Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

The start of another year full of hope and promise, another year to live in health and happiness.

I think you're all ready to fly and so, I won't be updating this site any more.

You'll find more than enough inspiration here to go your own way in ancestral eating and primal health, but here's what I've come to:

1. Eat real and whole food; all of it!
2. Engage in meaningful and social activity
3. Rest naturally and take time to just potter
4. Avoid dogma, charlatans and those who monetise health
5. Hone your own instincts and learn to trust them

Notice

Content republishers please take note.

I do not want to see my posts here in Top 10 this, that or the other articles on your websites. I am not interested in monetising health, I am not interested your "link love", I am not interested in my SEO ranking and I am not interested in traffic. Go jump on the next bandwagon, eh? Folks can find this site for themselves.

I find the monetisation of health quite abhorrent.

Non-profit bloggers, feel free.

I am not interested in social media. You won't find me tweeting, nor will you find me on any of the usual social media enterprises - I think it's all completely pointless and an utter waste of time, effort and resources, sapping energy and in the end counter-productive to real health.

Fin

In a word: So long, and thanks for all the fish ...

Guilty Pleasure ... Doritos, Cheese & Guac!

Fuck it all, Friday night!

It's hot, work was hard, here's to a weekend of fun, frivolity and relaxation, and what better than a few slugs of Tequila and a face full of fun?

Bag of Chilli Heatwave Doritos, grated Mexicana cheese, grill, serve out with bowls of guac.

Paleo? Not even close! Ancestral, barely! Worthy of a post here? Abso-fucking-lutely!

Seafood Supper [Scraping the Barrel]

Supplies are dwindling ...

Not by any mean twist of fate but simply because I've not been shopping. I keep in a number of "store cupboard" ingredients, but in the main we eat fresh and local, which means if we've not been hunting and gathering we don't have a lot of food available.

Still, with limited options, a little imagination and a creative flair, it is entirely possible to come up with a good, nutritional and attractive dinner.

The thing is, ancestral eating is simple ...

No recipes, no weighing, no measuring, just a case of putting good food together with minimal cooking and you're done! Great meals make themselves if you keep local, keep seasonal and keep organic.

Make the dish look appealing to you. Make the dish flavoursome and full of the things that you enjoy. Brave a combination that you've not tried before. Take snaps and show everyone what you enjoy eating, encouraging them to perhaps try something new.

When supplies dwindle, be imaginative, be creative and spark your inner caveman who met this regularly.

I do need to go shopping, though ...

Starter

Not quite having enough to call a full meal for the main course, I made up a little starter of boiled egg, some leftover brown crab meat, a tiny amount of leftover mashed potato, tomato, cucumber and various pickles, finishing off the fresh basil and the last of the salad ingredients.

Main Course

Oven cooked pollock, defrosted, emptying the freezer and finishing off the last of the fresh herbs; steamed carrots, leeks and tenderstem broccoli, emptying the vegetable drawer. Vegetables tossed in olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar to finish the dish.

Nothing left now other than a cupboard of spices, some cheese, a couple of jars of pickled, half a bag of rice noodles, a can of pilchards and two jars of caviar! I must go shopping ...

Nah! I can make another meal out of that lot!

No, I'll go shopping ...

Paleo Renegade ... Recap

Three months on with a 'Renegade Diet' inspired eating regime ...

Feast on a great evening meal
Fast for 16 hours
Begin a period of easy eating: light protein and fat but little carbohydrate
Begin a period of feasting: pretty much whatever macronutrient ratio you like for evening meal

With an ancestral context, that fits very well with what Cordain spoke of regarding food timing and availability during the day.

Upon waking, we have a scratch, a piss and walk around, picking over the leftovers from last night's feast ... which, no, there isn't any since the dogs gnawed on what we left last night.

So, as the new dawn fades and the day yawns before us, we head off to work ... today, to the office, factory, farm, wherever, ancestrally, out into our land to hunt and gather.

During the day, we might happen to cross a stream, spear a few little fish, pick a few rock dwellers from seaside pools, catch a small animal, pick a few berries, that sort of thing, and so ... maybe around noon you're ready for a little light lunch.

Back to the camp late afternoon with the spoils of the day, in modern terms, the money we've just earned to pay for the things we've got stored away in our cupboards, fridges and freezers; an evening meal for the family to be the focal point. Now we can eat something starchy.

Well, as a recap, I don't seem to have gained or lost any weight other than the usual loss of a couple of inches around the waist that I get this time of year - lean for spring, bulked for winter - but I think that's perfectly natural and absolutely evolutionarily accordant for a northern European.

I do feel great! I never really went in for breakfast, but now I absolutely enjoy my lunches, certainly with no heavy carbohydrate and never feel pogged, sluggish or dull in the afternoon and always hit dinner without any sense of already feeling full and having to go through the motions, ending up feeling even more pogged.

Mrs does like something upon waking and so some yoghurt and berries does her well.

Here's a couple more lunches ...

