One lady who I had the pleasure of meeting briefly and also have her first book Inspiring Ingredients, Lola Berry, has been in the Australian media recently (watch her video on Australian A Current Affair here or you can listen to interview on Australian radio here) for her promotion of the Paleo diet and also her recent weight loss. For those of you who don’t know Lola, she is a nutrtionist, often appearing on Aussie TV and she has a really cute website with web episodes, one of my favourites is here where she talks about Freeganism in my city of lust NYC.

I’d heard of the Paleo diet a great deal as hubs and his friends here on camp are big into crossfit and I believe they two are connected, plus since both hubs and I visited a naturopath in Brisbane earlier this year, I had been reading up on this way of eating.

Although the Paleo (or caveman) diet does include meat & eggs (not vegan) there is some cross over with a raw food diet. Paleo’s believe in eating as a caveman so with food as natural and unprocessed as possible and they don’t believe in eating grains or legumes (which really cannot be eaten raw anyway unless sprouted) which bodes well with raw foodism too.

As I have mentioned before, the great thing I love about the raw food philospophy is it is not an all or nothing diet. You don’t need to be a 100% raw to reap the benefits and EVERYONE can get more into raw food.

The Paleo diet sits well in our household as hubs has been on a detox diet to assist his sinus problems which included removing wheat and dairy and some kinds of foods – I keep promising a post on this later, and I will for sure with more details.

The only grains he can eat now are rice (a no no on a Paleo diet) or certain kinds of beans and legumes (ie kidney beans are not allowed on his detox but adzuki are.)

I limit my grains anyway but since having researched more on the Paleo or caveman diet, I have thrown them out altogether. I’ve never been big on rice anyway (only in sushi or brown if I am cooking it at home) and I try to limit my gluten (wheat) due to celiacs disease which is prevalent in my family (although I have been yet to be tested positive.)

Anyway it is worth checking out for yourself. I think a diet rich in fresh wholesome fruits vegetables, seeds and nuts, is always a better choice over processed machine made foods, and of course if you are choosing eggs and meat, poultry & fish, always aim for wild, free range and organic if possible in your region. A great book to read further on this is the Omniovres Dilemma.

Paleo Porridge

2 servings or 1 large serving

Even though I usually aim for raw till dinner, it’s been REALLY chilling on up here in the Arabian desert and would you believe it is even raining today and has been for a couple of days!?

I had been craving a warm porridge type breakfast and with oats (grains) out of the question I decided on quinoa.

Quinoa pronounced KEEN-WAH, is actually an ancient seed, not a grain, perfect for the caveman-hunter/gatherer diet (please note some Paleo’s do not include buckwheat, amaranth or quinoa as part of their allowed foods).

I was first introduced to quinoa in my London corporate office days, when I used to work for Ernst & Young and the staff cafeteria produced better meals than some restaurants I had patroned.

Incidentally this porridge I tried to recreate was in reminiscence of my early winter mornings at my office on the Thames where I would grab my take away soy porridge and stewed apples from the cafeteria, following my early morning spin class and sit at my desk and begin the morning reading my emails with my hot cup of goodness.

Ingredients

1/2 cup of quinoa – soaked and rinsed. Some quinoa has not been cleaned and can have a bitter taste if not rinsed properly. This is the saponins which are natural forming protection from birds and the environment. If you soak your quinoa and rinse until the water clears you should be golden.

1 cup of almond milk blended with 2 dates for sweetness

1/2 t of pumpkin pie spice

Place almond milk and rinsed quinoa in a pot and bring to the boil, then place on simmer until the quinoa has ‘popped’ and all the liquid has soaked into the seed, similar to cooking cous cous or rice.

Stir through pumpkin pie spice and enjoy either warm or cold like a pudding.

Optional: baked apple on top would just set this off.