Month: August 2021

Not too long ago, I received two books aimed at paleo kids and their parents to review. (Disclosure mandated by the turds at the FTC: These books were given to me for free as review copies.)

Alas, I disliked Paleo Pals: Jimmy and the Carrot Rocket Ship. However, I loved Eat Like a Dinosaur. Let me explain why.

Paleo Pals: Jimmy and the Carrot Rocket Ship by Sarah Fragoso of Everyday Paleo

As you’ve probably gathered from the name, this book is a children’s story on eating paleo. I wanted to like it, but I don’t think that it does much to explain to kids what’s good about eating paleo or bad about eating the Standard American Diet. Also, I didn’t find the story compelling in itself: too much came across as propaganda, and I didn’t like that.

The two basic claims of the book about paleo are …

As a follow-up to my post on paleo-friendly snacks, I wanted to mention the new AMRAP Refuel bars.

I received two free samples a while back. They’re a dense and chewy bar with a nutty flavor. They don’t have any aftertaste. They’re perfectly paleo.

Another Paleo-Friendly Snack

I prefer to eat my own homemade snacks whenever possible, but I do rely on such pre-made snacks when I’m in a terrible rush. I keep a few on hand in my car and truck for whenever I find myself unexpectedly stuck somewhere, exhausted and hungry. (It’s just not helpful for my recovery from adrenal insufficiency for me to grit my teeth and endure that.)

The AMRAP bars are a bit pricey, but they’re substantial. For some, they’d be a good option. You can read about and order them here.

Modern Paleo…

I’ve been eating a Paleo-style diet for close to a year now. Before, I ate large quantities of bread, rice, pasta, and sugary foods, at just about every meal. Now I eat beef, pork, chicken, fish, veggies, and eggs. I’m not always 100% strict Paleo. For example, I still use some dairy products such as cheese or heavy cream, although I’ve stopped drinking milk recently. On rare occasion I eat some rice, if it comes with the fish or beef I order at a restaurant, but I absolutely avoid pasta or bread. As a result, there have been several benefits I’ve enjoyed:

1) I used to lie in bed for an hour or two, wide awake, before falling asleep. I was that way for as long as I could remember and I just thought it was normal for me. Now I fall asleep within 10 minutes. The carbohydrates made my …

Here are some more informal FormSpring Questions and Answers on random paleo-related topics:

I understand and accept the premise of the paleo/primal way. I have, however, heard of people losing weight on low fat diets. How can this be explained?

To lose weight, you have to create a calorie deficit, so that the body has to draw on its own reserves to function. For some people — the not-yet-metabolically-deranged, perhaps — that’s possible to do on a low-fat diet.

Two points are worth noting, however:

(1) Studies have found that low-fat diets draw largely on muscle, whereas low-carb diets draw largely on fat stores. Losing muscle is not a healthy kind of weight loss.

(2) Most people will be hungry and grumpy on a low-fat diet. That’s not true of a low-carb diet.

Dr. Eades has done some great blogging on “metabolic advantage” lately. I’d recommend reading that.

Follow up …

The fallacy of rewriting reality, as identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy of formulating a theory or idea divorced from reality and then continuing to maintain it after observing that it contradicts actual facts or else claiming that reality itself is somehow in the wrong. This has given rise to infamous sayings such as “It’s good in theory but bad in practice,” and so on, where a person will maintain a set of ideas even as they’re concretely proven to be false or damaging. In regards to living a Paleo lifestyle I’ve noticed that some people commit this error when juxtaposing my lifestyle to its effects, and some have even bizarrely changed their evaluations and interpretations of my health after noticing a benefit and then learning how I obtained it.

For instance, after learning of Mr. Nikoley’s no soap and no shampoo experiment I tried it for myself and …