paleo on the road

[twokniveskatie]

<font class="Apple-style-span" size="4">hey, everybody! been a rough day, and i need a break. i want to bring up something important to me.</font><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4">over the last few months, i have been easing myself back into an eating style that once worked extremely well for me. finances, convenience and traveling got me away from it. i'm starting this thread to find out if any of you have any suggestions on how i can approach this style of eating on the road. you don't have to actually follow this "diet" to have suggestions. when you see the types of foods i'll be eating, you'll be able to share ideas.</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4">i'm sure many of you have heard of low-carb diets. this thread is not to debate whether they are right or wrong. the "diet" (or eating style) has many names....paleo diet, cave man eating, hunter-gatherer diet, neanderthin....and encompasses many things that are important to me....eating local, foraging, slow foods, subsistence, and mindful eating.</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4">i'll put a couple of links here for those who want more info. this lifestyle is not for everyone, and i am not recommending it, but it has worked for me, and i need to figure out how i'm gonna do it on the road. i might also add that there are scores of links out there, i'm sharing a couple that my doctor recommended.</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><a href="http://paleodiet.com/definition.htm" target="_blank">http://paleodiet.com/definition.htm</a></font></div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.paleonu.com/what-is-panu/" target="_blank">http://www.paleonu.com/what-is-panu/</a></div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.paleonu.com/get-started/" target="_blank">http://www.paleonu.com/get-started/</a></div><div><br></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana">for the record, mutt eats primarily paleo. i found a new food for him here that is totally grain free. now i want to be grain free again, too.</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana">meat, fish and poultry are the center of my diet. nuts, berries and veggies complement that. i am easing out rice now, sadly, because of it's effect on my blood sugar. sugars and processed foods are long gone, (sob! my ramen noodles! gone!) along with grains and most dairy.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana">i love jerky, and we eat alot of it. i'm trying to stay mostly with grass-fed and pasture raised, local meats and eggs. local grown veggies when i can. here at the farm, of course, i can grill a steak or throw something in the crock pot, but i need to be ready for traveling.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana">i need to be able to dry meat. (when i say jerky, it's not marinated or flavored, except for ground sea salt and maybe garlic or rosemary. probably more accurate to say dried meat). i have always meant to experiment with this in the van, but never did. ideas and suggestions welcome!&nbsp;</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana">until i can afford a solar/battery bank/electric cooler type set-up, fresh meats will be hard to keep for long. canning comes to mind, but, oh! the space the equipment would take up!&nbsp;</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana">i'll be eating eggs, which keep really well, and as long as i have access to grocery stores or farmers markets i'll have veggies. pasture raised is harder to find, but i'm hoping doable. veggies are best if they are ones that can be eaten without cooking. not that i <i>can't </i>cook them, only that i could if i had to....just as our paleo ancestors did before the advent of technology.</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana">okay, i'm rambling along here, with too many interruptions. hope some of you will help me brainstorm! thanks!</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><br></font></div>

 

[akrvbob]

The problem with the paleo diet for a vandweller is its emphasis on meat. It will require consistent refrigeration. There is a fellow here who has taken the paleo diet to extreme and eats one meal a day which is a pound of&nbsp; meat. There is no other food in his rig! But he has a class B with a big freezer/fridge.<br><br>But in every other way it seems like it would work well for a vandweller. Bob <br>

 

[Tara]

One thing I used to do was cook up a giant pot of meaty food in the pressure cooker and then if I didn't want to can it the pressure cooker makes a perfect fridge - either put a couple jars of ice in it to keep it cool or set the whole thing in a cold river. The thicker metal and rubber seals insulate really well.

 

[sl1966]

Tara have you checked out any of the old west chuck wagon and native american cookbooks. a lot of the recipes are based on available local foodstuffs from each particular geo-area of the US. I'm at work atm, but will get you the titles of those books if you'd like. In the native american recipe book there's a great recipe for pemican which calls for it just being dried out, but lasts a while. I made it about 2 years ago and it came out great!

