Mammothly delicious meals to feed your primal fitness desires.

Story, illustrations & recipes by Pierre Lamielle

Hop back to the Paleolithic Stone Age and you’ll find that great-great-great-grandpa Grug was hunting and foraging for local, seasonal and organic food.Since agriculture only became part of our existence 10,000 years ago the food we now produce and consume has been evolving at a faster pace than human evolution can keep up with. This food cannot be processed efficiently so we are not functioning properly. It’s not biologically appropriate to be snarffling all this nouveau cuisine. The Paleolithic Diet, or Paleo, originated as a diet for athletes, offering peak performance through even energy access, reduced inflammation and faster recovery. It has gained traction through the growing legions of CrossFit athletes who strive for constantly varied, high-intensity, functional movement.

“It’s about getting leaner, meaner and more importantly healthier,” touts CrossFit Ramsay coach Ken Andrukow. His gym conducts 90-day Paleo challenges to keep his athletes motivated and to help introduce new athletes to the diet. Andrukow offers recipe ideas, shopping guides, fitness tests and a body assessment to monitor results of the challenge. Andrukow admits “it takes guts to question the status quo and ask, ‘Is there a better way?’"

The Paleo principle is simple: eat the types of food we evolved for 2 million years to eat and avoid most of the stuff we started eating 10,000 years ago. Paleo concentrates on three big food groups to avoid: grains, dairy and legumes. Say goodbye to grains like rice, wheat, corn and other refined starches. Dump out the dairy like skim milk, yogurt and cheese. Let go of the legumes like lentils, soy, beans and peanuts. These foods cause inflammation of the gut and digestive system, which limit your cells from absorbing essential nutrients. Grains especially cause havoc on your glycemic levels, resulting in uneven energy and superfluous fat storage.

So what’s left to eat? Free-range meats, wild fish, seasonal vegetables, fresh herbs, spices, seeds and nuts. But it doesn’t mean you can’t be a little more evolved than our foraging ancestors. Like all lovers of good food and Grandpa Grug you can start foraging the markets for local, seasonal and organic food. Some ingredients are not as black and white as say, the all-zebra diet. There are exceptions to the rules. Reading the Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf will sort out all the finer details and offer better understanding of the science. With so many people out there eating Paleo, there are a growing number of recipe resources available to athletes looking for healthy and satisfyingly familiar foods that will help you perform optimally in a mammoth fur gonch.

Here are some Paleo resources:
www.robbwolf.com
www.marksdailyapple.com
www.nomnompaleo.com
www.paleofood.com

Full English Breakfast
Adjusting to breakfast as we know it can be tough. Bacon and eggs are the obvious choice for familiar fare, but when things get boring you can step it up to a very-filling Full English Breakfast. This recipe has the key to open the door to “breaded” meat that is welcome any time of the day. You won’t miss the breading because the flavourful nuts are an upgraded crunchy meat coating.

Ingredients
2 pork chops or pork tenderloin cut into 1-inch medallions
2 eggs
1/2 cup almond flour
4 whole walnuts, roughly chopped

Wake and Bake
8 button mushrooms, left whole
8 cherry tomatoes, left whole
2 slices of bacon, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 sprigs of thyme, left whole
Fresh arugula, as needed
Salt and pepper

Preparation
Preheat your oven to 375˚F. Swizzle a little oil into the bottom of an oven-proof baking dish. Pile in the mushrooms, tomatoes and bacon all willy nilly and top it with sprigs of thyme.
Blap it into the oven for 30 minutes until the tomatoes start to blister and get a little burned around the edges and the bacon is nice and crispy.
Meanwhile, get yourself two shallow bowls or plates with a lip around the edge.
Place a large frying pan on the stove over medium low heat and let it preheat for 10 minutes.
Crack the eggs into one bowl and beat thoroughly with a fork. In the other bowl , mix the almond flour with the chopped walnuts. Dip the pork chop into the beaten eggs. Shake off excess goopy egg then dip the chop in the nut breading.
Get a little bit of oil in the pan and place the pork chops in the pan to fry.
Fry on each side for 5 to 6 minutes, making sure the nuts are not burning. If the nuts get too dark, too quickly, flip them over and reduce the temperature. You can continue cooking the dark side later.
Depending on the thickness of the pork chop or how well done you like it, you may have to make a little cut to make sure the pork chop is cooked through.
To serve, scatter a nice bed of arugula on the plate and top with roast tomatoes, bacon and mushrooms. Place the pork chops on top and serve it up hot for breakfast.
Serves 2

