‘Tis the season for eating outdoors! Whether you’re planning a picnic, heading to the beach for an afternoon in the sun, or spending your day hiking a nature trail, you’re going to need to pack some grub, but coming up with picnic-friendly paleo snacks can sometimes feel like a recipe for disaster.

The snacks that most non-paleo eaters will pack, like easy-to-transport chips and dips, granola bars, or even sandwiches, are tough to make paleo compliant. At the same time, many of the paleo snacks you’re used to eating at home, like stuffed veggies, deviled eggs, or avocado bowls, may prove unwieldy.

Luckily, with a bit of ingenuity, you’ll soon find that there are actually quite a few paleo snacks that you can pack for your outing.

1. Olive Packs

Olives are a delicious, briny snack that add a special occasion flair to picnics. We love GAEA Organic olive packs, which are sold in snack-sized pouches for easy transportation and enjoyment. The packs are available in several flavors, including plain Kalamata and chili and black pepper green olives.

2. Guacamole and Crudités

Guacamole might seem like a no-go at first, seeing as it seems to go hand-in-hand with chips, but you can just as easily enjoy guac with crudités like carrots cut on the bias (for more surface area), large broccoli or cauliflower florets, and celery sticks. Go heavy on the lime juice so that your guac stays nice and green.

3. Organic Jerky

For a protein boost that’s easy to throw in your bag, jerky is a great option. We love the slightly peppery buffalo jerky from Patagonia Provisions, which is made from American bison that roam and graze freely on the South Dakota plains. It’s grass-fed, free-range, and antibiotic- and hormone-free – and it comes in convenient snack-sized packages.

4. Paleo Granola

Most granola contains some sort of grain, and it therefore isn’t paleo friendly, but the paleo granolas from Back Roads Granola are completely different. Made with paleo-friendly dried fruits and nuts, these granolas are great for an energy boost, and they come in unique flavors like apricot-chai, coconut crunch, maple-pecan, and pineapple-ginger.

5. Mini Quiches

Crustless quiches are not only a great way to use up whatever leftover meat and veg you have in the fridge, they’re also easily portable and even freezable, meaning that you can make a few dozen in advance and grab them to go when you need to. Bake them in a mini-muffin tin for a two-bite snack.

6. Energy Bites

Energy bites are another great recipe to have up your sleeve. This version features superfood turmeric and loads of protein in the form of almond butter and protein powder. A little bit of coconut and maple syrup add just the right amount of sweetness.

7. Spiced Roasted Nuts

Nuts are a great source of energy and easy to carry around, but if you feel like basic nuts need a bit more zing, why not try spicing them up by combining your favorite nuts – almonds, cashews, hazelnuts… anything goes – with a bit of coconut oil, some Himalayan salt and your favorite herbs and spices. Just roast for about 20 minutes, and they’re ready to enjoy.

Try combos like cinnamon-cayenne, turmeric-cumin, or even za’atar-sumac for a new play on this paleo snack standby.

8. Zucchini Chips

If you’re getting a little sick of kale chips, seasonal summer zucchini chips are the way to go.

The key to making a great zucchini chip is getting rid of as much moisture as possible, so slice your zucchini ultra-thin on a mandoline and allow them to sit on a dishtowel for a few minutes before roasting on a silpat or nonstick pan with salt, coconut oil, and whatever seasonings you like. When they’re nice and crisp, cool them and then pack them in a container with a paper towel, which will absorb any excess moisture between when they’re packed and when you get to enjoy them.

9. Cocoroons

If you want a little something sweet to round out your picnic, we love Cocoroons from Wonderfully Raw. These soft macaroons are made with shredded coconut and maple syrup and then flavored with different ingredients like lemon or chocolate.

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These lime and coconut cookies are the ideal mid-day snack for any day, but make for a particularly festive complement to the upcoming Cinco de Mayo celebrations. They are not only delicious but also paleo, making them easier to digest and a lot lighter than, say, a white sugar and flour-packed alternative.

