestyle choices you make help you achieve positive results.

Get advice on how to clear your kitchen of toxic foods and restock your shelves with wholefoods as well as Paleo-approved baking ingredients.

Discover how sweets can be part of a healthy diet, and get my best tips and tricks for making Paleo desserts.

Chapter 1

What is Paleo?

In This Chapter

Understanding the foundations and history of the Paleo lifestyle

Identifying the stars of a Paleo diet

Recognizing the benefits of feeding the body with proper nutrition

Enjoying sweets with a Paleo approach

The Paleo diet has become very popular worldwide because it’s less of a diet and more of a lifestyle that you can follow without calorie restrictions. This lifestyle emphasizes eating natural, wholesome foods that feed the body with proper nutrition. Living Paleo helps you get to know your own body better and achieve optimal health, preventing diseases, healing inflammation, and boosting youthful energy.

Avoiding harmful ingredients and choosing high-quality foods (from organic produce to pasture-raised animal proteins) transforms lives, and thousands of people are reaping the benefits of eating this way. Unlike fad diets, the Paleo diet is quite simple; it gives you a template to choose nutritious foods while making you aware of the foods that your body can’t efficiently digest and absorb. Because Paleo isn’t a restrictive diet, you don’t have to give up eating your favorite foods — including sweets and treats! You may just have to approach making them a little differently. The dessert recipes in this book follow the primal nutritional blueprint and are made with truly natural ingredients. This chapter introduces some fundamental Paleo principles.

Picking Up the Basics of Eating Paleo

The Paleo diet, also known as the caveman or primal diet, is based on the simple nutritional principle that you should consume only the foods your body was designed to eat. It attempts to emulate the whole, unprocessed nature of a hunter-gatherer diet by eating foods rich in nutrients.

The fundamental idea behind this concept is the fact that the human genome has changed very little in the last 40,000 years — only about 0.02 percent, according to studies. It has been 12,000 years since the onset of the agricultural era, which is a drop in the evolutionary bucket, but long enough for some people to develop at least a degree of tolerance to agricultural-based foods. The degree to which individuals can tolerate agricultural-based foods may depend on a variety of factors, including ancestral background, age, and health status. It’s important to consider that the last few generations have grown up on heavily processed foods and with other circumstances that have not fostered good gut health (a lack of breastfeeding or exposure to antibiotics and other drugs, for example). The result is that many people today already have a compromised gut that reduces tolerance to agricultural-based foods. In addition, the characteristics of the food and proper preparation methods come into play, as modern grains have been bred to be much different from the grains consumed even 200 years ago and traditional preparation techniques that make grains safer to consume have been lost in our culture.

The foods you eat therefore manipulate how your genes function and perform. Your genes are a living being, always adapting and growing. Premature aging and other conditions most people chalk up to bad genes are often actually the result of genes that have changed because you didn’t supply your cells with proper nutrients. The good news is that the nutrients an individual consumes can influence whether certain genes are turned on or off.

For thousands of years, our hunter-gatherer ancestors depended on essential nutrients to sustain life. Traditional cultures throughout history recognized the need to consume nutrient-dense foods in order to support health and encourage fertility The Okinawans and the Mediterraneans, for example, knew by careful observation that eating certain foods was necessary to ensure the community’s long-term survival.

These essential nutrients are far different from what conventional wisdom considers optimal today. For decades, the party line in the Western world has been that health means exercising more and eating fewer calories, less fat, and more grain-based carbs. But a wealth of scientific research supports the strong correlation between the recommended consumption of industrialized foods and the epidemics of diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease you see today. The following sections break down what should and shouldn’t be on your Paleo menu to be fit, lean and strong like your hunter-gatherer ancestors.

Filling up on Paleo-friendly proteins, carbs, and fats

When you adopt a Paleo lifestyle, you no longer eat what’s known as the Standard American Diet (which is full of processed junk). Instead, your focus turns to eating whole foods from high-quality proteins, carbohydrates, and fat, including meat, poultry, fish, eggs, non-starchy vegetables and fruits, nuts, and seeds. In the following sections, I take a closer look at each of these nutrients.

Protein

Protein is essential for every cell in the body. It fuels the body to support strong muscles and healthy bones and build and repair tissue. Animal proteins provide complete sources of amino acids that the body can’t produce. The most suitable sources of protein are from healthy, pasture-raised animals that didn’t receive antibiotics, hormones, or genetically modified feed. Beef, lamb, pork, seafood, and raw dairy are easy to absorb and supply the body with protein as well as healthy fats, vitamin D, and selenium. Game animals such as goats, rabbits, wild boar, and venison (deer) are also good options. Eggs supply the body with omega-3 fatty acids and key micronutrients such as vitamins A, D, and B. (Head to the later section “Fat” for more on omega-3s and other healthy fats.)

