OK...so here's the situation...my parents went away on a weeks vacation--oh wait...not that situation. So I've been trying to eat mostly paleo but I just really don't like many vegetables. There are maybe 5 or 6 that I actually like and 3 or 4 more that I can swallow but don't really enjoy. Most of the vegetables I like fit into the salad category...lettuces, tomatos, cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, olives. My question is whether it is possible or healthy to eat paleo/primal with such limited vegetable intake. I am sure in time I can find ways to eat other vegetables, but we are talking 34 yrs worth of dislike...it takes sometime to undo.
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Personally, I think most veggies taste like dirt. SOme are OK if smothered in butter, but I'd really rather just eat meat and some fruit and that is what I mostly do eat. PLus I allow cheese which I sometimes have a taste for. When I do salads, I use one of the various paleo recipes for dressing or sometimes I just use my favorite ranch dressing plus a bunch of parmesan cheese. So it's not TOTALLY paleo, but most of it is. What I did was go to fitday. com and typed in all my food and checked my intake of all vitamins and minerals. As long as you get all those then it really doesn't matter if it comes from meat, fruit, or veggie. Mostly, for veggies, I just eat spinach (tastes best to me as a raw fresh green salad leaf covered with dressing instead of a slimey cooked product), tomatoes (maybe that is still a fruit), and sometimes I buy mixed greens instead of just spinach greens. I also like onions. Recently, I discovered I kinda like brussel sprouts when mixed with tons of meat. Other than that, I don't each much other veggie except for the occasional bite or two if someone else prepares it. I can't think of any major nutrient that comes in veggies but does not come in other types of foods. The recommend veggies for nutrients, but veggies are not the only source of nutrients. YOu just need to get the nutrients somehow but it need not be from veggies particularly. |
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In my opinion, it isn't healthy to avoid vegetables. A while back I typed everything I entered into FitDay and was somewhat surprised to learn that I was in the 30-45% RDA range on about a half dozen nutrients -- magnesium, manganese, calcium, vitamin E, and a couple of others. And I eat LOTS of vegetables, including a big serving of green vegetables almost every night, and a mixed salad most days. A fruit and vegetable free Paleo diet is lacking in a lot of nutrients, primarily minerals. You can make up for this somewhat by eating a LOT of bone broths, organs, connective tissue, etc. but you aren't going to get it with steaks and hamburgers. I avoid grains too, but one thing that grains have is a lot of minerals, so if you're going to avoid that, you need to make it up somewhere else. In terms of the Paleo "back story", it's very likely that our ancestors ate plenty of fruits and vegetables, and they weren't sauteed in butter with a squeeze of lemon juice either, they were likely raw. If you want to eat like a caveman, then you should eat some vegetables. I gather from the responses that a lot of people just think that vegetables are yucky. It takes time to learn how to prepare vegetables the best way, and with plenty of butter and/or olive oil they are delicious. Just give it a chance. |
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I eat very few veggies because it's just so darn convenient to whip up a delicious filling steak in 4 minutes. |
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Spinach is pretty much the only green vegetable I eat (in large amounts daily), but luckily it's also one of the most nutrient-dense ( http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2627/2 ). If you stick to vegetables that are similarly dense in nutrients, then it should be fine. Many here aren't shy about espousing their carnivorous leanings, but I simply don't accept that humans thrive to a greater extent without vegetables. Human carnivory seems as misguided and extreme as human herbivory. I ate a vegan diet for 8 years and all throughout my blood tests were perfect and I very clearly did not die. Does this mean that humans are designed to only eat plants? Hardly. |
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I only use vegetables as a fat delivery system. |
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I use vegetables to flavor food. |
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So tempted to answer this with "right on!" and leave it at that. I eat a few veggies here and there but I live by the reversal of Michael Pollan's food rules. He said: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. I say: Eat food. Enough so your body can thrive. Mostly meat. 'Eat food' meant real food not processed food. I get that one. 'Not too much' is kinda aimed at this cultural idea that restricting calories is the secret to life. It is not the secret to life. But in a society that cannot figure out how to make individuals healthy and the right size, starving them appears to be the only option. And 'Mostly plants' goes along with that holier than thou idea that the vegetarian diet is superior nutritionally and spiritually. I beg to differ and think we should not cede the high ground to that side any longer. It was a bummer after Pollan's chapter on hunting that he'd revert to a promoter of vegetarian leaning diets. Pollan's pre-Omnivore's Dilemma article has some great stuff in it but it sadly pushes plant based diets over meat based, here is a link for interest and argument: http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/ |
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It seems to me that most contemporary hunter gatherers make use of a wide range of edible plants, vegetables, roots & tubers when available. We also know the Inuit, whilst much healthier than your average SAD eater, do suffer some health consequences from their restrictive diet. I also believe there is nothing magical in plants that cannot be obtained from animal products, but I don't think your average Paleo eater will be going through this wide range of offal nose-to-tail eating required for optimal vitamin & mineral intake. For this reason I would recommend a full or partial dose of a good quality multivitamin (the good quality ones come in 3 to 6 pills per day) to supplement your diet. |
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YES to all the above. As Dr Harris is fond of saying, "there is nothing magical about vegetables". Eat them if you enjoy then but given the above why anyone would eat something they dislike or can tolerate is beyond me. I occasionally get the taste for brussel sprouts or leaks and will add them but only occasionally. Last night I fried up some delicious steak and kidney and improved it with the inclusion of some mushrooms. Let your tastes lead you. |
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I actually didn't feel my best until I stopped eating non-meat foods. I would definitely recommend seeing how you feel without them, and not worrying about it. |
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Vilhjalmur Stefanssn lived with the Inuit of Northern Canada and ate nothing but caribou, seal, and fish for five years. |
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I only very rarely eat vegetables right now and I'm feeling better without them at the moment. Red meat and organs are packed full of highly bio-available nutrients and fat is an excellent source of energy. With that said, you might want to make sure you get enough magnesium, iodine and vitamin C. Most people are deficient in magnesium and iodine anyway, no matter the amount of vegetables they eat. Halibut, chinook salmon, pumpkin seeds and almonds are good sources of non-vegetable magnesium, seaweed is a good source of iodine. A lot of people choose to supplement those micro-nutrients, along with vitamin D and vitamin K2. |
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Try sauteeing quartered brussel sprouts in bacon fat and adding chopped bacon. Or saute kale in bacon fat. If you eat any dairy, you could also sautee in butter and add cream at the end. There's a great recipe in Mark Sisson's cookbook. I find a lot of people who don't normally like veggies like them when they're paired with bacon. |
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of course it is possible and healthy. it'll be easier for you than for many of us, i'd wager, provided you either have a high tolerance for repetition in your protein sources and/or know how to prepare a large variety of protein dishes. to read about the typical diet of (a super-credible) someone who eats very little vegetable matter, see Dr. Harris' "what I eat" page: http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/2009/11/13/what-i-eat.html |
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