Since learning about a way of eating called, "paleo," I could only scoff and proclaim that I'd never have enough time to eat that way. Paleo is not just an era long forgotten in our history, it's a way of eating like the caveman - nothing processed, no diary (me, never!?!), no grains, no pizza, no chocolate? "Who has time for that?" I would exclaim, "Not me, never ever."
As someone who is extremely paranoid of using the word "never" in any statement (my supersitions about the using the word "never" require another blog post), trying to eat paleo was already a self-fulfilling prophesy that would inevitably happen one day.
That day was 13 days ago when I started a reset called the whole 30. That's 30 whole days of eating like our ancestors and it's 30 days of a whole lot of nos - no diary, no grains, no legumes (peanuts included), no sugar, no processed foods and no alcohol (sadly translated to no wine).
This reset is supposed to help rid your body of all the bad things that are out there and break the sugar addiction. My first grocery shopping trip was an exercise in and of itself, enlightening me to our society's dependence on sugar. I've been encouraging friends just to try to shop without purchasing any products that have sugar in them - it's unbelievable the foods that contain sugar. If you didn't look at the ingredients, (which most of us would take for granted in a healthy grocery store!) you wouldn't believe they have sugar in them - deli meats (organic) - all have cane sugar; every single solitary salad dressing out there, even balsalmic vinegiette - sugar; how about vitamins - not just one, but two types of sugar; olives - a staple on this diet - most of them in the olive bar have sugar in them!
No wonder we have an obesity issue in this country. It is virtually impossible to find foods without sugar.
Now, when I'm walking in the grocery store or the food area at Target, I am amazed by aisle upon aisle filled to the brim with foods - all containing sugar or grains in the ingredients. I can walk down entire aisles and there is not one single food item I can eat.
And while I am enjoying this freedom from sugar, it's an addiction I fear that society won't let me break. It's going to be so easy to slip back into the world of sugar, because we are almost living entirely in a world in which it has crowned itself king.
How did we get here? And, with all the latest focus on health foods, all organic, grass-fed meats and buy local - the sad thing is that sugar hasn't left, it's stayed and it's showing up in places you'd least expect it.
I've got 17 more days on my journey as an alien in the sugar land. At the end, I hope I can keep up with the paleo way of eating, which actually is not as time consuming as I thought, especially thanks to a wonderful blog, everydaypaleo.com. I love cooking with all the spices and flavors. And the food is so colorful and fresh - cooking is my hobby and I lost that a while ago to pre-packaged, throw it in the oven "food."
It's making me feel lighter, giving me more freedom. But what truly takes the time is finding the food to eat - real food without the dreaded sugar. Breaking the addiction is tough, but even finding the tools to do so is tougher.
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