... I love this format!

Spring has Sprung!

The vernal equinox is upon us, but we don't need all that clever science to tell us that spring is upon us!

The weather is getting milder, the days feel longer, all manner of new things are growing and there's hope in the air ... hope for the new year and a bountiful one to come.

Wild garlic is the one natural phenomena that tells me spring is upon us. Walking through the hills, valleys and woods, suddenly in the still a single aroma permeates through everything ... garlic!

It is truly magical when that moment happens and upon looking round, there it is ... all around ... wild garlic!

And so, I know that spring is upon us and the cycle will start again, bringing us promise of seasonal produce and the magical combinations that are made possible only by nature, within nature. What grows together goes together ...

I've been writing this blog for three years now.

Three years since taking up a paleo diet, for the reset, and then maintaining an ancestral approach to nutrition. I have shunned "science" largely since I don't believe it - every time science comes up with something, it will disprove itself in a few years; no, what I follow is a natural sense of order.

If we've been doing the same thing for 2.5 million years then it's pretty certain that is the right thing to do. Changes to that which have come about in the last 25 years, 100 years, 2,000 years, 10,000 years, well, there is good to be taken from it, but largely those changes stand to re-affirm that what we've been doing for 2.5 million years of existence is largely right.

Where it is not right is almost certainly down to us not being in accordance with our evolutionary past. Nutrition is one third of an almost holy trinity of work, play and replenish.

Work is good. What we work at nowadays has its drawbacks and those of us who sit in an office for a third of the day might well look at folks who do manual work and feel jealous, and it is a sad fact that renumeration is often inversely proportionate to the action amount of use, or good, that a person's labour produces. That said, work is good ... dive in, do what you do well, put all your efforts into it, enjoy it, ensure those who you encounter, deal with, make deals for, undertake activity on behalf of, all those people - ensure that all those people enjoy your efforts. Delight them! Savour it and never get sour about who might be benefitting from what it is that you're putting in - you're winning! You win by living life well, working hard, playing hard and replenishing.

Play is good, and I will include rest in here, too. We've worked, we've worked hard and given it everything. Now play! Go out for a walk with your partner, your family, take the dog, take the cat if you can slip a lead onto it. Take a bottle, take a little food, enjoy a sit down, look at the views, watch the skies, watch the sun set. Play, be restful in your play, be competitive in your play, be collaborative in your play.

Replenish. This also includes sleep. Nutrition is largely what this blog is about, but sleep is so important especially to combat the ills of modern life. Make your bedroom your cave - remove all technology and place an alarm clock just outside the bedroom so that you're not intruded upon by time, but can still wake, rise and get up when you need to. Blackout curtains, sound-proofing, peace and quite; all paramount.

I've written this blog for three years ... I said that, already.

In that time I have seen "paleo" change, first on fats, then on dairy, then on starches, then on legumes, and you might be wondering what's left of "paleo" if we now enjoy saturated fats, fatty meats, good dairy, simple starches like potato and rice, even properly prepared legumes; what's left?

Well, everything, actually. Paleo is about so much more than simple nutrition - your lifestyle, your approach, your mindset, work, play and replenishment timing, and that's something I've been playing with for a while and have come up with what works for me: close to the Renegade Diet, certainly close to 'Eat Like a Predator' and very much akin to Cordain's musings on food timing.

Eat in the evening. Eat well, eat to fullness, perhaps overeat, perhaps not. Eat protein, fat and carbohydrate. Whenever you finish eating, give is a 16 hour break until you eat again. In our hunter/gatherer past, the day was spent collecting and hunting for the evening feast. Leftovers, if any, might have been nibbled at in the morning, but for the most part "breakfast" would not come until later in the day when crossing a stream and spearing a fish to eat or grabbing a handful of wild berries. You get my drift. So, come lunchtime, noon, maybe one o'clock, that is the time to break the fast and eat something simple - protein, a fish, a piece of chicken, an egg, perhaps some cottage cheese or some yoghurt and berries. Then comes the feast in the evening. This is working well for me and working well for my wife, although she likes a mid-morning "breakfast" of good, natural yoghurt and berries, lunch around one o'clock.

I've written this blog for three years ... I'm sure I've said that, already.

I don't do things traditionally, in fact I do, but that is a point of semantics. I don't "do" recipes. I don't do recipes for a reason and yes, it frustrates, but the whole point is, learn. Learn to cook, learn to know seasonality, learn to find the best reared or grown food, learn how they fit together, experiment, try new things, most of all don't follow recipes. Recipes constrain.

One of the earliest recipe books that I know of is the 'The Forme of Cury', a 14th Century English cook book. Let's look at an example recipe, one which I love: Loseyne, proving that Lasagne is actually English ...

"Take gode broth and do in an erthen pot, take flour of payndemayn and make therof past with water. and make therof thynne foyles as paper with a roller, drye it harde and seeth it in broth take Chese ruayn grated and lay it in disshes with powdour douce. and lay theron loseyns isode as hoole as thou mizt and above powdour and chese, and so twyse or thryse, & serue it forth."

