Yummy Waffles

I was perusing through my kitchen cabinets the other day when I came upon a waffle iron. Of course I immediately got a huge craving and decided that I had to create some Primal Waffles.

Here is what I came up with and it will definitely not disappoint. These were quite good. It has been long enough since I had a “normal” waffle so it is hard for me to compare but I would say that these are easily as good if not better!

Old… OLD World Waffles

Ingredients:
- 8oz Organic Cream Cheese
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1 half cup shredded coconut.
- 4 eggs
- 1-2 teaspoons vanilla
- dash of cinnamon

Waffle Syrup:
- Fruit! Any you like but I have found that frozen strawberries that are put in the microwave and then chopped and mashed makes a great natural syrup!

Directions:
1. Pulse half cup of shredded coconut in a food processor or blender until you have a kind of coconut flour. (some people may remember this from some of my other recipes) This makes a great coconut flour that is full fat and less dry than pre-made almond flour which is usually de-fatted.
2. In a mixer or mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and mix well to create a batter.
3. Cook your batter on the waffle iron. If you dont have a waffle iron, you could probably make them pancake style in a pan on the stove.
4. Enjoy them how you like them! We did some organic butter and the heated frozen strawberry natural syrup.

Came out perfect!

Image courtesy usnews.com

Reader, web-buddy, primal aficionado and crazy Black Hills cyclist of the Dakotas Tim provided me with the following link to a very interesting read.

“The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race”

This was written by a UCLA Med School Professor in the 80′s so nothing new here but has obviously been passed over many a time by CW. Go read the article then return here…. now discuss. Lol j/k… but I highly recommend reading it then returning.

A couple of my favorite excerpts: Hunter gatherers spend only around 20 hours or less per week obtaining food! The bushmen when asked why he did not plant crops like his neighbors responds “Why bother when food is so abundant”. Agriculture far from protects us from famine. The article uses the example of the great potato famine in Ireland. Our great agricultural revolution really has done little to solve the problem of world hunger.

I offer you 2 scenarios:

Scenario 1:
You wake up, shower, iron your clothes, make breakfast, pack your lunch. You then go to work for 8 hours (yeah right more like 10 right?!?!), get off work, run errands, workout, cook, run the kids all over town, and whatever else comes up. I call that a busy jam packed day!

Scenario 2:
You wake up naturally (no alarm clock here) have a casual breakfast, head out and meet you buddies or gal pals, hunt or gather food for a couple hours with your friends, workout in the process, return home, relax or get some errands and housework done, meet again with your buds or galpals in the evening to socialize, eat and “tribe” together.

You tell me which scenario sounds healthier and less stressful. I am not saying… I am just saying… I mean, this is the type of stuff we have to take vacations to do now! The hunting trips etc.

Now I respect the fact that our world population is out of control. For everyone to go primal, hunter gatherer sustainably at this point is pretty unrealistic. The reverting to a tribal village life is just my fantasizing utopial (is that word?) ramblings.

Maybe their is a way to get a little of the best of both worlds though? The idea of growing food or keeping livestock really dose make a certain amount of sense. The problem I think is that we are going about it the wrong way.

I see great benefit to keeping livestock. Having chickens, eggs, meat at the ready is awesome! But lets raise and keep the livestock healthily and sustainably.

I also see the benefit of growing crops. The problem is in the crops we grow. Subsidies, big agra, and other forces have decried that our agra consists of grains and corn. Let subsidize the right crops (vegetable, fruits and nuts). Imagine if there where subsidies for growing nuts! Then we would have an abundance of nutrient rich food as opposed to the grain calorie dense but nutrient devoid “food” to provide to the world. Prices would drop and we would see almond flour almost as inexpensive as wheat flour. Lets subsidize the right crops.

Just my ramblings here but am I really too far off base? What are your thoughts?

Angel said one of the coolest things to me over on her blog. I had commented that a picture she had of eggs with nice dark yolks was making me drool. She responded that was good because it meant my “Food recognition software was working properly”.

I thought this was one of the coolest things that I have heard! It also holds so true. My food recognition software has not always been working properly. There was a time where a picture of eggs with dark yolks would have held no interest for me. A picture of a Big Mac though? That would have made me drool. You see I used to be mistaken into thinking that “Food-like products” were actual food.

I am glad that my brain, my senses and my systems recognize real food now and recognizes processed crap for what it is. The “Food-like products” don’t even smell like food to me anymore. I smell the food that co-workers bring in the fast food bags (that probably taste like the bags themselves) and i smell the microwave meals being heated up in the breakrooms. These things make my stomach turn and not in a good way. There was a time though that these smells would have made me HUNGRY!

Right now, a piece of fruit may taste like a piece of fruit to you (unless you are already reprogrammed of course!). To a fully operating sense of taste that fully appreciates flavors though… a piece of fruit may taste more like a little slice of heaven than you can imagine. Everything real food just tastes so much better when you can truly appreciate the deliciou flavors.

Here are some tips on how you can reprogram your Food Recognition Software:

1. Cut the refined sugar out of your diet. Your poor taste buds are being bombarded and desynthesized by all that sugar. This is a great step towards not only increasing insulin sensitivity and losing weight but also towards repairing your taste buds. Foods tend to taste better when you can actually taste them.

2. Cut out the grains. Grains and grain products in and of themselves are extremely bland. The reason most people THINK they love bread is because of the tastes and flavors added to and delivered by the bland bread. Please read my old post here (“Love the flavor hate the grain) for my thoughts on grains as a delivery system.

