Practically Paleo: My Meals

Haven't had time to upload photos of my meals for a while.  Here you go:

Breakfast one day this week:  Smoked salmon bellies; stir-fried kale, scallions, and red pepper; and sweet potato with coconut oil.

I got the salmon bellies from Kenny and Brenna Aschbacher, the Fishhuggers.  I marinated about 3 pounds of salmon bellies with 2 T San-J soy sauce and 6 T Wright's Liquid Smoke overnight.  Then I broiled the belly strips with skin side up for about 3 minutes under high heat.  Tastes like bacon.

Breakfast 4/1/10

Grass-fed raw flank steak--I marinated it in olive oil and black pepper--with kim chi I get from a local Asian market.  At this meal I also had a sweet potato with coconut oil, and some fruit, but I don't remember what kind.  I got the steak from Kenny and Brenna Aschbacher, the Fishhuggers.

Breakfast 4/2/10

• Grass-fed ground beef chili made with beef bone broth, beef tallow, onion, marinade juices left from the smoked salmon (above), kelp, tomatoes, chili pepper, chili powder, cumin, garlic, and cilantro.  
• Steamed broccoli and red pepper tossed with olive oil and black pepper.
• Trader Joe's Wild Boreal blueberries with coconut milk topping.
• Mineola tangerine.

Lunch 4/2/10

Grass-fattened ground beef (seasoned but raw), same vegetables as for breakfast, an apple, and a mix of 1/2 cup walnuts, 1/4 cup almonds, and 1/4 cup raisins.

Nutrition Analysis 4/2/10

I wanted to see what kind of fatty acid profile I have when I eat nuts in the quantity (3/4 cup) I have in this day's menu.  The following provides the food list and macronutrient sums (click on image for larger version):

This slide gives the macronutrient ratio in tabular and graphic forms:

You can see that the day's meals provided 69% of energy as fat, 16% as carbohydrate, and 15% as protein.  Saturated fat provided 23% of energy, monounsaturated 27%, and polyunsaturated only 12%.

The following provides the micronutrient analysis:

The analysis shows this menu fell short in vitamin A, vitamin D, calcium, potassium, thiamin, and sodium.

Active Vitamin A (retinol) I get from sardines and liver on a weekly basis or so, in quantities that get stored in my liver to cover my requirements on days like this.  Vitamin D I get from sunlight and my daily supplement.

The calculated calcium content of this menu does not include the calcium-rich bone broth that I used in the chili.  That broth provides at least 100mg calcium per tablespoon, and I put enough in the chili so that each serving supplies 200mg calcium, bringing my total to 647mg for the day from foods.  As mentioned before, I take additional supplemental calcium on days like today when I know my food-source calcium intake falls below 750mg. 

This menu fell short of the recommended intake of potassium by about 20%, largely because I did not have a sweet potato in the menu.  When I don't get adequate potassium, I suffer nocturnal muscle cramps.  I find it a little challenging to consistently meet my potassium requirements while also keeping my carbohydrate intake below 20% of calories.

Although the software says this menu fell short of sodium requirements, it actually supplies more than the estimated requirement for sodium based on balance studies, i.e. 500mg.

I find that low carbohydrate menus tend to fall short of thiamine requirements if they don't include pork.  I find this a little disconcerting because I don't really enjoy conventional pork (an excellent thiamine source), nor do I eat organ meats rich in thiamine often, and although thiamine requirements decline somewhat with lower carbohydrate intake,  Hoyt has reported optic neuropathy due to thiamine deficiency in epilepsy patients following ketogenic diets and also in healthy individuals following low-carbohydrate diets for weight loss (abstract here and full text reproduced here).   Atkins, of course, recommended heavy vitamin supplementation to accompany his program.

For Fun: My Paleo Cats Hanging Out

I call the black beauty Angie, and the little tiger Sheba.