Day 12 down, and it was a busy day. Morning started with a quick 2 egg omelette that came out perfect if I do say so myself!
For lunch I had some olives and cantaloupe. Dinner came around and I wanted something meaty but had nothing planned. I heated up some bone broth, threw in some of the meat I had made it with,man’s whisked in an egg. Guess we’ll call it a egg drop bone broth soup, and it was good!
Hope all are well, excited for a weekend off after my call tonight…
Another day down on my journey of food discovery. I had something happen to me today that has never happened…I had the distinct desire to drink WATER! May sound crazy, but I’ve never been a water drinker. In fact, I’ve kind of really not liked the stuff. I think I always just wanted some flavor in my drinks, and the “plain” taste of water never did it for me. I guess that is changing, and I’m excited about that.
For breakfast I sped out the door after grabbing a few dried figs and headed to the hospital. I had a rare treat at lunch as I got to meet my wife and son for lunch along with another couple we are best friends with and their son. The chance to laugh with friends in the midst of a crazy day is always more than welcome. For dinner I roasted off a spaghetti squash and made a quick tomato sauce with canned tomatoes and and ground beef. Man, for some reason it really hit the spot!
This afternoon I had to have a conversation that is never fun. I have a very sweet lady in her 80’s who we diagnosed with pancreatic cancer around two months ago and she came in for a visit today. She is too frail to stand chemotherapy, so she underwent 30 radiation treatments with the hope of shrinking the tumor. The tumor did not respond, and she is out of options. She is weak, tired, hungry but nauseated all the time, and hurting. I’ve taken care of her almost 8 years and we have pulled her through several problems in the past including a broken hip and a heart attack. Some of her family are pushing her to go to MD Anderson for more tests and possible experimental treatment. She asked me what I would do. Over time you establish a real friendship with patients that often goes deeper than just business. You tend to take care of entire families, so the dynamic can be difficult when one of them gets sick. There is no magic bullet for her in Houston, and she is old and tired. If she goes there she will die away from home undergoing treatment that won’t work. I simply looked at her told her I would stay home to die with my family. She asked if she would die from this for sure, and I old her yes, and likely soon. At that point she almost seemed relieved to know what was going to happen. I’m amazed at the strength of her generation when faced with death. She told me she appreciated my care and my honesty, and that she just didn’t want to hurt anymore. We will make sure of that…
Why do I eat Paleo?…because I want to avoid chronic disease. Why am I a doctor?…because I want to try to help people avoid chronic disease. I hope that by living and recommending a Paleo lifestyle fewer people will have to face what my patient now faces.
I pray for her tonight, and I ask any of you so inclined to do so as well. Help her be strong in her time of sickness as God will soon be calling her home.
-E
Well today’s post is not going to be too exciting! I made a quick two egg omelette for breakfast and had some leftover sous vide chuck roast and roasted vegetables for lunch. I ran crazy late getting home from work today and any chance of cooking at home was dashed. I stopped by a local eatery and picked up some chicken wings for my wife and I while the kids shared a steak. Absolutely busy day, and I’m ready for bed. Sorry for the lack of details, but I’ve also finished up a post on statin drugs…see above. Catch yall tomorrow!
Today I stand at the verge of hitting double digits in my 30 day challenge! Tomorrow will be 1/3 down, and I’m pretty excited about it. I was off today which was nice. I started the day doing some home visits for a hospice that I work for. It’s not often we get out in patient’s homes these days, so the visits have become quite enjoyable for me even though it is my day off! This morning I made a two egg omelette for breakfast with my super fresh farm eggs. Yum! My wife and I had the rare chance to grab some lunch today sans kids and we headed to a local burger joint and ate amazing burgers minus the buns of course. Some sweet potato on the side and we were stuffed!
Dinner tonight actually started two days ago when I defrosted a beef chuck shoulder roast from Butterfield Farms and vacuum packed it after lightly seasoning it.
I prepared my Sous Vide Supreme and warmed the water to 130 F. Using my newly purchased metal rack I put the roast in, and let the magic happen for 48 hours…till tonight. I got the roast out and this is what I found!
In the mean time I chopped up a red pepper, yellow onion, and a head of cauliflower and cranked up the convection oven to 385F. I tossed them with olive oil, salt, and pepper and cooked them for around 40 minutes shaking them around every 10 minutes or so.
