For the last six weeks we’ve been experimenting with a modified Paleo diet, “Paleo-ish” as we’ve coined it around here at SOW Health. We’ve been avoiding all the grains (wheat, rice, oats), refined sugar and cow’s milk. Legumes, sweet potatoes and goat’s milk are allowed. Why did we decide to do this? The Paleo Diet is very popular and we’re asked about it all the time. We’ve done our research and it’s a diet we’ve been recommending to help balance blood sugar (especially for those with diabetes and PCOS) as well as aiding with weight loss and body composition. We find we’re the best Naturopathic Doctors when we’ve experienced a diet personally. We were also ready to recommit ourselves to some clean eating and learning new recipes. Done right, the paleo diet focuses on vegetables as the main source of carbohydrates and includes lean protein and healthy fats.
It’s been a great learning experience but when making dietary changes often it’s often difficult to come up with recipe ideas. We like to rotate meals so we don’t get bored of eating the same meals regularly (and this also helps decrease food sensitivities). We’ve been exclusively using our favourite social media tool, Pinterest, to keep us inspired.
Pinterest is a great tool for recipes because it’s so visual. We’ve been sharing recipes with pinterest for a while, but created a new Paleo Board for this experiment.
Here are some fun recipes that we’ve made:
Inspired by the beautiful Green Kitchen Stories Recipe. Simply soak chia in your favourite non-dairy milk as you assemble and warm the ingredients. This parfait includes slivered almonds, pumpkin seeds, & sliced apple sauteed with lots of cinnamon and a dash of maple syrup. We also love adding some almond butter.
The idea came from This Garlic Diaries Recipe. The key is rinsing and drying the canned chickpeas before roasting. In the future we are going to use separate pans because we find the the edamame and chickpeas take different amounts of time. Feel free to add other spices like cumin, coriander, or paprika!
These are our absolute favourite! The idea is from Meghan Telpner’s The Undiet Cookbook – which is absolutely amazing and worth buying now! The base is simply ground dates & nuts baked low and slow. Hers had a pear cinnamon filling & we also made a chia raspberry filling. Can’t get enough of these!
We’ve been wanting to make cauliflower crust pizza for a while and finally got around to doing it – so easy and delicious. We used this recipe because of it’s simple ingredients and added a bunch of veggies and goat cheese. Next time we will double the recipe to start 😉
Other recipes we’ve tried and thoroughly enjoyed:
- Raw Power Protein Balls with cacao, hemp, chia and flax seeds
- NO FAIL Paleo Pancakes; Gluten Free
- Turkey Taco Lettuce Wraps
Our tips for success:
- Have a buddy and try cooking together! We get together on Thursday nights and have been trying new recipes and cooking together once a week (at least!)
- Have lots of resources. This is why pinterest is so handy. If you don’t have pinterest you can also follow our social media stream.
- Make your own rules! We modified The Paleo Diet to fit our needs and found it allowed us some healthy flexibility. Small changes can make a big difference.
Looking to make a dietary change yourself? We’d love to help you decide on a plan and succeed. We now have online booking which makes it even easier to work with us 😉
Yours in health,
Dr. Aliyah & Dr. Sarah
