The Benefits of Eating Paleo and AIP
The acute inflammatory response is a healthy bodily mechanism to fight infection and promote wound healing. However, chronic inflammation is quite dangerous and is at the root of most ailments including heart disease, cancer, and psychological distress (e.g.depression).
Numerous factors create and/or exacerbate inflammation. This includes chemicals, heavy metal toxicity, mold exposure, underlying infections (e.g. parasites, Lyme disease), chronic hormonal imbalances, and diet.
One of the simplest ways to reduce inflammation, to begin feeling better physically as well as emotionally, is to minimize and/or eliminate foods that create inflammation in the body.
Some of the biggest inflammatory culprits includes: sugar, pasteurized dairy, grains (particularly gluten containing grains), and soy.
This is where a paleo approach to eating can be beneficial. Eating paleo includes eating a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, nuts/seeds, pasture raised meat, eggs from pasture raised chickens, and wild caught seafood. For some paleo individuals, this also includes eating legumes/beans.
As one can see, eating paleo style removes a significant number of inflammatory foods. However, for individuals who are acutely suffering with physical and/or emotional conditions, I recommend eating according to the autoimmune protocol (AIP), also known as the anti-inflammatory diet.
This is a paleo approach to eating that removes additional inflammatory foods including: eggs, nuts/seeds, nightshades (eggplant, tomatoes, white potatoes, and peppers) and seasonings from the nightshade family as well as seed family (e.g. cumin, pepper).
I recognize when an individual reads the list of taboo foods one might think, “What on earth can I eat?” Believe it or not, eating paleo, and even eating AIP, still allows one to consume amazingly delicious foods. Truly.
I ate a strict AIP diet for eighteen months. Since that time, I have continued to primarily follow an AIP approach to nutrition and I LOVE the meals I eat. I feel very satisfied and do not ever feel deprived.
The goal is having the right recipes. That is why I compiled my two, free, recipe eBooks. One includes paleo recipes while the other contains AIP recipes. Some of the recipes are my originals, while others I collected from the extremely generous world of recipe bloggers.
I believe it is ideal to eat REAL food ALL the time; however, I do not believe it is a one size fits all eating approach. I believe people have the ability to discover what resonates most with their health and eat according to what their body tells them.
I believe when people are struggling with any type of health issues, removing the more obvious food irritants allows people the opportunity to begin feeling better so they can more readily identify what foods nourish their body. Eating paleo is a great first step.
I have included a few of my favorite recipes below. They are bonus recipes not included in the free eBooks. I encourage you to try them and see if you do not agree with me – these are delicious meals!
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