Based in almond meal and shredded coconut, these coconut cookies are dense and chewy enough to fill you up without weighing you down. Sweetened with honey and accented with fresh lime juice and zest, they are sure to satisfy your sweet tooth in a uniquely wholesome and celebratory fashion.

Because these cookies are paleo, they are free of white flour and white sugar (aka empty nutrition), and instead based in simple, pure, gluten-free ingredients, such as almond meal, tapioca flour, and coconut. While honey is the listed sweetener in the recipe, feel free to use coconut nectar or maple syrup in its place. Otherwise, keep the recipe as it stands, which for all intents and purposes, is perfect. Enjoy!

Paleo Lime and Coconut Cookies Recipe

Makes 12 to 15 cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cups almond meal
• ½ cup tapioca flour
• 1 ½ cup shredded coconut
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoons lime zest
• ¼ teaspoon Himalayan salt
• 2 free-range organic eggs
• ¼ cup honey
• 3 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lime juice
• 2 tablespoons melted coconut oil

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a bowl, stir together the almond meal, tapioca flour, shredded coconut, baking soda, lime zest, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, lime juice, honey, and coconut oil until smooth. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and fold together until it is well combined and forms a dough on the wetter side in terms of consistency.

Scoop tablespoons of the dough onto a baking sheet, each about two inches from one another. Flatten each of the cookies lightly with a fork so that each is about once centimeter high.

Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake the lime and coconut cookies for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown.

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Those who ascribe to a meat-heavy paleo diet because they think that’s what our ancestors ate may be in for a rude awakening: it seems that our relatives from the Pleistocene Era may have actually eaten a predominantly vegan diet.

This theory comes from recent findings described in the journal Nature, which examined the oldest examples of dental plaque in the world from Neanderthal individuals found in Belgium and Spain.

Yes, Neanderthals.

While for years, people believed that Neanderthals and modern humans were different species who never interbred, recent studies, specifically a 2010 study published in Science magazine, showed that Neanderthal and human DNA are very similar (99.7 percent as compared to chimpanzees’, at 99.8), and researchers of the Neanderthal Genome Project found that 2.5 percent of an average non-African human’s genome is made up of Neanderthal DNA, seeming to show that humans and Neanderthals could have interbred as recently as 37,000 years ago.

These archaic humans only began eating meat around 36,000 years ago, the findings show, as the Spanish Neanderthals examined in the study, who lived around 48,000 years ago, ate no detectable meat at all, preferring a diet rich in mushrooms, nuts, and moss.

“It really looks like meat is kind of a new idea for hominids,” lead author Laura Weyrich, a paleomicrobiologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, told the Los Angeles Times.

But possibly even more interesting is that these vegetarian hominids were evidently “very capable and intelligent individuals that could pass down information from generation to generation,” according to Weyrich, including information about the specific health benefits of certain plants.

One of the hominids had both a painful dental abscess and a nasty gastrointestinal bug, and in his dental plaque, scientists discovered evidence of poplar, whose bark contains salicylic acid (the active ingredient in aspirin), as well as signs of a natural antibiotic mold, Penicillium rubens, that wasn’t found in the teeth of the other individuals found along with him. In other words, he knew how to self-medicate by choosing the right plants to eat.

“It suggests some elements of behavior in Neanderthals that they were familiar with, and were probably using, medicinal plants for particular health issues,” study author Keith Dobney told WIRED. “That’s the first time ever this has been seen.”

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Praise the paleo gods for this red velvet cupcake recipe, which takes the grain, gluten, refined sugar, and low-quality oil out of the mix while keeping the cupcakes moist, fluffy texture and delicious in taste.

You can enjoy more of what you like – sweet anything – without the intense sugar rush or pounds-packing ingredients. You can even get a vegetable serving (hello, beets) out of these cupcakes!