Purchase the highest-quality animal protein you can find. Meats should be labeled as organic, grass-fed, and grass-finished. Poultry and eggs should be free-range or pastured. Fish and other seafood should be wild-caught. Dairy should be organic, grass-fed, unpasteurized (raw), and non-homogenized.

Carbohydrates

Studies indicate that on average, traditional hunter-gatherer societies ate between 3 to 50 percent of their total calories from carbohydrates depending on the latitude at which these societies lived. But the types of carbohydrates they consumed were very different than what health authorities recommend today. For thousands of years — until the Industrial Revolution — humans ate whole-food sources of carbohydrates from fruits, starchy tubers and plants, seaweed, nuts, and honey. In contrast, the Standard American Diet today consists mostly of highly processed and refined carbohydrates, such as the grains and sugars found in breads, pasta, cereals, pastries, and more.

Assuming you have a healthy metabolism, the bulk of your daily intake of carbohydrates should between 15 to 30 percent. If you are trying to lose weight or have blood sugar problems, aim to get between 10 to 15 percent of total calories from carbohydrates daily. Non-starchy vegetables can be eaten freely throughout the day assuming you can digest them well. Two to five servings of fruits is recommended daily unless you have blood sugar issues or are trying to lose weight, which in case you should choose to eat low-sugar fruits like berries. Eating starchy plants is recommended in the range of two to four servings daily unless you are trying to lose weight or have blood sugar problems.

Here are some nutrient-dense, wholefood Paleo carbohydrates:

Non-starchy vegetables:

Asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, bok choy, cabbage, cauliflower, eggplant, mushrooms, onions, leeks, garlic, peppers, zucchini, carrots, tomatoes, and seaweed

Leafy greens:

Collard greens, kale, Swiss chard, mustard greens, lettuce, spinach, parsley, and arugula

Starchy tubers and root vegetables:

Sweet potatoes, plantains, yams, yucca, tapioca, arrowroot, squash, and pumpkin

Fruits:

Berries, cherries, apples, pears, grapefruit, apricots, peaches, and figs

Fat

Consuming fat is not only essential for your health but also critical for cell construction, nerve function, digestion, hormonal balance, and vitamin absorption. For example, the human brain is composed of 70 percent fat. Over the course of millions of years, humans depended on fat to survive and evolve.

Tracing the history of the lowfat lie

Health authorities and the media have demonized eating fats for years, telling you it makes you fat and causes heart disease, all based on flawed research done by Ancel Keys and his Seven Countries study that started in 1947. Keys was a member of the nutrition committee at the American Heart Association, and he went on to the U.S. Senate to promote his hypothesis that saturated fat causes heart disease. That’s when the low-fat craze started and people began consuming highly processed vegetable oils such as soybean and canola oil (margarine) and a diet high in refined carbohydrates. It was during this time that the occurrence of diabetes, obesity, cancer, and gallstones skyrocketed. Eating a lowfat diet high in refined carbohydrates changes the efficiency at which your cells transport blood sugar, proteins, hormones, bacteria, viruses, and tumor-causing agents through your body, thus leading to these modern-day diseases.

Fats aren’t all the same, and they aren’t all bad for you; each type of fat affects the body in a different way. The following list details the healthy fats you can make part of your Paleo lifestyle:

Long-chain saturated fats

:

Long-chain saturated fats

make up 75 to 80 percent of fatty acids in most cells in the human body. When you eat foods containing this type of fat, your body stores the fat and converts it into energy efficiently and without toxic by-products. These healthy saturated fats can be found in fattier cuts of pastured-raised meats such as beef, lamb, and pork, as well as raw/pastured dairy. If you have a healthy metabolism, eating saturated fats with every meal will give you energy and properly nourish your body.

Medium-chain saturated fats:Medium-chain saturated fats are a type of saturated fat that the body easily metabolizes and digests, passing them directly through the liver. This compatibility makes medium-chain saturated fats a great source of energy. They’re also high in antioxidants and lauric acid, which is a fat that acts as an antibacterial and antiviral. They’re abundant in pastured butter, and in coconut products; coconut flakes, coconut milk, and coconut oil are delicious, highly nutritious sources often featured in the dessert recipes in Parts II and III.

Desserts aside, coconut oil is a great fat to cook and fry with because it can withstand high temperatures well without oxidizing and becoming toxic like other fats do.

Monounsaturated fats:

Another healthy fat are monounsaturated fats. Good sources of this fat include beef, green and black olives, olive oil, avocados, lard, and macadamia nuts. Together with long-chain saturated fat and medium-chain triglycerides, monounsaturated fat is a great source of fuel and essential for the body to function optimally.

