Blair, Don’t Get Me Wrong :)

Good afternoon and happy Saturday, Tribe!! 🙂

I know this is going to be a hard sell, and there are no glossy pictures and only words in this post…and words are hard and pictures are more fun… but I felt like I needed to respond to something…

Disclaimer: This is not a rant. 😉 Use of ALL CAPS in this post does not mean I am yelling/grunting. Just very passionate. 🙂

This blog post came out of a reply/comment that I was going to post on Sacramento Bee food critic Blair Anthony Robertson’s Facebook page in response to a blog he had written on the success of The Eatery, their social media savvy and high customer satisfaction rate. You can read the original blog post here.

Rather than hijack the topic on his Facebook page, I wanted to respond on my own website, because while I agree with the blog post on Appetizers–and that Jess is doing a great job and I was very happy with the meal he made for the Paleo group–I strongly disagree with the term he used to describe people on the Paleo diet… “slightly obsessive”. Hmmm…

Now, I have a great sense of humor, so I didn’t mind the lame jokes about grunting or loin cloths, et al, but “slightly obsessive” did a good job of “slightly offending” me.

It’s because I feel a “slightly negative” spell cast on this diet because the people who follow it cut out certain foods…actually, rather… food-like substances. The food-like substances that are ingrained in our great Standard American Diet. TRADITIONS like birthday cake, pizza, hamburgers, soft pretzels, Big Gulps, Reece Cups, you name it. Things that come in shiny wrappers and colorful boxes that have funny little jingles of enticement attached to their marketing campaigns.

Things that people ask me/offer to me and I have to turn down continually, leading the offerer to think: I’m a freak, I’m a fun-suck, I don’t like them, I’m “slightly obsessive”… When it’s actually more like “I would rather eat real food. Period.”

I think another thing people think about me sometimes is that I judge them and eat the way I do to make them feel bad about themselves. Nope. Eat what you want, people. There’d be a lot of people out of work if everyone stopped eating at McDonald’s all of a sudden. Not only the people on the burger press or the fryer, but certainly the truck drivers who haul the sh*t across the country.

If I were in another country and had one opportunity to try some handmade enjera or someone’s great great grandmother’s flatbread, I would probably do it. But now… day-to-day, I just don’t want/crave/need bread. It’s not appealing to me. I don’t care if you eat it, I just don’t want any. 🙂

And sugar… God, it’s the devil (to me). But I think it’s the devil to most people, and they just don’t want to admit it. How many people line up at Starbucks every morning of everyday before work and then again after work? Why do most folks graze past the breakroom from 8-11am staring at a box of donuts and think “ohhhh… maybe I’ll have just one…I worked out today…”? Why do people drive up to a window (bearing they are not on a road trip) and order previously frozen “nuggets” and potato flour sticks fried in soy oil because it’s delicious to them… several times a week?

That’s actually “slightly obsessive” and “slightly scary” behavior if you ask me. 😉

If you don’t believe me, just try taking away someone’s bun or french fries or soda pop or apple pie and watch what happens. Crankyville!! Can you imagine what would happen if Starbucks closed for a week? Or if Baskin Robbins, Dairy Queen, and all the other ice cream shops we shuttered indefinitely? Mass hysteria, probably. No cereal or pop tarts? Children (and adults!!) would be overturning cars and setting buildings on fire.

I have to say that if any of those companies stopped making their food, um, products… I wouldn’t give a damn. 🙂

And that’s what is so great about Paleo. It’s gave me a life!! I know that sounds rather funny… but when you are caught up in a myriad of eating disorders and distorted body image (like I was for years) you don’t have life, that’s for sure.

The Paleo diet has actually made me less obsessive about calories and food altogether. Ask anyone I dated before I went Paleo!! I was impossibly hard on myself and as a result impossible to be around!

I am less obsessive BECAUSE I EAT REAL FOOD. And I am not addicted to any one food anymore! 🙂 Food that comes packaged is enhanced to make it taste better and to make you want to buy more of it… so, I just stay away from it. I like the way I look and feel because I don’t eat grains and I am not tied and bound to buttercream frosting anymore.

I don’t constantly think about cake and donuts and then running for hours to make up the difference and stressing my body and feeling like crap ALL THE TIME.

Paleo/Primal just set me free from all of that. There’s no more struggle. I workout 45 mins daily, sometimes more, often sometimes less. I eat a snack in the morning, I have a big dinner. I drink wine. I live and breathe. I am happy. I don’t feel like a drug addict anymore, sneaking and buying Oreos or standing in line at Marie’s at 4:00am. Yes, that used to happen. “Slightly obsessive.” Yep.

Annnnnnnnnyyywayyy…. 🙂 I just wanted all the non Paleo people out there to know that not all Paleo people are obsessive…we are actually pretty non-judgmental, and as for me, I only wear loin cloths once a week. The rest of the time it’s animal prints and sparkly clothes!! Because you know Paleolithic men love shiny objects!! Including the one I snagged last year at the Curtis Park Wine Tasting… 😉

OK that’s all for now. Just had to get that off my chest. Oooga ooga. Now back to the cave.

PS: Great job, The Eatery!! Andy and I are big fans now, and the Paleo dinner was highly inventive and fantastic. We’ll be back. 🙂