The mister and me are participating in a nutrition challenge at our gym. He's following the Paleo diet and I have opted to eliminate sugar and gluten from my food sources. So, since I prepare most of the meals in the household, my dinners will be paleo, but my breakfast and lunches will not.
In essence, the difference between our two nutrition challenge choices is that I am continuing to eat: dairy, oatmeal, legumes, fruits (raw, cooked and dried) and gluten-free starches (like quinoa). I'm also having a tiny, tiny bit of local, raw honey in limited dishes like my morning oatmeal. People who embrace the Paleo diet as a lifestyle choice will incorporate honey or maple syrup on a minimal basis, but the mister is attempting to avoid these sweeteners completely.
Also, anything that comes from a box or is packaged should have 5 grams or less of sugar per serving and should note "gluten free" on the label.
What's the reason behind this? 1) it's a challenge and 2) let's see what kind of impact these changes have on my body. Over the last few months, I realized that I was relying on flour-based starches too often for dinners (hello pasta!) and if I saw a pizza on a menu, I was jumping to try it. So, I began to scale back on the pasta and pizza dough, and have begun to remember that when dining out, a salad with lean proteins is a smarter option in lieu of a pulled pork sandwich doused in bbq sauce.
What is the biggest challenge for me? Beer! I'm a big fan--beer geek, is a better term--of microbreweries (our local one, specifically) and the mister and me have an entire refrigerator in our basement dedicated to our love of beer.
I completely eliminated the 2 Splenda that I would put in my 20 ounce coffee and eliminated my secret stash of small chocolates. Instead, I'm drinking my coffee with half-n-half and opted for 85% dark chocolate that has 1g sugar per 1" square. That said, I was in the mood to create a Paleo-friendly dessert that incorporated my favorite flavor--chocolate!
I came upon a recipe for Paleo Chocolate Pudding. Hmmm...wondering how this would work out. As you know, I am inspired by recipes and rarely follow them to a T. This is what I used for my puddin':
- 4 very, very ripe avocados (it helped they were already chilled in the refrigerator)
- 1/4 cup of Hershey's Special Dark unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup buckwheat honey (it's dark like molasses)
- 3 tbs. creamy almond butter (unsweetened)
- 1 tsp. lemon juice
- 1 tsp. bourbon vanilla extract (you can use any extract you wish--almond, mocha, mint)
- spices: nutmeg, cinnamon
I tossed it all in the Cuisinart and and it came out looking just like pudding. I tasted it and could not believe how AWESOME it was. It was the consistency of incredible fudge. I even went so far as to walk upstairs to the mister with a spoon and said, "ok, there's some honey in this, but you MUST try it!" I think the Hershey's Special Dark was the slam dunk.
I packaged it up in individual servings for my lunch this week. I cannot wait to make this again. The only local ingredient on the list was the buckwheat honey. Even though we are 75 miles from Hershey, PA, I don't think Hershey's cocoa powder counts.
Next time, I'll probably add some fresh mint from the garden (2nd local ingredient!) and give it a mint chocolate chip flavor.
Not only is this Paleo-friendly, but it's vegetarian, dairy-free, gluten-free and the only product that is not vegan-friendly is the honey (I'm not opening that beehive here).
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| Paleo-friendly puddin' |
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