Paleo Red Velvet Cupcake Recipe

Makes 24

Ingredients

For the cupcakes

• 2 medium beets
• 3 organic pasture-raised eggs
• 1 cup melted coconut oil1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 cup blanched almond flour
• 3/4 cup coconut flour
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

For the frosting

• 2 (BPA-free) cans coconut milk, refrigerated
• 10 Medjool dates, pitted.
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• Dash of sea salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Wrap each beet in aluminum foil and place them into the oven. Cook for one hour. Reduce oven heat to 350 degrees and remove the beets from the oven.

Let the beets cool at room temperature. Once cool, use clean hands to peel/rub off the beet skins. Chop the roasted beets and puree them in a food processor or high-speed blender. To the beet puree, add eggs, coconut oil, applesauce, and apple cider vinegar. Blend until smooth.

In a separate large bowl, sift together the remaining cupcake ingredients. Fold the wet ingredient mixture into the dry ingredient mixture until evenly combined.

Fit 24 muffin tin cups with paper or silicon liners and fill each evenly with the red velvet cake batter. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Meanwhile, prepare the frosting. Scoop only the firm part of the canned coconut milk into a food processor or blender. (Save the liquid for a smoothie or soup.) Add the remaining ingredients to the food processor or blender and blend until thick and smooth. Pour the mixture into a tin bowl and let it sit in the refrigerator to set and thicken further.

Once the cupcake have cooked and cooled to room temperature, lather each with the frosting. Serve and enjoy!

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This avocado oil mayonnaise recipe is a paleo twist to a condiment classic and probably the answer to your dreams.

I am obsessed with homemade mayonnaise, but in making it, I often compromise on the quality of the ingredients used, especially the oil component. I reach for the most neutral-tasting oil that also happens to be the least nutritious oil in my pantry. Enter: avocado oil. Avocado oil is a notch more fragrant than neutral oils, such as canola, vegetable, and safflower oil; and more neutral than, say, olive oil. But, like olive oil, avocado oil offers a host of health benefits. It is rich in oleic acid, a heart-healthy monounsaturated omega-9 fatty acid, as well as lutein, an antioxidant that improves eye health.

Avocado Oil Mayonnaise Recipe

Makes 1 cup

Ingredients

• 1 large pasture-raised egg, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup avocado oil
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice (optional)
• 1 garlic clove, minced (optional)

Directions

Add the egg, mustard, vinegar, and salt to a food processor. Blend for 30 seconds. Turn off the food processor and scrape down the sides of the container. Turn the food processor back on and begin to slowly (read: very slowly) pour the avocado oil into the chute as the mixture is blending. As you pour, you will notice that the oil begins to emulsify with the other ingredients.

Once all of the oil has been poured into the food processor, add the lemon and garlic while continuing to blend for another 30 seconds. Turn the machine off and check the taste of the mayonnaise. Add in more salt as you see fit. This is also the time you can adapt the recipe with the addition of fresh herbs and spices. I personally like to add a dash of freshly-ground black pepper.

Enjoy the avocado mayonnaise as you would regular mayonnaise – as a dip, spread, or sauce!

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There’s nothing more frustrating than a weight loss plateau. Learn how adopting the Paleo diet can help you shed those final pounds.

You did it. You stopped eating crap and started exercising more. You made a plan and stuck with it. And it paid off! You started losing weight. You made a giant leap towards your healthy weight goal. You felt better, looked better, and became even more motivated. And then you arrived…not at your target weight, but at the dreaded weight loss plateau.

Maybe it’s been a week, a month, or even several months. You’re still doing all the healthy things that helped you shed the weight so effortlessly in the beginning, but nothing changes. Hitting a weight loss plateau is extremely common, so if you’ve been beating yourself up about it, STOP.

Rather than feeling bad, the key to overcoming a weight loss plateau is to reevaluate your strategy, and committing to a few months on the Paleo diet could be just what you need to kickstart the journey to your healthiest weight.

