I was in Whole Foods the other day hunting down some heavy cream. I so wanted to buy another half gallon of Snowville Creamery heavy cream that I talked about in the "A Heavy Cream Dilemma" post but a half gallon is a bit much to get through for coffee. I snagged one of the Whole Foods crew and asked if he could get quarts or pints of this heavenly delicious cream. He wasn't sure but told me they would be at the store that weekend. First thing Saturday, the family and I headed out with smaller cream deliveries as our goal. We got there early so the two young ladies, Morgan and Heather, were just setting up. I told them of my dilemma and they explained how they were in the process of expanding to include production of smaller heavy cream sizes. They loaded the kids, Steph, and I up with stickers, pins, samples of their yogurt, and creme fraiche. The creme fraiche was really pretty amazing. While the kids were spreading several yogurt samples around the surrounding area, the ladies suggested that I try making butter with the cream which might make purchasing a half gallon a more reasonable thing. I figured why not and grabbed a half. A half gallon is about $10 so when you are looking at all the surrounding half gallons of milk it seems pretty expensive.
Sunday morning I figured it was time to give this butter making a try. The carton had instructions right on it. I dumped half of the carton into my food processor and let it rip. After a couple minutes I peeked inside and to my surprise saw some change occurring. At this point things were looking a lot like whipped cream and from a sample was pretty tasty. I ran the blender for another minute or two and saw about the same thing. At this point I wasn't so sure the butter was going to be like the butter I like to throw in my coffee or on my sweet potato. I flipped the food processor back on and a few minutes later I heard a significant change in the sound. I opened it up and this time BAM it was butter. It was like magic. OK so maybe you have seen this before but I never had. Five minutes in the processor and the cream had been transformed into butter. I strained the butter, hand pressed it into a mold, and harvested the resulting butter milk.
I did a little math and this really turned out to be a pretty good deal. At $10 the half gallon of cream produced one quart of cream for a week of coffee, about one pound of the best butter ever, and a couple cups of butter milk for Steph's cooking experiments. Normally we end up buying two pints of cream at $3.50-$4 a pop and Kerrygold butter at $3.50/8oz for our coffee. In comparison, that would be $15 for the same amount of cream and butter not including the butter milk. From that perspective this stuff is a really good deal and I am convinced this is some of the best quality and best tasting cream you can get. If you are lucky enough to be in an area that Snowville distributes to give them a try and I bet you'll be sold. It looks like the Brady's will be making our own butter from now on. 
High Intensity Days: On more intense days and long run days I double the whey dose to 60g of protein and mix it with 1 liter of coconut water. The coconut water serves as the glycogen replenishment start. If I really pushed it that day I don't stop there. In addition I will have 4 tbsp Brady Nutrition endurance drink (my own endurance drink recipe much like EFS, Acceleraide, or Hammer Heed) and sometimes a sweet potato. Sweet potatoes are loaded with glucose and are a great post workout option for glycogen replenishment. I have also started keeping a half dozen sweet potato baby food jars in my gym bag. If I end up having a pretty intense session and don't have all options available I will drink down a couple baby food jars to support my recovery.
I use a whey isolate since it is virtually lactose, fat, carbohydrate, and cholesterol free. This allows me to more directly control my macro nutrient intake. There are plenty of articles out there about junk that is in various protein powders. There doesn't seem to be a clear link between cost and quality. Some think going grass-fed is the best option. It probably doesn't make any difference in terms of supplementation but you are supporting more positive industry practices. I have looked at the grass-fed options and at $40-$50 a pound I can hardly justify the expense when many conventional forms are less than $10 a pound. I say pick a powder that you like and mixes well. Do a little research to see if it has been flagged as having contaminants and then follow up every now and then.
We are spreading our wings a little so in addition to checking out the blog at bradynutrition.com, you can keep also track of what we are up to on Facebook and Twitter We've got lots of posts and recipes in the works so keep your eyes peeled and please let us know if you have any specific Paleo questions or things you would like to see us dive into. 
During our first month of Paleo this was our number one snack food. Now days it is a bit more of an occasional treat. It is really important when you are starting out to have a few go to items that can get you through a craving or extreme hunger moment. This is a great one. These are great as a desert or snack hot and fresh off the griddle but also good chilled for snacks during the week.
Since we recently took possession of half a grass-fed beef our consumption of ground beef has increased drastically. So it seemed time to throw up our curry burger recipe. We have found that getting crazy with spicing your burgers keeps them interesting and you never know what king of glorious combo you will find. You may want to try things like cacao powder, cinnamon, or virtually anything you might have in the spice cabinet. This is one of our go to combos. Of course you can never go wrong throwing some bacon, maybe an egg, avocado mayo, or even fresh ground almond butter on top of these or any burger creation.
We seem to be going back to ThePaleoMom's site again and again for recipes. Her recipes are usually pretty easy to pull together and always delicious. There are a lot of great Paleo recipe sites out there but ThePaleoMom truly stands out. You can tell from each recipe that she has spent real time refining the recipes and they are tested by her own family. We tried her Paleo Tacos tonight and they were a huge hit with me and the kids! Give the tacos and her other recipes a try and you won't be sorry.
Here is a decent example of one of these healthy breakfasts; two pieces of whole wheat toast, a cup of berries, glass of orange juice (16oz), and a small bowl (1 cup) of oatmeal. If you are Paleo and especially if you have played with intermittent fasting then this breakfast probably scares the hell out of you. If you are new to Paleo or are stumbling upon this blog randomly then you would probably agree this is pretty healthy. There are a whole host of reasons why a standard American healthy breakfast, like this one, is not as good as it seems but for this post I want to focus in on one of those variables and that is carbohydrate.
So what does my breakfast look like? I generally have a Phatty Coffee or maybe two (~175-350 calories). This gives me a good dose of fat from coconut oil, grass-fed butter, and grass-fed cream. Some days that is all I do until lunch. Other days, especially days following a hard workout, I have one or two eggs, maybe some almond butter on top (especially delicious with over easy eggs), and on even fewer occasions I have some meat as well. Beyond my Phatty Coffee, I find that the less I eat the more energetic I am. |
| Six Pack |
Going paleo certainly brings some real challenges if you intend to unwind with a drink or two from time to time. I have to admit my main source of cheating is beer. I have always been a bit of a beer connoisseur and manage to make my own from time to time. Even though I do not intend to cut out beer entirely it is nice to have some options when you are trying to lean out or just stay as clean as possible. Robb Wolf created the NorCal margarita and he certainly deserves the credit. My wife and I have tweaked his recipe a bit and here it is. If you decide to add stevia make sure what you pick up is pure stevia as many of the products out there have other additives. If you have never used stevia, start out small it is pretty concentrated.