 

[twokniveskatie]

<font class="Apple-style-span" size="4">bob- that is exactly what i had hoped to hear....that someone does paleo! it's interesting to hear about the one meal a day. i am more of a grazer, eating jerky and a few nuts and berries throughout the day, if i cook meat then that tends to be a major meal.&nbsp;</font><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4">tara, i had forgotten that about the pressure cooker. hadn't forgotten how good your canned venison was though!</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4">sl1966, i have never made pemmican, but am going to try now that i have access to pasture raised beef. it seems like an obvious solution, with it's long shelf life. i have a foraging book for the east coast and friends on the west coast that do a lot of foraging and rewilding.</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><a href="http://firstways.com/" target="_blank">http://firstways.com/</a></font></div><div><br></div><div>another possibility would be fishing, depending on the cost of licensing and how much i moved around. staying in one state would cut that expense.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>does anyone know if you need a license to hunt for clams?</div>

 

[VanFan]

<font size="4">Katie,<br><br>How do you feel about sardines?&nbsp; I never thought I'd like them, but have had some that are freakin' fantastic lately.&nbsp; Pouches of salmon, chicken and maybe tuna comes to mind, too.<br><br>Grocery stores with butcher block/seafood counters can fix you up with a small quantity of meat for a day or two.&nbsp; Grass fed beef is not usually available in the grocery stores here (and what is is usually "corn finished").<br><br>Is yogurt one of your dairy options?&nbsp; Single servings are available, but watch out for high fructose corn syrup in flavored varieties, of course.&nbsp; I learned a method for making it in a cooler from an off-grid friend recently.&nbsp; Yummy!&nbsp; Also mozarella cheese sticks are a decent grab-n-go.<br><br>Quinoa is a pretty decent grain, if you can call it that.<br>http://www.wholehealthmd.com/ME2/di...d=D18F2C4462B74726B0C2D1FD8A8A65B8&amp;tier=2<br><br>Flax is great stuff, too, IMO.<br><br>I actually find it easier to eat this way when I'm out and about, 'cause then I don't have to worry about what constitutes a "meal" for anyone else!<br><br>Vickie<br><br></font>

 

[twokniveskatie]

great ideas, vickie. i completely forgot about sardines. we love them, just haven't bought them in a while. i do like the salmon in the pouches, too.&nbsp;<div><br></div><div>not sure about the dairy....i have an intolerance to most dairy, and it doesn't fit my approach to paleo. i just have to quit ignoring the bad effects of some of the foods i eat that i love, but my body does not, and just quit eating them.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>quinoa looks interesting. that will have to be one of the foods that i consider later. my doc says that once my metabolism and my body functions are normalized, i can experiment with adding things back. right now, the rule is, if i have to cook it to eat it, it's a no-no.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>heading out for provisions, with sardines added to the list!</div>

 

[akrvbob]

Katie, do you remember that primitive living skills course we were looking at last year? It was in Phoenix in February. You, me, Steve, and Brian all wanted to go but the didn't accept dogs. Well Ken was here at the RTR and he left to go to it and I told him I wanted to go but they didn't accept dogs. He said that is a rule but they do accept dogs. Well behaved dogs are okay and badly behaved dogs they use the rule to kick them out. None of us had the money to go this year, but we are all planning on going next year. YOU MUST BE THERE!!!<br>

 

[akrvbob]

Sorry, somehow I sent that before I was done. Please come, I can;t go another full year without seeing you and Mut. Homer and I will go into serious withdrawl!!!!! So, next year be here for the RTR and then we will all go to the gathering. Here is a link to the outfit:<br>http://www.backtracks.net/http://www.backtracks.net/<br><br>You know how good Homer is at finding rabbits, I bet that I could eat a rabbit or squirrel a day, 75% of the year if I wanted to.<br><br>

 

[twokniveskatie]

bob, that is the best news i have heard in a long time, that you miss me&nbsp;<img border="0" align="absmiddle" src="https://vanlivingforum.com/images/boards/smilies/crazy.gif">. oh, and about the dogs at the event! yay!&nbsp;<div><br></div><div>i want to go! i will do everything in my power to make it so! but when i see you, be afraid, be very afraid, cause i'm gonna smoosh you up in the biggest hug ever! i'd give homer a hug, but i think a biscuit will be more to his liking. you, my friend, don't get a choice </div><div><br></div><div>there are an awful lot of vandwellers in for the same, i might add. i am sorely lacking for hugs.</div>