3 Ways Eating Paleo Can Help You Overcome a Weight Loss Plateau

1. It cuts out empty “diet” foods  – Sure, you can eat carbs, sugar, dairy and all sorts of crap and still lose weight. You’ll have to count every calorie and spend long hours at gym, but you can do it. Or you could cut your body some slack by eliminating the things that just create fat, bloat, and zap your energy. “Research shows that a Paleo diet is more satiating per calorie than both a Mediterranean diet and a low-fat diet,” writes Chris Kresser. “That means it’s more filling for the same number of calories compared to other popular diet methods. This is crucial for weight loss, since it helps you eat less without fighting hunger or counting calories.”

2. It eliminates inflammatory foods – Food sensitivities and allergies, especially to stuff like gluten and dairy, are on the rise around the world. Some experts estimate that as much as 80 percent of the U.S. population might be sensitive to gluten, and you could be one of them without even knowing it. “Often when people stop eating the foods they’re sensitive to, they lose weight,” writes Neely from Paleo Plan. “It happens partly because your body will hold onto water weight (blasted water again!) when it’s trying to protect itself from something; the water acts as sort of a buffer. So when you take out the offensive food from your diet, the water goes with it. Food sensitivities can also mess with your hormones and your thyroid function, and we know that both of those systems have much to do with body weight.”

3. It encourages the right kind of exercise – Exercise is a tricky thing. When it comes to escaping a weight loss plateau, we assume that more is better, but that’s not necessarily so. Instead of more trips to the gym, be smarter about what you’re doing while you’re there. Just as the Paleo diet mimics the eating habits of ancient humans, so should our exercise mimic the lifestyle of an ancient human. (Hint, they were not hitting the elliptical machine). Paleo workouts include slow but deliberate movements, like walking and hiking, body weight exercises, like push-ups, pull-ups, squats and sit-ups, lifting heavy things, and occasional bursts of cardio activity (like running or cycling sprints) are ideal when eating Paleo.

Combined these actions can build muscle, teach your body to feed off your fat (instead of empty carbs) when it needs energy, and hopefully, pull you off that weight loss plateau.

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When it comes to the Paleo diet, let’s agree to leave the cavemen out of it.

Desperate for a sustainable solution to my weight and health frustrations, I tried the Paleo diet for the firs time last fall. After 30 days, I had lost 10 pounds, my skin cleared up, and I had more energy than ever. I was hooked. I started buying Paleo cookbooks, engaging with the online Paleo community, and clicking on just about any headline that mentioned the Paleo diet. After four months, I was 25 pounds lighter and loving it.

Following the Paleo diet has reignited my love of whole foods–organic fruits and vegetables, grass-fed, pastured meats, raw nuts and seeds, and occasionally some spectacular dark chocolate. I’ve also learned so much about how the foods that dominate our food system, namely highly processed grains, dairy, and sweeteners, affect us in a negative way. And I cook all the freaking time now! You’ve got to when processed foods are out of the question. I love serving friends delicious food, and not admitting it’s Paleo until AFTER they’ve told me how much they enjoyed it.

But I also learned something else. I don’t like self-identifying as a Paleo eater. Why? Because people always get hung up on the name, and I find myself repeatedly explaining that the “Paleo” part shouldn’t be taken literally.

See, the Paleo diet has been around since the 1970s, popularized by gastroenterologist Walter L. Voegtlin and later Dr. Loren Cordain. I also learned that while early proponents suggested that Paleo eating is best because it “mimics the diets of our caveman ancestors” the nutritionists, fitness experts, and foodies that currently endorse it almost never push this aspect. And with good reason.

Suggesting that we can, with any decree of certainty, re-create the diets of our Paleolithic ancestors is ridiculous. And it’s the main reason why so many people feel comfortable saying the Paleo diet is stupid. Even though scientists say it’s nutritionally sound. That’s why, when talking about my own experience with Paleo, I leave the cavemen out of it.