I removed the roast from the bag and dried it thoroughly. Using my Iwatani Butane torch I browned it nicely all over. As you can see the meat was perfectly cooked edge to edge…Sous Vide style! The taste of the grass fed beef is definitely different, but we all agree better. My daughter (6 years old) inhaled around a third of the darn roast and declared…”Dad, grass fed is the way to go!” This chuck roast was transformed into meat comparable in taste and texture to prime rib. Cheap cut + warm tub + time = Expensive cut results! The best way I can describe the difference in taste is to say that the grass fed beef tastes like a dry aged steak at a steak house. It must be the grass coming through, but it was very enjoyable. Here is what the end result looked like.
All in all, a very good day off. I really want to encourage anyone out there who is even considering a Sous Vide purchase to do it! I bought the Demi version which reportedly has 85% of the cooking area as the more expensive regular sized unit. The cost of $299 is worth every penny. I do not consider this a kitchen gadget, or fluffy luxury, it is an integral part of my cooking equipment on a day to day basis. Even my wife, the “expensive kitchen gadget we don’t need” queen has admitted that I was…wait for it…”right” about how awesome this thing would be. She is even trying to convince her friends to buy one! If you are serious about Paleo and spend the money on Grass fed meat and wild caught seafood you DON’T want to waste your money and improperly cook things. The Sous Vide is like a guarantee that your investment will be worth it.
I hope all had a wonderful day. I will continue to keep posting about my Whole 30 experience, and plan on continuing to share my insights as a Paleo Physician in a very non-Paleo world. I appreciate everyone who follows, comments, and supports my blog. May you all have a blessed evening.
-E
This will be short and sweet as I’m tired, and I have an early morning tomorrow!
Headed out early and dropped my daughter off at school. For lunch I ate some left over Sous Vide Brisket, an avocado, and some watermelon. Man the watermelon is good! We had dinner at my parent’s house to celebrate my brother’s birthday, and they were kind enough to cook Paleo friendly for my wife and I. We had nice big New York Strips, asparagus, and salad. It was excellent indeed!
Today was by far the easiest day to go without diet soda although I had a weak moment and really wanted one this evening. None-the-less, another day of very clean eating. On to tomorrow!
Today makes a week, and that is pretty exciting!
I taught my first sunday school lesson today, and that went pretty well. Fairly intimidating process, but none-the-less it seemed to go over well, and I’ll be teaching again in around a month.
This morning was absolutely crazy getting to church. My wife had to work as a volunteer in the nursery, and I was teaching. In the process of eating some cheerios my son decided he did not like the cup they were in, and proceeded to kick the cup across the room. Bad news…he got in a fair bit of trouble; good news…he may have a future in the NFL as a field goal kicker 😉
Breakfast throughout this fiasco consisted of a hard boiled egg. For lunch I took my wife and mother in law out to a mexican joint with the kids. Had a steak and grilled veggies…it was quite tasty. They are awesome and don’t mind me asking tons of questions about how EXACTLY they are cooking my food! For dinner we ate over at our neighbors house. It is quickly becoming a sunday tradition to eat over there while all the kids play in their pool. I make the main dish, she makes the sides. Of course they are also Paleo followers so it makes the whole thing great. Tonight for the main dish I made a Sous Vide Brisket that I cooked for 48 hours. This is what it looks like when you take it out.
Once out of the bag and completely dried, it’s time to hit the smoking hot cast iron skillet to brown on all sides. I put the skillet on high and let it heat up for 10 minutes so that it’s crazy hot. The results are always amazing.
My neighbor whipped up a few sides of roasted asparagus which were amazing, and the Pesto Spaghetti squash from the Make it Paleo cookbook. We all agreed that this side dish was the winner of the night. Absolutely amazing job by Kathryn on the sides again tonight!
Another great weekend has come to an end. Looking forward to a good week, and for the weekend. This saturday will be my wife and I’s first venture to our local Alexandria CrossFit. It’s about time we get more serious about our physical fitness…and we are ready to go! Hope everyone had a good weekend, and all the mothers had a good mother’s day!
