A bit of a disclaimer: This post deals with both weight loss and the eating of meat. There is evidence out there to support every point of view, but one thing is for sure: belittling and insulting is 100% proven NOT to be inspirational to people who are looking to change and pursue healthier lives. Thanks in advance for any intelligent, helpful, and supportive commentary!
Sir Charles will be a whopping nine months old tomorrow. I can’t really believe it. We’re three months away from having a one year old. He’s been in our lives for 75% of one year…already! The nine month mark opens the door to so many things. He’s on the move – not quite crawling but almost there. He babbles like a pro, says “Dada” and is trying his hardest to say “Mama” even though it comes out as “Baba.” He turns towards me when I call his name. What most amazes me about him is both his ability to hold and manipulate objects and the speed at which he continues to fine tune that ability. Just the other day, I watched as he first had trouble pulling one of the shaped blocks out of his shape sorter, but then mastered the task. He seemed so proud of himself.
Another new step we will be taking with Charlie is the introduction of proteins into his diet. He has been eating homemade fruit and vegetable purees for the last three months or so, and with the permission of his pediatrician, we hope to be adding in some extra goodness after his 9-month checkup next week. Coincidentally, Charlie’s dad and I are finally making a concerted effort to get in shape and take off the weight that we have both gained in the last two years as we focused more on conceiving, gestating, birthing, and raising Charlie than we focused on ourselves. The kicker is that we’ve both discovered in the last few months that we have physical conditions (PCOS for me, sleep apnea for him) which have a rather annoying catch-22: both conditions can be almost entirely eliminated by weight loss, but both conditions also make it very difficult to lose weight because they mess with your metabolism and insulin levels.
So we’ve got work to do. And as I’ve said here before, we want to do it both for ourselves and for Charlie. As two people with academic minds, we’ve done a great deal of research to figure out which changes in eating habit and exercise would work best for us, but would also work with our work schedules and with our little guy. Since my condition is so closely tied to insulin issues, we’ve decided to go for a modified paleo lifestyle (I don’t call it a diet, because it really has to be long-term change). In case you haven’t heard of it, the idea is that life expectancy, rate of disease, and overall health of humans didn’t start to decline until we moved from a sort of caveman diet of wild animal meat and fresh berries/veggies to a mostly grain-based diet that came about as we went from hunter/gatherers to settled farmers. We will have to overcome our love of grain-based carbs, but the cool thing is that it will get us more into eating local vegetables – which we already do as CSA members – and meat. We also love that the program encourages exercise through daily regular activities, as opposed to long, strenuous, cardio-loaded workouts that often push you to the point of injury.
Our one hang-up? The meat thing. Don’t get me wrong, we LOVE meat. But the paleo/primal plan gives a great deal of info about the need to eat grass-fed beef and free range poultry, as opposed to the cage-raised, corn-fed, hormone-laden cuts that we would find in our local supermarkets. We’ve wanted to quit eating grocery store meat for a while but for one nagging issue: PRICE. Well-raised meat costs twice as much, for good reason, but we still have a household budget to consider. At first I figured I would buy the “clean meat” just for Charlie, if that’s all we could afford, but I’d really like to be able to do it for all three of us. I’ve done exhaustive research on meat CSAs and buying clubs in the Philly area, but they are either way out of our price range or they expect a huge up front commitment that we just don’t have.
If you’ve made the switch to responsible meat-eating, how did you do it? Were you able to stick to a budget? Would you like to read more about our ongoing attempts to make this lifestyle change?
Steph
January 17, 2012I am a vegetarian, but my husband is not. I do occasionally cook meat at home for my husband and two young sons. I highly recommend finding a good butcher shop and talking to them. I found an excellent shop close to my home where they sell only locally-raised, natural meats, and they break down and use the whole animal in their shop. Talking to them helped me learn more about different cuts of meat (far more than I ‘d ever heard of)…there are a lot of less expensive options out there that are good for everyday eating if you know what to buy and how to best prepare it. Still more expensive than supermarket meat, but helps keep our food spending within budget. Good luck!
Ashley
January 17, 2012Good for you for taking care of yourselves! I love that you said that it’s a lifestyle; not a diet.
While I don’t really label how we eat, it would fall into a pseudo gluten-free, paleo diet. We eat a variety of grains (quinoa, various rices, amaranth, millet, teff, etc), usually double veg, little to no carb, and meat. The two big pieces of advice I have are: 1) Eat food that is as close to its natural state as possible. This will eliminate the amount of pre-packaged processed food. 2) I have found that over the years, the “cleaner” the meat, the less I feel like I need to eat. We eat meat a 3-4 nights a week, rarely during breakfast and lunch. This helps with cost. But, the biggest cost reducer is to know how to cook certain cuts of meat. I will roast a whole chicken, get leftovers and then make stock for soup (3 meals from 6lb chicken). I also will put a roast in the crockpot and get several meals out of 1 piece of meat so spending a bit extra on a good piece of meat can be justified.