My decision was recently validated by a widely-shared article written by Michael Pollan. The article listed all the things that, in Pollan’s opinion, are wrong with the Paleo diet. And just to be clear, Pollan and everyone else is entitled to their opinion. Because the Paleo diet is right for me doesn’t necessarily make it right for you. But the core argument was that cavemen most likely ate what they could find. Sometimes it was meat. Lots of the time it wasn’t. To me, the headline (and feisty comments) further proves that clinging to the “caveman” meme is hurting the basic message of the Paleo diet: eat real food. What Paleos really mean is “don’t eat something that wouldn’t have been recognized as food 200 years ago.” Which is almost identical to Pollan’s own ideology about food.

So let’s stop quibbling about what the cavemen ate. The Paleo diet includes lots of things that a caveman couldn’t possibly have had access to. But that’s not the point. The point is to eat real, whole foods, and eliminate the processed crap that’s only been considered food for the past 50 years. No matter what your anthropological perspective, that’s something we can all agree on.

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ColumnPaleo, Clean Eating, raw foods: is our industrial, processed food system forcing us to eliminate?

I can’t go a day without seeing the words “Paleo“, “raw,” “egg-free,” “gluten-free” or “clean eating” show up somewhere. Look at any magazine rack with a couple of food titles and these healthy eating regimes are practically all that pops out at you.

As I am interested in food, I could be on hyper alert to these things, but there’s no denying that health foods and specific diets like Paleo are at an all time high. The question is: why?

First off, let’s address the word “diet.” As defined by Merriam-Webster, it does in fact mean “habitual nourishment,” but thanks to the low-fat and all-grapefruit-all-the-time trends of the ’90s, nowadays it is more commonly used in reference to losing weight. We hear “diet” and we think “weight loss.”

But many of these eating habits aren’t two-week diets that are used to kick start weight loss; they’re lifestyles. They are long-term commitments to eating a certain repertoire of foods.

If you do any reading on people that stick to eating raw food, Paleo, or any other variety of elimination diets, it usually comes down to health reasons; people stick to these food regimes because they make them feel better. I myself am mostly gluten-free, not because I am celiac or gluten intolerant, but because I have found that my body does better when I don’t have gluten as a regular part of my diet. I am not alone. Some people don’t do well with soy, others don’t do well with eggs. The list goes on.

But let’s think about the things that people tend to cut out: dairy, gluten, eggs, meat, etc. At their core, these are not things that are inherently bad for you. Certainly some people have severe, sometimes debilitating allergies, to some of these products, but overall these are standard foods that have been a part of our diets for quite some time. Which begs the question: is it because we live in such a processed society that the things that are supposed to be good for us are not? Are food restrictions the result of the fact that we live in a world where real food isn’t real food anymore?

Not only is there something terribly wrong with the Standard American Diet overall, but individual food items that are supposed to be good for us are so over-processed that ultimately, we don’t know what to choose. Our grains, even the whole ones, have been hybridized to infinity and while you may buy your produce directly from the hands of the farmer, you have no idea the history of the seeds that were used in the first place. So instead of choosing, we’re forced to eliminate.

In fact, there is an entire diet devoted to eliminating and simplifying – it’s called Clean Eating – and the premises are admirable. It’s devoted to food as should food be, “clean” from all the extra additives that have become so commonplace in today’s society. But think about that for a second: has the food industry completely changed how eat, so much so that we need an entire diet to remind us to look at the ingredient list and make sure that it’s short? There are Clean Eating Challenges where you are prompted to eat simple and whole foods. Shouldn’t we just have been doing that in the first place?

Let me break it down for you: all of these diets aren’t diets, they’re just what we should be eating all of the time, and that is a lifestyle. A lifestyles of living well. But when we live in a world of industrialized food production, eating what we should be eating, real food, becomes more and more difficult. It’s not that we’re diet-obsessed, it is that once our bodies have had a taste of what they should have been consuming all along, there’s no turning back.

Making certain eating choices isn’t about restrictions. It is about a celebration of real food. The kind of food that fuels your body and keeps you healthy. So, whether that’s Paleo, raw, vegan, non-dairy, gluten-free, no nightshades, or some combination of all of the above we have to remember that ultimately it’s about feeling good and eating well, no matter how we get there.

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This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Steven Jackson

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