 

[Tao Seeker]

I used to live by the paleo diet for about 3 months. I didn't do it because of weight management or blood sugar; if I wanted to manage me weight I would eat a chocolate cake every day and gain a few pounds. I used the paleo diet as a natural high energy diet for parkour, a sport that involves lots of endurance and almost as much cardio. I must say that I felt great on it, too. I was more aware, more energetic, and even happier all the time while I was eating raw vegetables, fruits for snacks, and simple cooked meat.<br><br>To maintain this diet on the road might be a little inconvenient. Buying beef jerky is expensive, but jerky was my choice for a no-cook meat. Although the diet said not to cook any of your foods, I rationalized by saying that cavemen discovered fire quite early and we've been cooking our meat for quite some time, so I allowed myself to cook meat and use herbs and spices that don't have nutritional value (no added salt, but pepper seeds aren't so bad).<br><br>It's much cheaper buying select cuts of meat and cooking them than buying dried meat. Also, you can dry those cuts too, if you have a setup for it. A quick note on drying meat is that you don't have to worry about it rotting, it will dry too fast for bacteria and mold to get a handle on it if you're applying enough air current; you only have to stop insects from getting to it and laying eggs (ew, right?), which can be done by either smoke from a fire, or some kind of enclosure with filters and/or a powerful air current.<br><br>Check out this video: <br><br>Television is mostly useless, but it's a good teacher sometimes. Alton Brown makes beef jerky with a fan and air filters. He marinades it, which is why he says to lay the 'dried' meat on the filters (not dried, just 'rung out'). He says it takes 8-12 hours, which is only an overnight process.<br>

 

[Tara]

Also I bet you could smoke meat in your little shower tent thing. Depending on the humidity a day or two will put a good crust on it. If it gets a little sour on the inside it's still good, you only have to worry about bad bacterias on the surface.

 

[twokniveskatie]

hmmm. that's a thought, tara. the only thing i've ever actually smoked is bison. good idea about the shower thing. one thought is that the desert should be an easy place to dry meat. i like the desert.<div><br></div><div>tao seeker, i also cook some of my foods (meats)....my introduction to paleo was Ray Audette's "neanderthin" which used the premise that if it <i style="font-weight: bold; ">had</i>&nbsp;to be cooked, it was not included, like grains and legumes....based on the idea that for thousands (10,000's?) of years, man survived (thrived) on foods available without technology, &nbsp;such as fire. Ray lived only on foods he could have eaten naked on the savannah armed with a pointy stick for hunting and digging.....i thought it was cool that he hunted with raptors!</div><div><br></div><div>i use an electric hydrator at the farm. i really dislike store bought jerky of any sort. so many additives, and so expensive. i'll watch that video later....i will be near hi-speed internet later today.</div><div><br></div><div>i am thinking more and more about the person Bob mentioned that eats 1 pound of meat a day. talk about simple! i'm so curious how they do it, any way we could get them to join and share their experiences? think of how few utensils and things you would need! this is mind boggling! i'm already down-sizing my kitchen in my mind....</div><div><br></div><div>on another note, on facebook one of my rewilding friends posted a link that i thought was interesting, especially appealing to my medical background....</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.tendergrassfedmeat.com/2011/01/31/the-first-low-carb-doctor-2500-years-ago/" target="_blank">http://www.tendergrassfedmeat.com/2011/01/31/the-first-low-carb-doctor-2500-years-ago/</a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>

 

[akrvbob]