Another day down, and all is well! Breakfast consisted of a handful of nuts as I ran out the door. Went out to lunch with my wife and kids and I ordered a diet coke as usual. My wife looked kind of funny at me and asked if I realized I had ordered one! I had to send it back and get my water…total habit! For lunch I had some chicken and a side of fruit. For dinner tonight I was excited to try out the first of our grassfed beef shipment we got in yesterday! I decided to go simple and cooked up some hamburger steaks. To complete the Umami fest I fried up some freerange eggs I also picked up from Butterfield Farms along with some enoki mushrooms from the store. Man…talk about good!
Big day tomorrow…I teach my first Sunday School Lesson at church…wish me luck!
-E
Day 5 is done! Finally had a pretty relaxed day at work and was able to work on some things at the house. We’ll start with the food happenings of the day, which were pretty basic. Breakfast consisted of a few slices of roast beef and an egg. I had to rush through lunch, and had enough time to hit the grocery by my office for some strawberries, and avocado, and some left over chicken from the house. We had some dear friends over for dinner and I cooked up an awesome sous vide pork loin that was amazingly tender. It’s so nice to be able to enjoy the pork medium/medium rare while knowing it is safe by cooking it long enough in the sous vide to pasteurize it! On the side I roasted up both a butternut squash and an acorn squash. Good food and good fun was shared all around.
The other exciting happening of the day was picking up our first order of grassfed beef from our new friends John and Tina Butterfield at their family run Butterfield Farms in Pollack, LA.
We ordered one share of beef which equals 1/4 of the cow, coming in at just under 80 pounds. I was like a kid in a candy store moving individual vacuum packed cuts from the boxes into our freezer. The variety in the cuts was exciting, and I can’t wait to cook some up tomorrow for our first try. I’m thinking I may go simple with hamburger patties topped with some farm fresh Butterfield Farms fried eggs! I’ll be sure to post some pictures of what I come up with.
I have to say, I had a great day today. Talked to quite a few patients about changing their lives with a Paleo lifestyle, met some very nice new people dedicated to getting the best meat put on our family’s table, and finished it off with a great dinner with friends. Ate clean, drank clean, and now I’m gonna sleep clean! Hope you all had a great day as well 🙂
Day 4 down, I’m getting more used to this! For breakfast I managed just a handful of almonds because I was on the go early this morning. For lunch I had some chicken…pretty ho hum. I got home for dinner and pulled out some pork ribs from my Sous Vide. Around the time I pulled them out I got called by the ER to admit a lady with a possible stroke. I quickly finished the ribs off on the grill and scarfed a few down. As SOON as I got back from the ER, the other ER called me with a lady having a dangerously low heart rate. Went and admitted her, probably getting a pacemaker tomorrow. Got home exhausted, hoping my night gets a little calmer! I took down a few dried pears and I guess I’ll call it a night. Nothing exciting today, no pictures, just tired! Pork loin for tomorrow is in the Sous Vide, I’ll take pictures and post! Along with some roasted butternut squash and a side salad. Can’t wait for the weekend…
So, Whole 30 day three has come and gone! For breakfast I had a hard boiled egg and two dried figs. I ate an early lunch at the office of left over sous vide carnitas and roasted acorn squash.
This evening when I got home I eagarly fished out my beef brisket that I put into my Sous Vide 48 hours ago. It looked amazing straight out of the bag, but it went out of the park after a quick sear in my cast iron skillet. It was abasolutely the best brisket I have ever had, and I lived in Texas for four years in college! It was moist as can be unlike most traditional briskets. This meal will quickly be at the top of our weekly standards! It was a good as it looks.
Every day so far has been easier than the day before. I’m finally getting used to drinking water, and I got through half a mug of black coffee today before I gave up…definite progress! We normally get tons of “goodies” at the office from companies and pharm reps, but today was exceptional. Three boxes of hot donuts on arrival, lunch from a chinese place, and hot, made to order Otis Spunkmeyer cookies! Darn those people! I actually don’t miss any of it at all, especially when I see the others suffering their GI distress in the face of four cookies or MSG laden Chinese food. I ate my carnitas (which were better than anyone else’s lunch) and went on my merry way. Since going Paleo a little under a year ago, I have not eaten ONE sweet brought to our office, and that is saying something. It’s sooooo nice to feel good! Catch ya’ll tomorrow.
-E
PaleoHikerMD 