Remember that it takes time to change your lifestyle and that it will always be evolving as your needs and tastes change. Have fun with it! Charlie is so lucky to have you as his Mom.
Libby
January 18, 2012My family has been eating a Primal diet for a little over a year now. Here are a few suggestions I have to eat meat and stay on a budget.
1. Buy in bulk. You’ll need a chest freezer to do this properly. Get quarter grassfed cows (or split a half with another family). Eatwild.com is a good resource for finding local farmers. It’s much cheaper than buying individual cuts at Whole Foods! And if you see a sale, you can snap up a bunch of whatever it is. I get five or six whole chickens when they’re on sale at Whole Foods, and throw them in the freezer.
2. Know what is safe to eat conventional and what is not. Mark’s Daily Apple (a website you’ll want to check out if you haven’t already) has a list of seafoods it’s okay to get farmed rather than wild, for example. Get those without guilt.
3. Farmer’s markets are often cheaper than grocery stores for some types of meat (and almost all fruits and vegetables). You can get great eggs there too.
4. If you have a Trader Joe’s, it can be a good source of reasonably priced frozen meats.
5. Learn to love cheap cuts of meat. Chuck in the pressure cooker or crockpot turns into melty goodness. Heart makes excellent kebabs (google Anticuchos de Corazon for a recipe). I still haven’t learned to appreciate tongue, but maybe you will.
6. Sit down and examine where you’re spending food money for the purpose of convenience and plan meals ahead to eliminate that. If you grab breakfast on the go, make ahead some omelet muffins (I have a great basic recipe if you’re interested). If you go out to lunch too much, make freezer meals on the weekends and freeze them in individual servings so you can grab them and go in the morning.
7. Google around and see what other families have done. There are a ton of Paleo blogs out there. A friend of mine runs PaleoParents.com — you may want to look to that for lots of practical advice.
Meg T
January 18, 2012Just wanted to say I’d love to see where this journey takes you. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 12. My husband eats meat, but only a few times a week. I’m reading Eating Animals right now and can’t feel good about feeding my 3 children and husband factory farm meat and eggs. I too am on the lookout for good options. Until then, my 9 month old Charlie has been digging on my lentil soup and hummus : ) Good luck and keep us posted!!
Laura
January 18, 2012@Ashley – Thank you for being you…which is awesome.
@Libby – Thanks for the awesome advice! I would looooove that recipe!
Lia
January 18, 2012Thank you so much for posting this! My mother-in-law was a vegetarian and even though I am not, the last 6-7 months have led me away from store-bought meats and it is SO expensive that we just can’t justify buying very much meat. We live in a large city so there are not many grass-fed animal farms near here (thanks for that website Libby!)
I look forward to seeing where this journey takes you and following along to see if we can do the same thing for our family!
Anastasia @ eco-babyz
January 18, 2012We’re heading in that direction as well. Even though we’ve stopped buying processed food a while ago and our diet is a lot healthier than before, we do rely on grains a lot due to budget. I am also looking for affordable clean meat in our area (Massachusetts), everything from the farm here is very expensive – everything in general is very expensive in our state! We’re veering toward the traditional Weston A. Price lifestyle, similar in many ways to Paleo.
Debbie P
January 19, 2012I guess it does depend on what area you live in, but we have a couple farmers within an hour of where we live that raise hormone-free, grass-fed cows to sell. My mother-in-law got 1/2 of a side of beef and is giving us a portion of that as part of our Christmas present. She did this last year and 1/8 of a side of beef fed our family of 4 for the entire year. I think we still have a couple steaks left in our freezer. I agree with a previous commenter that you should look into buying a side of beef and splitting it with another family. Having an extra freezer definitely helps in storing it. I’m not a huge meat eater, but after making the switch to grass fed, hormone free beef, I will never go back to just buying whatever is at the grocery store. The quality of meat is so much better. It is like night and day as far as the taste and texture goes. I hope you can find some different ways to get the meat cheaper, but if not, I still think it’s worth the money.
Libby
January 19, 2012For this recipe, you’ll need enough muffin tins to make 12 muffins–I like the silicone ones because you can just pop them right out!
Other ingredients include a dozen eggs, 1/3 cup of cream or milk, 1/2 cup of cheese of your choice (if wanted–I’ve made them without cheese before and they’re fine), 1/2 pound of meat of your choice, and whatever veggies you want to throw in. 1/2 teaspoon of salt and pepper to taste.
Cook the meat and veggies. Let them cool about 15 minutes. Beat the eggs, cream, salt, and pepper together. Add the cheese and cooled meat.
Fill greased muffin tins with the egg mixture. Bake at 325 for 32 minutes.
These freeze well–better if you cool them at first on the counter and then in the fridge before freezing. 2 of these keep me full until lunch.
I prefer mine with ground pork that I spice at home like breakfast sausage (no nitrates that way), and peppers and onions. I also like bacon, spinach or greens, and feta cheese.