Thursday, October 25, 2012

The end is so close, I can taste it. And I did so this morning, in a way, when I tore into one of my remaining 22 packets of oatmeal. 22 left! It’s been a long and storied journey, truly. What I didn’t know when breakfast was being irradiated, though, was how oats would be one of the better-tasting items on the menu today. That’s because I tried going paleo tonight for dinner.

I get the premise of paleo. It’s a return to our dining roots, heavy on meat and veg, free of grains and processed foods and sugars. What’s compelling about the regimen is how proponents describe the way they feel after changing their eating habits–productive, energized, never a food coma. I experienced some of this in a limited capacity, years ago, when I weaned myself off processed sugars for a month. I felt great, so the prospect of recapturing this state of mind and enhancing it was just too tempting.

One of my work buddies graciously handed me a vacuum-packed meal from his shipment, a concoction of grass-fed beef, celery root, parsnip, and coconut oil. Sounds edible, right? Wrong. I prepared the dish tonight–over a plate of pasta, as a kind of hedge–and the pasta, it turned out, was an exercise in keen foresight. Paleo? It tastes like 251 million years ago. Imagine finding these ingredients in the dirt and then spraying them all with a hint of coconut. I was ingesting nutrients without the pageantry of flavor.

How can anyone do this for 30 days straight? It occurred to me that you probably can’t, at least for the paleoheads I know, because the words “I cheated” are a common refrain, which is never a precursor to sustainability. Sneaking in a Cuban sandwich over the weekend or a beer on Thursday night–that makes this sound suspiciously like a diet. I’m going to let this train pass. Sorry, cow! Sorry, parsnip. You all died in vain.