Friday Thoughts

When I first heard about the Paleo Diet, my immediate reaction was that I could never sacrifice enough of the foods I love to follow the lifestyle guidelines. And I have gotten similar feedback from my family and friends. I assure you, it isn't necessarily easy, however the transition has been better than I imagined. For me, one of the hardest things to fathom living without was corn chips. How were we going to eat our fantastic summer salsa or guacamole? It was a puzzling conundrum and for a few weeks we just lived without. Until this week when we hit home and finally figured out salsa is not just meant for chips, and neither is guacamole. I made chunky tomato salsa to spice up a rather bland chicken recipe and the results were fantastic. We topped our chicken with salsa, which not only made it less dry, but added a whole new element of flavor. Delish! Then yesterday I made a batch of guacamole and put on my thinking cap. I had originally planned to dip veggies in the guac, but in the moment, I decided to use some large pieces of iceberg lettuce and sliced red pepper and make somewhat of a wrap. Wow! I spread some guacamole into the middle of the lettuce leaf, added red peppers, and rolled the thing up. Easiest side dish ever. Jake and I each had one with lots of guac to spare. Thus, I am now sitting here dipping pieces of red pepper into the guac wondering why I ever missed chips. Not only is this little snack far superior to chips and guacamole because of the abundance of trace nutrients in red peppers, but I would argue it is actually tastier. The red peppers crunch just like chips do and you actually get flavor benefit from them. Plus, chips are loaded with fat and salt, something that probably contributed to a negative experience I had with them a few weeks ago. Jake and I do our best to follow the Paleo lifestyle, but every Sunday we have dinner with my parents. My mom is very healthy by any normal standard, and is a great cook, so we see no reason why we should throw a fit about eating a few items that may not be 100% Paleo once a week. Anyways, my mom had made some salsa using ingredients from her garden (yum!) and of course, had chips as well. Well, my life having been void of chips for a while now, I may or may not have over-indulged and eaten most of an entire bag. That being said, I felt so sick after dinner that I can guarantee if I ever encounter a corn chip again, I will be much more cautious and probably try to avoid them all together. I guess my point here is that no matter how much you think you cannot stop eating a certain food, if you want to bad enough, you will. And maybe along the way you will encounter some natural consequences with foods that will make it even easier to avoid them (alcohol excluded, cause I never seem to learn that lesson).

e.