3. Cut out other processed crap. What does a dough conditioner, sodium bithalitalateizine (yeah I made that up) or yellow 5 really taste like anyways. These cant be adding real flavor to your food and are further serving to desynthesized your tongue to true delicious flavor.

4. Eat real food. By eating real food, you will be training your tongue, your mind and your body to say “Hey… this is good for me and it tastes good… this is REAL food YAY!”. You will also be learning delicious true natural flavors that your body was designed to enjoy, not flavors that were engineered to spike your hormone in ways your brains THINKS its happy.

One of the things I love about the Primal/Paleo/Crossfit blog community is that someone can post a picture of a nice juicy grassfed steak or some dark yolked eggs and almost always there is a comment to the effect of “That makes me hungry” or “I am drooling now”. If only marketeers and companies knew how easy it was to appeal to someones senses with real food as opposed to processed crap.

What did he just say?Did the SoG really just say that whole grains are part of a balanced diet?

Yes… yes I did.

Here is the thing. I do not WANT a balanced diet. I want a darn good diet. Balanced to me implies that you are balancing something good with something bad. So if you are eating really really well and want to “balance” your diet. Go ahead and eat grains. I don’t see any truth in advertising issues with claiming that whole grains ARE in fact part of a “balanced” diet. This is merely a misrepresentation in my eyes.

As far as I am concerned, Kellogs can take their “Balanced diet” and shove it.  I personally am going to stick to a diet overwhelmingly unbalanced to the side of good and of health.

I love MS Paint

I have fallen victim to not listening to my own advice. Those of you that have been around for a while know that I advocate reading the ingredient list on EVERYTHING you consume because to never know what they can and will stick in something. Well I failed to follow my own advice and paid for it.

I am not a big advocate of anything made from soy… especially for men.Briefly, it can lower testosterone and cause other problems. If you want more information, check out Scott’s posts on Soy over at Modern Forager. I generally only have a little soy in the form of soy sauce in my homemade jerky (which I eat daily). As we know from the Japanese, a little soy won’t kill you so I never really worried too much about this little that I consumed.

Recently a good friend gifted me some “Bragg’s Aminos” which is supposed to be similar to soy sauce.Curious as to what the actual difference was, I sat down with the bottle of Bragg’s and my bottle of Kikkoman’s and began to investigate. I read the ingredients list on the Kikkomans and almost choked. The second ingredient in my Kikkoman’s is wheat! Wheat I say! In my Soy Sauce! It is even higher on the ingredient list than soy. Now not only am I consuming soy but also wheat. I am so disappointed in good ol’ Kikkoman and also in myself for not realizing this sooner. I advise people all the time to read read READ all the ingredients and here I failed in that myself.

Many of you may not think this to be a big deal at all BUT I have noticed side effects from this. Lately, I have been bringing jerky to work with me as an afternoon snack to break my fast. Instead of the jerky satiating my hunger, it has actually been making me hungrier! This would totally explain why.

Once again… READ ALL THE INGREDIENTS OF ANYTHING YOU CONSUME!

I for one am done with Kikkoman’s for good. lol

My long neglected cracker tin

I got the name of this article from my younger brother (10 years younger!). I think he once told me “Don’t hate the player, hate the game”. Anyways, lets get to the post!

“I love bread”, “I love pasta”, “I love noodles” These were the words out of my wife’s mouth when I first went primal. In fact she was known as “Noodle Girl” among her co-workers and our circle of friends because of her affinity with noodles. I have heard these statements from many other people as well but I am ready to challenge these statements. I would argue that for the most part, bread, chips, pasta and noodles all merely act as a vessel for delivering the flavor that you truly like. Confused? So was my wife but lets take a look at some of the culprits.

Bread:

Is it truly the bread you like? Bread itself doesn’t actually have much flavor. I would argue that it is the butter, the jam, the dipping oil,  the sandwich toppings or the honey or sugar on or in the bread that you really like. Think about what it is that you actually like about bread.

Chips:

Be it corn chips, tortilla chips or potato chips, I would like to propose that it is not actually the corn, the tortilla, or the potato that you really like but rather the seasoning, the salt, the oil, or the dip!

Crackers:

Once again, I willing to argue that it is not the cracker, but the seasonings and what you put on the cracker that you like more than the cracker itself.

Pasta:

Truly pasta doesn’t have much flavor itself. It is the sauces and the meats and the cheeses that really make the pasta isn’t it? Even people that eat plain noodles usually slather them in oil or butter… yum.

Noodles:‘

Like pasta, it is the toppings, the sauces and the broths that make the noodle!

Potatoes:

Ok, this isn’t a grain but we will throw it in. Once again, the toppings make the baked potato. Plain old potato just isn’t that tasty. Try comparing a plain baked potato to a plain baked sweet potato (so much tastier and much lower on the glycemic index). Also the best tasting potatoes, i.e french fries and hash browns are more about the salt, oil and ketchup than they are the potatoes!

Sugar:

Well, you are pretty much SOL here. Your taste buds DO like sugar… that takes more discipline. This is a post about grains.

Some Solutions:

Scratch the delivery system! Focus on the flavors that you truly like. Use veggies for dips. Put your sauces on top of meats instead of pasta or noodles OR just make meat sauces and eat them straight. Eat your sanwich toppings with a fork and knife or spoon or even your fingers! Try these things and you will realize that you aren’t missing much by ditching the pointless grain delivery system. My wife certainly hasn’t morned the loss.

Maybe I am wrong and you are a person the truly does love the grain. In that case you may be SOL and stuck to the exercising discipline bit like on sugars.

Post your thoughts! Do you have similar experinces? Try it and let me know waht you think!