Eating like a caveman has been the trending diet over the past few years. Carbs—pasta, cereal, and bread—are out, but that doesn’t mean the diet has to be bland and predictable. Certain spices are allowed along with a vast assortment of fruits and vegetables, which if cooked right can help pack on the flavor for a meal. It takes time to concoct the right ingredients to make the Paleo diet appetitzing. Hitting a wall is a real danger, so here are a few Paleo recipes to keep you on track.
Sometimes you just crave carbs and want to load up your dish with pasta, going straight into a food coma. With the Paleo diet, pasta doesn’t even make it to the friend zone, but spaghetti squash does. To satisfy your carb craving, opt for Dave Ruel’s muscle-building pad thai. Spaghetti squash will prevent your carb macros from taking a hit—one cup has 10g of carbs, which is one-fourth the amount of carbs from pasta. Also, this squash is jam-packed with leading vitamins and antioxidants, which have anti-inflammatory properties—so long to being sore.
This beef collard wrap recipe by Matthew Kadey can help pack on the protein while boosting overall health. Keep reading down the list of ingredients, stopping at red wine vinegar. To get scientific, it’s an acetic acid that’s created by fermentation, except it has zero calories compared to red wine. This vinegar improves the digestive track by enhancing the absorption of vitamins and minerals more effectively.
Garlic is a staple ingredient in most recipes, including Chef Irvine’s delicious low-carb BBQ chicken recipe. The way garlic is cut and cooked affects what health benefits you get from it. Thankfully, this recipe calls for chopped garlic, which will produce active agents called allyl sulfide compounds. Chopping garlic breaks the cell walls, triggering a bunch of chemical reactions and leading to that “garlicky” smell. But throwing the chopped garlic right into hot oil will disarm a key enzyme. Instead let the garlic sit for 10 minutes. This will give the cancer-fighting compounds a chance to take shape.
Continuing on with the theme of small but mighty ingredients, red pepper flakes take the cake for fat loss. Red pepper can help curb your hunger and boost your energy expenditure. Purdue University led a study in 2011 which found that red pepper can actually burn calories after a meal; this is known as the thermic effect of food. Red pepper contains capsaicin, which boosts thermogenesis and activates the sympathetic nervous system.
Can food really influence your sex drive? It does. In fact, it can boost it. Asparagus is loaded with folic acid, which creates the production of histamine in the body. More histamine means more orgasms.
Reigning as the king of all superfoods, kale is off the charts with antioxidants—clocking in at 1,770 units on the ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) chart. Kale is also rich in fiber—one cup has 90mg of fiber while enzymes in kale work to detoxify your liver. When you’re looking for a small snack, make sure you’re stocked up on kale chips.
If you’re looking for a cheat meal, then this recipe is for you. Short ribs are a tender and meatier piece of meat than other pork options. A slab of it contains close to four ribs, intercostal muscles, and tendons along with a layer of bone and fat near the end. Cooking this type of meat slow will allow the meat to fall right off of the bone.
Right in time for summer, zucchini is a summer squash that’s rich in magnesium, vitamins A and C, and manganese. Manganese is a mineral that gets overlooked, but it shouldn’t. Manganese-activated enzymes play a vital role in gluconeogenesis—the manufacturing of glucose from noncarb foods. Essentially this mineral helps metabolize proteins.
When you’re craving a good fish taco, stop thinking that you can’t have one because of the tortilla. Easily swap out the tortilla with a lettuce leaf, and use almond meal as your fish breading. The almond meal will help bring out a sweet-nutty flavor in the fish, yet you’ll still get to enjoy a hint of spice.
Turkey sliders are a prime choice for when you’re on the go and don’t have time to devour a huge, juicy burger. The carb swap for the bun is roasted sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes can help fill up your micronutrient requirements for the day, and they actually do have a muscular angle. Muscle cramps can be the worst, putting a complete halt to a workout. Having a sufficient amount of potassium and magnesium in your system can prevent that from happening. So it may be wise to make turkey sliders your pre-workout meal.