I'm a huge fan of the paleo diet and consider it the ideal way to eat. But I have a fundamentally different idea of what it is than I'm hearing here. Humans have been cooking with fire for 100s of thousands of years. I don;t think they ate their meat raw except as a last resort. They also ate a huge variety of foods. If it was edible, it went in their mouths. They ate everything they could, whenever they could. I didn't tell him, but I think a lb of meat once a day is about as bad a way to eat as is possible. I don't beleive any paleolithic human ate that way by choice. They had better sense than that. What hungry human ever found a bluebarry, strawberry or raspberry bush and didn't eat all he could? What hungry human every found a stream full of fish and didn't catch one and eat it right there? The same with nearly all fruits and nuts. And science is telling us they are the healthiest foods we can eat, full of essential nutrients. We aren't burning nearly the calories they did, so we will have to restrict our calorie intake, but the types and timing of food intake should match theirs as closely as possible. <br><br>Okay, now I'll climb off my soapbox and admit I don't follow that diet nearly as well as I should. How can it by fault that chocolate cake doesn't grow on trees?! Bob<br><br>

 

[twokniveskatie]

i think, Bob, the cooking part is simply to delineate a certain type of food. for instance, grains and wheat need to be cooked in order to be edible......meat and berries and honey and eggs and fish and fruit many veggies do not. ray audette cooks his food! i cook my food, except for cauliflower and broccoli and those types of veggies, i often eat raw. i eat my nuts and berries raw. i am definitely not against cooking! i'm sorry if i was not clear. most paleo people i know cook their food. raw foodists don't cook their food.<div><br></div><div>paleo folks just believe that foods that had to have something done to them to make them edible are not as good for them. corn comes to mind.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>i am terribly fascinated about the one meal a day thing, and would love to hear his/her story. not interested i following that path, but i am really attracted to the simplicity of it. but as i said before, i am a grazer, (as are most of the paleo people i know) and nuts and berries and jerky and veggies are a big part of that. even still, it is making me realize how much stuff i won't need living on a diet of meat and veggies and finger foods!&nbsp;<br><div><br></div><div>some arctic tribes did have to eat only meat and fish and whales and blubber, and thrived on their regional foods. so it can be done, although i'm sure they ate more than once a day if they could help it </div><div><br></div><div>we are fortunate not to have to restrict our eating to regions, as our earliest ancestors did. i'd die without bananas, i swear! and i have not given up hope that i will one day find chocolate growing in the desert around pahrump....</div><div><br></div><div>i should stress again that there are many versions of the paleo diet. didn't mean to give the idea that i was pushing any one. &nbsp;matter of fact, i'm not even pushing paleo in general. there is no one right way to live, or eat!</div><div><br></div><div>i am grateful for ideas i have gotten for eating paleo on the road, though. i love this forum!</div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Myriad, Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;"><br></span></font></div></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Myriad, Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">BTW, &nbsp;i don't know of any paleo diet that says not to eat foraged foods. they actually encourage them. some individuals may find "just meat" to work for them!</span></font></div>

 

[Tao Seeker]

Bob, I agree that fire was used since near the beginning, and so I consider grilled food to be in the paleo category. It's such a broad framework for a diet which is based on such a little known set of facts that many people take it to different degrees, and there's nothing to say who's right or wrong except the knowledge of 'cave men' that we don't really have.<br><br>As far I'm concerned, the paleo diet means you don't eat anything outside of its raw state unless it needs to be cooked to be safe, in which case it's cooked over fire. In short: If you can find it outside, eat it. I cheated a bit and made fruit smoothies as an energy boost and snack, which were made out of ONLY fruit, and a fruit juice/milk base. Paleolithic humans didn't drink milk after infancy, but as I said, I'm cheating. I am also cheating because a large part of the paleolithic diet to to feed your body nutrients in a form it's built to digest. By blending my fruit, I may have caused my body to absorb the sugars faster, making the glycemic index (speed and degree of blood sugar boost)<br><br>Since I am not a diet radical, a typical breakfast on the paleo diet for me was a glass of milk/orange juice (water for the rest of the day, but need to get lots of energy early on), a can of tuna plain, a whole large carrot, and some kind of fruit like grapes or an orange. This was a big meal, too, as the appetite becomes very tame on the paleo diet. Later on I was able to make a meal out of an apple and a drink or just a cucumber.<br><br>My eating habits, which worked to keep me very healthy and happy were simple and easy to remember: Eat every time you are hungry, only when you're hungry, and only enough to be not hungry. <br>In converse: never let yourself be hungry, never eat when you aren't hungry, and never eat until you feel full.<br><br>

 

[butterfly]

