Meat Salads

This chapter has a lot of great ideas and recipes, however most of them take too much preparation for daily lunch fare.  Far too involved for a kidos lunch!  My kids eat well, but not gourmet for lunch!

Another downer to these recipes, in this chapter particularly, is that almost all of the recipes call for some sort of dressing or sauce that is found in another chapter.  I don’t mind having to look at another page, but if I don’t already have the sauce made up, it just adds more time and another step that isn’t really an option for lunch around our house!

In the beginning of the chapter there is always a little information about the chapter and what types of recipes it contains.  One of the snippets that I especially found interesting was the comment that canned tuna is ok, but make sure it doesn’t contain any hydrolyzed protein.  That I can understand… avoid it… especially since I don’t know exactly what it is… but Fallon goes on to say that it is a source of neurotoxic chemicals.  WHAT!!!!  Why?  In tuna?  Now that I’m aware of this I’ve started checking cans, and it is harder to find, but it is out there.  I even found a can at the Asian mart that was pretty clean!  YAY!

South of the Border
Since we eat about 90% paleo this chapter didn’t really apply to us.  We occasionally have burritos that I pre-make and freeze for an easy grab and go dinner for work. Sometimes for treats we will have fish or beef tacos as well.  Die hard paleos refrain from grains (ie whole wheat tortillas), dairy (ie sour cream, cheese) and beans (ie refried beans, black beans) which kinda negate Tex Mex foods.

We do cheat on some of these items, particularly the corn tortillas.  Fallon recommends having sprouted whole grain flour tortillas, but with gluten allergies for Tonchi, we have to avoid those as well.  Fallon also recommends having piima or cultured cream or dairy, fermented salsa, or cortido (similar to fermented sauerkraut) be served with the tacos, enchiladas, burritos, fajitas, etc to add a high enzyme condiments.

Most of the recipes in this section again, are pretty simple and easy to make.  They are the traditional Tex Mex foods that most Americans are familiar with.  Often she has a healthier spin on them to include sauces or spices that add nutrition and condiments to aid digestion.  If you are familiar with cooking this type of food then there isn’t anything new and sensational.  One of the recipes was for swordfish enchiladas and I can say I never would have thought to make that!  I’m definitely going to try the swordfish in my fish tacos that we so enjoy.  I also add our home fermented sauerkraut for added yum!

I know I haven’t posted much about vegetarians and it seems off topic in this post, but Fallon mentions it a few times in this chapter.  I know it’s pretty obvious from my posts that we are definite meat eaters.  Sally Fallon writes over and over and over again how dangerous it is to be a vegetarian because our body needs protein in order to work well and plant protein isn’t enough.  On page 423 she has a quote from William Campbell Douglass, in MD Second Opinion.  I thought it was very interesting and just wanted to include it here.  I have friends and family who are vegetarian and their health concerns me and I genuinely want them to live long, healthy, productive lives.

“In early June, Indian Harchand Singh collapsed in the middle of a busy London intersection.  He cracked his skull but even worse he awoke in the hospital to the news that he had suffered a serious heart attack,  His cholesterol was normal and he ate a strict vegetarian diet.  He was 30 years old.”

“This is not an unusual story for south Asians, most of whom are vegetarians.  The south Asians of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have a 40 percent higher rate of heart disease than the British, who eat a great deal of every conceivable type of animal meat and fat.  In Singapore, the rate of heart disease is 400 percent higher than the local Chinese – who eat a lot of pork.”

I know there are arguments on both sides saying that meats are good or meats are bad and I’m not here to argue the point.  I just know that in Nourishing Traditions Sally Fallon has many quotes, statistics and medical information that make a lot of sense.  I’m sure it could be twisted the other way around, but I just want to put this out there as a caution from Sally Fallon and me! 😉

So please… don’t be shy.. if you disagree, tell me!  Or if you have anything else you wanna say I’m all ears!

Read Part XXIII