Post Paleo-Week Round-up: Ranty Pants Edition

Here's the whiny version of my post-paleo week feelings; I'll post the more worthwhile ones separately, so you can pick the half-full or half-empty version as you see fit.

Paleo week kind of went out with a kvetch.  Thursday afternoon was one of those crazy ones where one kid was clingy and the other was whiny and there were heaps of unwashed dishes strewn around the kitchen.  So I busted out the hotdogs (and a homemade veggie soup!) for supper.  Hmph.

Then I went to Whole Foods in search of some ingredients for Shabbos.  And I came to the final conclusion: the paleo diet is something dreamed up by bored wealthy gentiles.  It will not work for me/my family.  Healthy and delicious, yes.  Affordable?  Heck no.  And if you don't have a dishwasher or a maid or at the very least two sinks, it ain't happening.
A bag of coconut flour costs more than one of organic whole wheat flour, and contains half as much stuff; even if the recipes I ended up trying only used a bit, the little package I got won't last long.  I live in a town where kosher meat and chicken are very readily available, but they aren't THAT cheap - and if you're a true paleo snob, you only eat organic/pasture raised to boot.  Look, I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  Halevai that I could eat like Barbara Kingsolver!

If you look at paleo blogs, you see lists of recipes and "what I ate today" with things like elk burgers and bacon-wrapped everything.  A search for "paleo convenience foods" netted such helpful suggestions as beef jerky and canned salmon.  But when you keep kosher, pork sausage for breakfast and rabbit stew for dinner are not options.  Having such limited meal choices is hard for me.  Some people (BSB for one) don't mind eating the same thing on a frequent basis, but endless chicken cutlets do not particularly inspire me.  I made a kick-butt slow-cooker chicken one night, but if I make that for dinner all week, how are my Shabbos meals going to be special?

I like this fauxtmeal business, but when I'm running to get a kid to playgroup in the pouring rain, and then to attempt to work while clutching a wiggly infant, standing over the hot stove and measuring out breakfast ingredients is just too much to ask; and I'm a WAHM, how would this work for people with 9-5 office jobs?  I make a lot of food from scratch, I really do, but this week was a little more than I can handle in the long run.

There's a lot of hype out there associated with this paleo/primal diet biz.  Advocates try to convince you that you'll experience miraculous cures when you switch to eating this way (no sugar, no grains, limited dairy, nothing processed).  And yeah, it's healthy, I think that's fairly obvious.  But it ain't the only way to be healthy.  Vegans will tell you the same thing about dropping animal products.  If you're experiencing ill health or otherwise sense that you need to make a drastic dietary change in this direction, then gezunterheit.  I'm glad it worked for you.  But other than needing to lose some chub, I'm in decent health: gluten and lactose are my friends.  Or at least they're well-wishers, in that they don't wish me any specific harm.

So as of Sunday (Shabbos doesn't really count), dairy and legumes are back in my life.  I'm being fancy and giving grain another week.  So there.