Paleo Foods

jordana_Better_307683

Hey ChefSteps,

I am into cooking aleo foods and am always trying to find good ways to make deserts, or breads, or other foods that you would need to substitute other foods like almond flour instead of regular flour.

Are you guys looking into doing a healthy portion of recipes and showing us great ways to do that?

Brandon_Byrd_40557

Ironically, going down the paleo path is what lead me to modernist techniques and eventually to ChefSteps. After several semi-successful attempts at making bone broth, I still wasn't getting the results I wanted. Then I discovered pressure cooking, and I was finally able to produce exactly the results I was going for. I'll save you the details of my personal journey here, but after several years of cooking using a combination of traditional and modern techniques within a broadly paleo framework, I'm deeply suspicious of attempts to make things like paleo-fied breads and desserts. Neither bread nor dessert fit particularly well into a broadly paleo framework, and attempts to create them within that framework seem dishonest and sometimes more unhealthy than the alternative. Unless you have a genuine gluten sensitivity (and most people don't), eating bread made from a pound or more of almonds is going to be worse for you than eating a similar amount of fermented sourdough bread made with quality whole-grain flour. And I've never had almond "bread" that was anywhere near as delicious as actual bread made with wheat. And it's more expensive. That's three strikes for me: less delicious, more expensive, less healthy.

Desserts are almost categorically non-paleo due to the requirement for added sugar. Sure, you can use artificial sweeteners (or stevia... or lower glycemic index sugars) but the idea of paleo dessert seems like a total lie to me. Eat some berries with lightly sweetened pastured whipped cream ,or enjoy a piece of dark chocolate with a nice glass of wine (or Cava or other sparkling wine) if you do alcohol. Or just eat a piece of fruit! Don't try to make a paleo pie, cake, or cookie. That's just... that's just not paleo. If you want a piece of pie, cake, or a cookie, then eat one. Follow the 80/20 rule, and indulge yourself every once in a while. It's a dietary guideline, not a religious commandment. It's okay to "sin" every once in a while.

The whole idea of paleo baked goods (and desserts) rubs me the wrong way. It's like conforming to the letter of the law while doing everything you can to go against its spirit. Contemporary western food culture has primed us to eat lots of grains and added sugar. Adopting dietary guidelines informed by ancestral foodways is, to a large extent, a revolt against those things -- and for some good reasons. Trying to make paleo breads or desserts strikes me as a contradiction; it's denying the validity of cake, but trying to eat it too.

If you're new to the paleo plan, you'll find that over time the desire for sugar and starch diminishes over time as your body adapts to burning fat rather than sugar as its main energy source. Cravings for bread, pasta, and sugar will, in all likelihood, fade as your tastes change. Yes, you may still feel the urge to tear into some nice crusty bread if it's offered... or maybe order that pice of great looking pie when you're out at a restaurant. But if you follow broadly paleo dietary guidelines and don't make a habit of it, I see no reason to deny yourself of the occasional bit of bread (or whatever) unless you have some compelling health reason to avoid them.

What I'd try to think about instead is how you can use modernist techniques to make genuinely paleo recipes even better: pressure cook your bone broth; use carageenan to stabilize your homemade coconut milk; use sous vide to tenderize grassfed beef without drying it out. That's where my personal focus is, and I think it's a useful perspective for others interested in these issues to undertake. At the same time, I'd also be interested to hear what the gurus at ChefSteps would create working within a paleo framework. I don't expect (or even suggest) that the provide such recipes, however. Modernist Cuisine was explicitly suspicious of dietary systems... again, for good reason. Most "diets" are awful from a scientific perspective and the relationship between food, health, and disease is just now beginning to be understood. Though I think that broadly paleo principles are "correct" given the research thus far, I don't think that ChefSteps should commit to operating (even temporarily) within that framework. That said, given the mass hysteria about gluten, I think it would be interesting to see what they have to say about creating baked goods that have similar properties to wheat-based product but without that nefarious protein. But I also know that the Modernist Cuisine team is working on a book on baked goods, and that should serve as the ultimate reference tome for all bready/starchy things, be they with or without gluten. For now, I'm content to wait. Until then, I'd suggest checking out paleo blogs like Nom Nom Paleo or Against All Grain for some useful recipes in the vein you're looking for.

But I'm not going to pass up the bread service at my next Michelin starred dinner anytime soon.