"Happy" Meals

In my last blog I mentioned my Paleo-Ketogenic-Locavore workout, so I thought it was high time to talk about my diet.

My Breakfast Makes Me Happy!

My breakfast is worth looking forward to. I always do. Two eggs, two slices of bacon, a pot of yerba mate. And I am Happy!

But let me tell you why:

      •    My husband lovingly makes this breakfast for me.

• These very special eggs were gathered by a local farmer in my neighborhood, down the road. My friend, Bill can’t really explain why his chickens lay such beautiful eggs. The yolks are the the most colorful dark orange while the shells range from light brown , to dark brown, to light green. Then Denny cooks the eggs in hot bacon drippings to a perfect sunny side up, with the whites fully cooked, with a little crisp around the edges and the yolks just hot, but still runny.

• Now the bacon is not just any bacon. We drive nearly an hour away to a little market      in Portland Maine called Rosemont, where the European trained butchers cure the cure and smoke the slabs of bacon right in house. The ingredients? Salt, sugar and Smoke(like real smoke). The pork comes from local Maine farmers who allow their pigs to graze naturally. I have bought bacon from local farmers at our local farmers’ market and the list of ingredients are less than desirable, like sodium erythrobate, sodium nitrate, smoke flavoring, and more. Farmers are at the mercy of the butcher that they take their pigs to. Some traveling a great distance to get nitrate free bacon. We buy the Rosemont cured bacon by the slab and Denny slices each piece, nice and thick.

Beautiful eggs and amazing bacon- that’s it!

Some people may say, “Is this really enough food?” I am very satisfied, it’s so high in fat calories that you stay happy for 5 or 6 hours or more. Fat is such an efficient fuel source, that when you train you body to burn fat for fuel, it lasts and lasts. Think about placing a big oak log (fat) on the fire as opposed to a batch of dry kindling (carbs). The long, slow, steady burn. That’s what fat does for you. Of course, we want the high quality fats from the finest sources—animals, raised the right way by farmers who are committed to ethical, sustainable farming practices. Saturated animal fat is stable, and feeds your nervous system, your brain, and is the primary constituent of every cell wall in your entire body. Thus, it makes you happy!

This is the breakfast I eat as soon as I can get to the table. 

I have eaten this breakfast everyday since changing my diet, from a raw vegan diet to what I now call Paleo-Ketogenic-Locavore.  We are mostly paleo, no grains, little dairy, yet we do eat local, raw butter, and Denny puts raw cream in his coffee.  We like buying as much as possible directly from the farmers, hence the Locavore part of my diet. The ketogenic part of the equation explains that we eat very low carbohydrate so that my body has learned to burn fat for fuel, and that keeps my blood sugars in the normal range.

This breakfast, which I usually eat around 7 o’clock, keeps my energy even and happy until 2 or 3 o’clock, and my blood sugars nearly perfect.

Here is where I will mention that I have taken insulin injections every day for 43 years since being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 16. My husband, on the other hand used to have hypoglycemia with every diet he was ever on, including the raw vegan diet. He would have to eat every couple of hours and still he would get shaky with low blood sugars. On this very low carb, Ketogenic diet, his energy is excellent and stable, and his blood sugars are perfect. He is happy until 2 or 3, too.

In my next blog I’ll tell you what I have for lunch and how I eat locally farmed food throughout the long, cold, Maine winters.