<FONT size=3>I'm coming back to this thread after a few days thought.&nbsp; looked up pemmican recipe...it's new knowledge for me that beef jerky is dried meat that has not been cooked.&nbsp; that concept kinda messes w/ my mind somehow.</FONT><br><br><FONT size=3>My food hint is something I came up w/&nbsp; when Bill and I went traveling w/ a teenage grandkid on a 2 wk trip.</FONT><br><FONT size=3></FONT>&nbsp;<br><FONT size=3>&nbsp; the day before we hit the road, I bought 3 lbs of lean ground beef at the local butcher shop &amp; cooked it all up into burgers,&nbsp; chilled them in the fridge on plates then placed the burgers in a large zip loc freezer bag.&nbsp;</FONT><br><FONT size=3></FONT>&nbsp;<br><FONT size=3>I didn't freeze them.&nbsp;that baggie went into the ice chest the next morning.&nbsp; these pre-cooked burgers can be eaten as a finger food or put on a bun w/ anything you like added.&nbsp;&nbsp; </FONT><br><br><FONT size=3>You'd be&nbsp;surprised&nbsp;at how tasty a cold burger can be.</FONT><br>

 

[akrvbob]

I need to apologize, my reaction was strictly to the fellow who was here in QZT who only eats a lb of almost raw meat once a day and nothing else.&nbsp; I still think that is a very poor diet, but whatever works for him is fine with me. But what makes it really bad is he calls it a paleo diet, which to mind it is definately not a paleo diet. I can see where my post made it sound like I was talking about&nbsp; some of your posts. I was not and I'm sorry I didn't make myself clearer. Bob&nbsp; <br>

 

[simply lesa]

So Katie - how did you make out with this Paleo diet thing? &nbsp;Did you make some progress with your personal goals? &nbsp;<div>I also like Wild Foods including meats - in their as much as possible un-processed or processed by me state.... okay I'm working on it process and progress is part of life and takes it often takes time for the doing to catch up with the knowing. &nbsp;Being 'on the road' isn't so different from living rustically and often we could choose to have access to a campfire for drying/jerkying or to solar dehydrators.... it's a process and it works and then making pemican is simple (depends on how you choose -tools or not - to pound the dried into powder) tho takes some energy. &nbsp;I love a handful of jerky along with a handful of nuts and another of berries (it's pemican in your mouth) -- and ya I miss the ramen noodles when I am doing what I 'know' to be healthier (darn)</div><div>Nice to 'meet' you.</div><div>Simply,</div>

 

[twokniveskatie]

<div>hi! found this on my "to-do" list!</div><div><br></div><div>update is that i am staying away from processed and factory farmed meats. the cost of local, organic, pasture-fed meats is above my budget right now, and it's not hunting season yet i am eating mostly from my garden and from foraged plants, about which my knowledge is expanding rapidly. i do eat brown rice occasionally, &nbsp;and some of these funky purple heirloom potatoes growing in giant buckets. the heirloom foods are different, and it feels good to include them in my diet. so i guess i'm not eating paleo in anybody's definition of the word, but i sure am eating well!&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>great link i found on FB. hope this works.....</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.traditionaltx.us/images/PEMMICAN.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.traditionaltx.us/images/PEMMICAN.pdf</a></div><div><br></div><div>kate</div><div><br></div>

So Katie - how did you make out with this Paleo diet thing? &nbsp;Did you make some progress with your personal goals? &nbsp;<div>I also like Wild Foods including meats - in their as much as possible un-processed or processed by me state.... okay I'm working on it process and progress is part of life and takes it often takes time for the doing to catch up with the knowing. &nbsp;Being 'on the road' isn't so different from living rustically and often we could choose to have access to a campfire for drying/jerkying or to solar dehydrators.... it's a process and it works and then making pemican is simple (depends on how you choose -tools or not - to pound the dried into powder) tho takes some energy. &nbsp;I love a handful of jerky along with a handful of nuts and another of berries (it's pemican in your mouth) -- and ya I miss the ramen noodles when I am doing what I 'know' to be healthier (darn)</div><div>Nice to 'meet' you.</div><div>Simply,</div>