Delicious, simple Wine Country paleo dishes
The paleo style of eating has come to Wine Country, where many chefs, fitness buffs and even couch potatoes have adopted it as a diet they swear helps them lose weight and gain energy.
Chef Ari Weiswasser of the Glen Ellen Star restaurant created a stir in the media earlier this month when he offered a “Paleo Pick-up Dinner” to folks participating in a CrossFit-based competition. (CrossFit is a physical fitness philosophy practiced at more than 10,000 gyms across the country.)
“The diet for the challenge is basically getting rid of all unnatural, processed foods - anything in a box with preservatives - and no dairy,” Weiswasser said. “I eat this way 60 to 80 percent of the time. I feel better, have more energy, feel more clear-headed and stronger.”
Weiswasser joined a CrossFit gym in Sonoma more than two years ago, just before his twin girls, Haley and Riley, were born. He also worked with Ken Niehoff, a nutritionist and strength and conditioning coach in Sonoma, who helped him understand what the paleo diet means and how it can be adapted thoughtfully for people living in modern times.
As a Wine Country chef cooking primarily with a live-fire oven, Weiswasser said his restaurant food already fits naturally into the broad parameters of the paleo diet, which emphasizes proteins and vegetables and excludes grains, legumes, dairy, processed oils and refined salt and sugars.
“Wood fire defines us,” he said. “If there’s too much sugar it burns, so we cook a lot of meat and fish, and a lot of that lends itself to primitive cooking, which is where this all started.”
Weiswasser is also known for the tasty vegetable dishes roasted in his wood oven, from Charred Padron Peppers with Shabazi Spice to Cauliflower with Tahini and Roasted Almonds.
“Vegetables are a healthy accompaniment to the dinner here,” he said. “In Sonoma County, most people naturally gravitate toward the paleo diet, because you can eat it and feel like you don’t have to go work out.”
“We’re talking about eating the foods before farming,” Niehoff explained. “The way I like to think of it is we’re honoring our evolutionary past.”
Like recent studies about the benefit of moving around versus sitting down at a desk all day, paleo proponents argue that our genes are better adapted to the foods we ate during the paleolithic period, which lasted about 2.5 million years and ended just 10,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture.
When you look closely at the hunter-gatherer diet, Niehoff said, you see that people were trying to survive and ate everything that was edible, from roots and berries to seafood and meat. All of that was nutrient dense.
“One thing we know is that it was all natural, unadulterated foods,” Niehoff said. “Nothing out of a box ... and no empty calories from the refined sugars and carbohydrates.”
While meat is a key component of the Paleo diet, its adherents avoid processed meat - which was linked to an increased risk of cancer in a new World Health Organization study issued this week.
Both Weiswasser and Niehoff mostly eat whole foods sourced from the farm down the road, including grass-fed beef and pastured poultry, wild seafood and shellfish, salads and vegetables, berries and fruit. They eat very few grains or beans, which paleo proponents believe are inflammatory and can interfere with nutrient uptake.
“People did learn how to coax the nutrients out of certain foods that might be taboo in paleo, which means soaking your grains,” Niehoff said. “But if someone comes to me and they want to lose weight, I will take them off grains.”
When you eliminate grains, which are high in carbohydrates and calories, you also eliminate about 90 percent of the junk food out there, from donuts and Danish to crackers and cupcakes.
Niehoff also persuades his clients to restrict their snacking between meals, and to eat dinner earlier at night and breakfast later in the morning in order to accomplish a modern version of fasting.
“During the hunter-gatherer era, we didn’t have food all the time, and now studies are showing that intermittent fasting is really healthy,” he said. “You should leave four to five hours between each meal and a good 10 to 12 hours of fasting each evening.”
The quality of the food is also important, if somewhat controversial. One of the biggest criticisms of the paleo diet is that it is not accessible to those on a budget.
“It’s not green beans out of the can, it’s the farm down the road,” Weiswasser said. “It’s the way I like to eat, but it’s not cheap.”
One of the problems of adapting to the paleo diet, Niehoff said, is that we’re up against our evolutionary need to eat a lot when food is plentiful, so that we can survive when food is scarce. But in modern societies where food is always available, that hard-wired instinct can lead many on an uphill battle against obesity.
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