Now this was tough. Just got home from a cruise to Santa Cruz and dinner at the vegetarian restaurantDharma's. It was wonderful that all the vegetables were beautifully fresh and organic but where's the beef! Basically the vegan restaurant, like every other restaurant I've been to since the 1st, had at best one maybe two items on the menu close to my Paleo needs. Tofu is a no-no so the soups were out, but I ended up having a lovely and filling "Mediterranean Salad" with greens, red onions, Klamata olives, artichokes, and feta cheese with extra virgin olive oil, fresh lemon and lime dressing. I also had half an egg roll in a rice wrapper and gluten free beer by Anheuser & Bush.
OK ..... I don't really know yet where artichoke stand in the Paleo diet. Cheese is not in the plan, nor are any grains. I shouldn't have had the feta and it's really hard to avoid grains, like rice and the the sorghum (sp?) used to make the beer. But here's the thing, we know that one of the ways that our body develops allergies to food and rejects the food causing an inflammatory response is by over eating the particular food. Our body's hate repetition and love variety.
While researching the Neolithic (post Paleolithic, Agricultural Revolution) time period and foods are grains, wikipedia provided a breakdown of grains and cereals by the amount produced. If we realize that the more of a food or food byproduct that gets produced, the more of that food stuff we are likely to consume, so the more likely we might be to become allergic to or become sick or feel dis-ease as a result of eating it. After all, quinoa is a grain, and it's currently tauted as healthy compared to wheat's gluten. And quinoa is the least produced grain according to wkipedia, so have we just not over consumed it yet?
Basically, at the moment, if I have to make a choice between a a grain/cereal high on the production list (maize/corn, rice, wheat, or barley) or lower on the production scale (sorghum, millet, oats, rye, buckwheat, fonio, or quinoa) I'll be going for the lowest and least processed on the list.
Here's an excerpt from wikipedia on what the heck grains are:
"Cereals, grains or cereal grains, are grasses (members of the monocot families Poaceae or Gramineae)[1] cultivated for the edible components of their fruit seeds (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis) - the endocarp, germ and bran. Cereal grains are grown in greater quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop; they are therefore staple crops. In their natural form (as in whole grain), they are a rich source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats and oils, and protein. However, when refined by the removal of the bran and germ, the remaining endocarp is mostly carbohydrate and lacks the majority of the other nutrients. In some developing nations, grain in the form of rice, wheat, or maize (in American terminology, corn) constitutes a majority of daily sustenance. In developed nations, cereal consumption is more moderate and varied but still substantial."
And here's the link to the wikipedia site:
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