Mammotherd’s Pie

With any dietary adjustments, it’s the nostalgia of familiar comfort foods that will drag you back to your old ways of eating. Make this when you need a big batch of food for the week, when you need to feed people who don’t know what Paleo is, or when you have a mammoth-sized appetite. It’s better than a classic Shepherd’s pie with more tasty flavours and the comforting warm-blanket mashed topper.

Ingredients
500g ground lamb, beef, mammoth or any ground meat
2 onions, finely minced
2 ribs of celery, finely minced
1 butternut squash, peeled and grated or minced
1 Tbsp Worcestershire
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 glass red wine
250 ml vegetable stock
1/4 cup fresh chopped assorted herbs (rosemary, mint, thyme, oregano)
Zest of 1 lemon or orange

Mashed Topper
2 head of cauliflower, quartered
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and quartered olive oil and salt

Preparation
Get two large pots on the stove. Fill one with water and bring it to a boil for the mash. When the water comes to a boil drop in the peeled sweet potatoes and the cauliflower. Boil on a gentle simmer for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are nice and tender. When the veggies are tender, remove from the water and leave them to release steam for 10 minutes out of the water.
Mash the cauliflower. For a smooth topper, transfer the cauliflower and sweet potato to a food processor and blitz until very smooth. You may need to do this in batches. Set aside in a bowl and adjust seasoning with salt to taste.
In the other pot, brown the lamb over medium high heat. Toss in the grated squash, onions and celery. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 to 15 minutes.
Stir in the tomato paste, Worcestershire, red wine and stock. Taste it and add salt as needed.
Preheat the oven to 425F.
Bring the whole thing to a simmer. At the last minute, stir in the herbs and citrus (zest and juice) and pour the whole mess into an oven-safe baking dish.
Spoon the mash onto the meaty filling and smooth out the top until evenly distributed. Use a fork to make lines and ridges that can get crispy on top. Drizzle the top with oil and sprinkle on some salt.
Blap the whole thing into the oven and bake until it’s golden and crispy on top.
When the Mammotherd’s pie is done, let it rest for about 10 minutes before serving.
To freeze, divide into small plastic containers. Mammoth freezes really well for defrosting and eating later.
Serves 10

Chocolate Banana Muffins
Foraging can get a little frustrating, especially when modern obligations get in the way of eating convenient food. Plan ahead and make paleo muffins that will keep beautifully in the freezer and are super handy when you’re on the move.
You get the familiar sweet taste and handy convenience of a handheld snack. These muffins are best underbaked a little and kept frozen in handy baggies for when you’re on the go.

Ingredients
1 1/4 cup almond flour
1 banana, preferably like leopard print
1/4 cup almond oil
2 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup cocoa
Big pinch of ground clove
Big pinch of ground cinnamon

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350F.
Place the banana, almond oil and eggs in a food processor. Blend on high until totally smooth. Scrape down the sides as needed. Add the almond flour and continue blending until totally smooth. Transfer to a bowl and add baking powder. Mix together the wet and dry ingredients and quickly scoop some into a mini-muffin tin. Bake for 7 minutes and check for doneness by poking a toothpick into the muffin. If the toothpick comes out clean, the muffins are ready. Under-bake them slightly so they stay moist. They can get a little dry if you don’t keep an eye on them.
Makes 12 Mini Muffins

Pierre Lamielle is a Calgary chef and author of Kitchen Scraps. After gaining 30 pounds testing recipes for his cookbook, Pierre has dropped the weight thanks to his Paleo diet and CrossFit workouts.

July/August 2011