Polyunsaturated fat (omega-6s and omega-3s):Polyunsaturated fat is another name for the essential fatty acids known as omega-6s and omega-3s. Omega-3 fatty acids occur in nuts and seeds; cold-water fish such as salmon, sardines, herring, mackerel, and cod; and ruminant animals. Omega-6s are naturally present in a wide variety of foods but are also found in excessive amounts in industrialized oils such as canola, soybean, corn, and cottonseed, among others. Omega-6 fatty acids are pro-inflammatory; consuming them in excessive amounts sets the stage for modern inflammatory diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

The body functions best when your diet consists of a 1:1 ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s. This ratio is as high as 25:1 in people that eat a Standard American Diet because processed foods are loaded with omega-6 fats. To ensure you’re getting the appropriate omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acid ratio in your diet, get your fatty acids primarily from seafood and other animal sources and avoid processed foods.

Knowing which foods to avoid

The number-one objective of the Paleo lifestyle is to remove toxins from your life while adding back a wide variety of nutrient-rich whole foods, encouraging habits that can improve your health, and lowering your risk of suffering from modern degenerative diseases. Obesity, diabetes, infertility, and heart disease are commonly considered “common” disorders that everyone is at risk for. The truth is that these diseases weren’t a common part of humans’ evolutionary history for over 2 million years. For example, numerous studies have shown a strong correlation between the occurrence of diabetes, heart disease, and other neurological conditions and the consumption of refined carbohydrates. These chronic inflammatory diseases were reported to be nonexistent in these societies before the people adopted a diet of refined carbohydrates and other industrialized foods. Eliminating the processed foods in the following sections from your diet is therefore vital for maintaining good health.

Cereal grains

Humans didn’t start eating grains until the beginning of agriculture around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. This span seems like a very long time, but it accounts for only about 3 percent of human existence. And as I note earlier in the chapter, our genes and digestive systems haven’t changed much since then.

The problem with cereal grains (such as wheat, corn, rice, barley, oats, rye, and millet) is that they all produce compounds intended to keep predators away; unfortunately, those compounds are also toxic to humans. They act as antinutrients in the human body, preventing the absorption of nutrients and also damaging the lining of the gut. One such toxin you may be familiar with is gluten.

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley to which a large number of Americans are intolerant. Gluten intolerance takes many forms, but the most severe is celiac disease, which causes the body to attack itself, preventing sufferers from absorbing not only the gluten but also important nutrients. Even a lower-grade gluten intolerance can lead to inflammation, which is why grains have no place in a Paleo lifestyle.

Industrial processed and refined oils

Refined vegetable oils and other processed oils aren’t naturally occurring fats like butter or lard; they’re heavily processed oils promoted as healthy, lowfat alternatives to saturated fat and found in most processed foods. These oils are loaded with pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids and are linked directly to inflammatory conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and cancer, just to name a few. Here are the industrialized oils you need to remove from your Paleo diet:

Vegetable oils: corn, canola, soy, sunflower, cottonseed, safflower, rice bran, and grapeseed

Margarine

Peanut oil

Sesame oil

Many of these oils are artificial trans fats, the worst type of fat you can consume. They’re made by a process called partial hydrogenation, in which hydrogen molecules are added to vegetable oil to make it solid at room temperature so it resembles animal fats such as lard and butter. They’re promoted as heart-healthy, but these industrialized oils are very high in pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids and cause a number of metabolic disturbances. Canola oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, soybean oil, and margarine are just a few examples.

Refined sugar

Chemically speaking, sugars aren’t all the same. Some sugars (such as fructose) occur naturally in foods such as fruits and honey; eaten in moderation from whole-food sources, these sugars are easily digested for most people. Refined white table sugar is composed of glucose and fructose, but in excessive amounts. It and high fructose corn syrup are found in nearly every packaged product, from candy to frozen dinners to canned vegetables, making moderation practically impossible. Fructose is extremely addictive and promotes unintentional overeating. When the majority of your calories come from refined sweeteners as opposed to whole food sources of protein, fats, and carbs, you run a higher risk of gaining weight and developing inflammation, heart disease, and other serious health conditions.

Significantly reducing your consumption of white table sugar and eliminating all artificial sweeteners and highly processed corn syrups from your diet revives your taste buds, allowing you to appreciate the true flavor available in real food. Soon broccoli and carrots will taste like a sweet treat to you!

Soy

Just like whole grains, soy is promoted as a health food, but many soy products are linked to a laundry list of health problems. The problem is that the Standard American Diet contains way too much processed soy, which is directly responsible for a number of serious metabolic and hormonal dysfunctions. For example, processed soy found in most all processed foods causes hormonal imbalances in women and can potentially cause infertility. A study by the Harvard School of Health back in 2008 revealed that men who consumed the equivalent of one cup of soymilk a day had 50 percent reduced sperm count when compared to men who didn’t eat soy. Babies fed exclusively with soy formula rather than breast milk receive an overload of estrogen in their blood — equivalent to five birth control pills per day. Soy also inhibits the body’s absorption of vitamins and minerals. These are just a few examples of the harmful effects of soy.

