Monday begins the Paleo week off in high fashion.  Actually, it’s going to be starting the Paleo Phase off a day early.  Considering all the gorging on junk food I’ve had (did I mention I ate a Coldstone Creamery Ice Cream for lunch) I figured it’s good to get cleaning out early.  While I won’t have the luxury of being creative with my meal planning for breakfast or lunch, I do plan on spreading my wings at dinner time.

Technically corn is a grain, so I’m being a bit redundant.  Corn however holds a special place in the hearts of Paleo adherents as a grain to be avoided because of how heavily modified corn has gotten in the last century or so.  While all plants that we have domesticated have been radically transformed in order to better serve us, corn has dominated our food system more for the last 75 years than it has at any other time in history.  We have never consumed more corn per capita than we have today.  You don’t recall the last time you ate corn?  That doesn’t matter.  In fact most of the corn you eat isn’t as corn proper.  There will be corn in certain dishes, or cornmeal used in the preparation of some prepared foods.  However it is really in the form of corn starches and corn syrups that most of our corn consumptions come from.  Corn is the “C” in HFC (high fructose corn syrup).  You recognize that evil acronym but won’t be seeing it much longer as the corn lobby has successfully convinced people that “corn sugar” is both more “accurate” and more marketable.

Why are they called nuts?  Actually, nobody really knows.  Alternative names for peanuts back in history are “ground nut” or “ground pea.”  They sort of look like pea plants while they are growing but then they produce a nut like product, so did “ground pea” and “ground nut” become a “pea nut” hence “peanut”?  That’s really one lost to history.  It’s a domesticated food that is native to the Americas, which European settlers started taking a liking to in their gardens as they populated the new world.

When the vision of a healthy diet is conjured in ones head one of the first things that come up (after whole grains and vegetables) are beans.  Many people, especially in the vegetarian movement, believe that beans are a great source of nutrients and an all around healthy food.  It will come as a bit of a shock to someone from that mindset that the Paleo community is one hundred percent against the consumption of beans and legumes without exception.  Their reasons for this are because of what they consider to be a poorer nutrient to calorie ratio and chemicals in them that cause problems in people.