My interest in food and the connection between what we eat and health began when I was around 13 years old. I first got into exercise and weight training, and naturally got interested in how eating affected my progress. At the beginning I believed 'conventional wisdom' i.e that a whole grain mainly vegetarian diet was optimal and that animal fats were evil! How i've evolved since then! :P
I then wanted to lose some fat, and came across the Atkins and low carb movement. I went ultra low carb, lost the weight (in fact lost even more than I intended), and even had a stint of zero carb for a period. I learnt that animal fats are NOT bad after all, that we've been lied to, and that a high carbohydrate diet contributes to today's diseases of civilization.
As I became more and more interested in food, I started reading around on the internet and stumbled across various sites and blogs, most notably Marksdailyapple and the Weston price foundation, which taught me all about evolutionary eating, and eating in a way that closely mimics how our ancestors ate, as well as the importance of organic and local food. I became 'paleo' or 'primal' ; eating a high fat, low carb diet of meat, vegetables and fat, with zero grains, legumes, beans and processed food (but enjoying raw dairy every now and again). As time went on I discovered Kurt Harris' Archevore blog and the Perfect Health Diet, which helped change my stance somewhat on carbohydrates.
So where am I at right now? My dietary philosophy is pretty much a mix of primal/archevore/PHD. That is what I believe the optimal way of eating for me right now is, but of course who knows, it may change in the future!
So here are my basic rules :
DO
-Eat local, 100% grassfed beef and lamb (and occasional pastured chicken)
-For fat, focus on natural fat within meat, suet, coconut oil and grassfed butter
-Enjoy raw dairy especially butter and cream, mainly in the summer months when nutrient levels are at their highest
-Eat any and all kinds of vegetables. Not so much for nutrients or antioxidants etc, but for their hormetic effect
- Eat starchy tubers ('safe starches' such as plantains, taro, tapioca, white rice, eddoes, winter squash, sweet potatoes)
AVOID
-All grains or legumes except for white rice
-Especially avoid gluten
- Fake fats and vegetable oils
-Anything that didn't exist as food 10,000 years ago
-Sugar (allowed in limited quantities from fruit though)