Soy is added to just about every processed and packaged food, sometimes under a sneaky name such as natural flavoring, artificial flavoring, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, hydrolyzed plant protein, or vegetable gum. Keep an eye out for these additives.

Opting for organic, local, in-season Paleo products

Because the Paleo lifestyle focuses on the nutrient density of the foods you consume, buying organically, locally grown and in-season fruits and vegetables guarantees you’re eating more nutritious foods. (Nutrient density refers to how nutritious a food is relative to its calorie content; high nutrient density means lots of nutrients for relatively few calories.) Research studies confirm that organic produce is higher in vitamins (particularly vitamin C), minerals, and antioxidants and lower in pesticide residues than conventionally grown produce. Antioxidants are what make fruits and vegetables so healthy for humans. The chemical pesticide, herbicide, and fungicide residues found on conventionally grown produce have been shown to be particularly harmful to developing fetuses, babies, and young children.

Organic foods do typically cost more, so if you’re stretching your organic grocery budget, focus on the following produce (and a few other items):

Leafy greens

Berries

Apples

Peaches

Grapes

Papayas

Nectarines

Celery

Sweet bell peppers

Lettuce

Spinach

Potatoes

Green beans

Kale/collard greens

Zucchini

Squash

Hot peppers

Baby foods

Dairy (full-fat)

Beef

Chicken

Eggs

A few fruits and vegetables are relatively safe to eat when grown conventionally because they’re less likely to hold pesticide residues:

Avocados

Coconuts

Pineapples

Mangos

Kiwis

Grapefruit

Cantaloupe

Cabbage

Sweet peas (frozen)

Onions

Asparagus

Eggplant

Cauliflower

Sweet potatoes

Considering location and season is also important when choosing Paleo foods. Most produce sold in big chain supermarkets is grown hundreds or even thousands of miles away from your neighborhood store shelves. Throughout its long journey to your dinner table, much of the nutrient content is lost. When picked ripe, however, fruits and vegetables contain far more vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. The best option is therefore to shop at your local farmer’s markets, ensuring you’re eating produce as close to harvest as possible.

Reaping the Benefits of Eating Paleo

A lot of people discover the Paleo diet because they want to lose weight, improve their health, or determine whether they have some kind of food sensitivity. Others hear about it through success stories of people healing chronic diseases and getting off prescription medication. Regardless of their reasons, almost everyone who tries the diet for at least 30 days feels better and sees improvements in body, mood, and energy level.

The main difference between Paleo and diet plans is that you don’t have to count calories; restrict your intake of fat, sodium, and cholesterol; or even starve yourself.

Putting real food first — the nutritious foods your body was designed to eat — the Paleo lifestyle helps you get well and stay well. Reducing chronic inflammation, losing weight, looking younger and more vibrant, and improving your energy level are just a few of the benefits you can expect from living Paleo.

Decreasing inflammation

The human body creates two types of inflammation. Acute inflammation is the redness, swelling, aches, pain, and discomfort your body uses as a natural response to heal a physical injury, illness, or infection.

Another kind of inflammation is called chronic inflammation. This serious condition often goes undetected for a period of time and attacks your cells, tissue, and blood vessels and can even lead to death. Conditions associated with chronic inflammation include diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, autoimmune disease, Crohn’s disease, arthritis, asthma and allergies, and thyroid dysfunction. These diseases were nonexistent in our Paleolithic ancestors until the birth of agriculture.

Myriad factors contribute to these inflammatory modern conditions, such as excessive stress, sleep deprivation, lack of exercise, and antibiotic use. But the top contributors are the pro-inflammatory foods in the Standard American Diet:

Refined sugars and artificial sweeteners

Industrial seed oils and other hydrogenated trans fats

Refined grains

Conventionally raised meats and dairy products

These pro-inflammatory ingredients are found in the majority of processed foods (breads, pasta, condiments, pastries, and so on) eaten by most people today. Incorporating a nutrient-dense Paleo diet into your life can control, prevent, and even heal chronic inflammation.

Losing weight by improving food quality

Reaching and maintaining your ideal weight is easier with Paleo. The Paleo diet is much more satiating than other diets because of its focus on healthy fats, quality protein, and fiber from fruits and veggies; you can eat less and still feel full. Constantly fighting hunger and starving yourself is a hard lifestyle to maintain, which is one of the big reasons other diets fail.

Another reason the Paleo diet is so effective for weight loss is that it focuses on the health of your cells and on healing your body from inflammation and other metabolic imbalances. Losing weight is basically a side effect of your improved health. Paleo becomes a healthy cycle: You eat better, so you feel better and have fewer cravings, which makes you want to continue to eat better.

Look younger and more vibrant