So, flour sheets, cheese and something between them ...

No table of ingredients, no dictated and numbered method, just a description of the food and how to put it together. Sound familiar? Why, thank you! Yes, you spotted it - just like I write. I do this for the single reason that I don't want to constrain you to my list of availabilities, skills and equipment. I set out what I did and hope to inspire.

I've written this blog for three years ...

From here, I think I'll probably do things a little different and just post up what it is I'm eating. I might add some dialogue, but don't expect recipes and method. Don't expect them because they are not useful; useful is learning how to cook instinctively, inspirationally and enjoying the hell out of what it is you've cooked.

Recipes are a construct of modern cooking and are anathema to ancestral eating. Recipes exist because modern food and modern cooking is so uniform ... and mundane. Imagine writing "175C for three hours" in 'The Forme of Cury' for Cooks who were cooking on open fires in ovens that had no standard whatsoever. It would not make sense and does not make sense for the ancestral Cook. I capitalise Cook, since it is a proper noun - use it and never be ashamed. Chefs train for years in tradition; Cooks know instinctively what to do with leftovers.

The ancestral Cook knows that some protein and some vegetables make a meal. It does not get more complicated than that and there are three key cooking methods that the ancestral Cook needs to know about: frying, steaming and stewing.

Steam veggies, steam fish. Fry meat, fry fish, fry organs, fry some veggies. Stew meat and organs.

That is all you need to know, but what you need to learn is which of each is best with each of those cooking methods, all of which are possible over an open fire outside. If a caveman could do it, surely we can, and that is why I reject recipe ingredient and method dogma, giving only "here's what I cooked and what I threw in with it", sometimes why.

I've written this blog for three years and I will carry on writing it - this is my blog, my adventure, my food, my life. As the years roll by and the seasons push through, you'll see some familiar food coming through, but that is the point - the wheel of life pushes ever on and in that comes repetition; repetition because of seasonality and availability. Embrace it and love it!

I will certainly come up with new ideas, fresh inspiration and take time to set that out here at 'Living in the Ice Age'.

Spring is upon us, the new year has dawned. Have another great year, folks. I do hope to hear from you, so don't be shy and drop your thoughts, ideas and comments into the form at the bottom of every post I make.

Work, play and replenish, folks.

Proper Primal Peck [Paleo Renegade]

I'm not absolutely sure what led to what and had me reading about the Renegade Diet since I hate the notion of Diets (capitalised) but The Renegade Diet appears on the face of it to be something very familiar to paleo, primal and generally ancestral eaters and very close to something I wrote about here, inspired by Cordain's notion of ancestral food timing.

It's a framework, like the Primal Blueprint, incorporating eat, sleep, work and fast.

The foundation appears to be a long fast of 16 hours. Once you've eaten in the evening, fast for 16 hours. I tend to eat around half seven, or so, and be done by eight, so sixteen hours later takes me to noon the following day ... about the very time that I like a light lunch ... like this.

The Renegade Diet breaks the fast ("breakfast"?) at this point and begins a period of "undereating" with light, easily digestible foods mostly protein and fat: white fish, yoghurt, avocado, vegetables ... sound familiar? Four hours. Carbs are okay, but keep 'em low ... small amounts, say, from berries. Again, hunter/gatherer-style. After that four hour period, a new period of "overeating" comes into play, during which we're to feast. Carbs are in, from simple sources like root vegetables.

I have not read the eBook which you can go and find for yourself, but on the face of it this all seems very familiar and something I came to myself through ancestral eating - notably, Cordain, but through Sissons, too.

Furthermore, this is exactly what J Stanton is talking about in his excellent (and free) guide to practical ancestral eating: Eat Like a Predator.

Beyond how and when to eat, J gives us a simple guide about what to eat: "foods that can be picked, dug up or speared ... mostly speared" ... and so, my lunch is fruits like avocado and tomato, that can be picked, meats or fish, usually fish, eggs, and keep the things I can dig up for my evening meal.

Cordain's notion is borne out here; that the main meal of an ancestral human's day would have been early evening, breakfast skipped, scraps of leftovers at most and small items that could readily be grabbed or quickly speared and gobbled down during the day - a fish, a lizard, a small mammal, an item of fruit, a handful of greens.

Summary? Skip breakfast, enjoy a light, protein and fat orientated lunch, feast in the evening! As J would say, "Eat like a predator ... fast ... and gorge; prey graze".

Fish & Chips

Fencing night ...

I need a quick, easy meal, earlier on and so tonight, we like to have Fish & Chips from our local Chippy.

Fish & Chips are an institution in Britain and not at all the junk food you might think, so long as a few observations are made.

First, and probably most important, is the batter. Batter is made from milk and flour. Wheat flour. We absolutely know how bad for us wheat flour is, but this is a one-off, so it's alright, right? No! Actually, this is quite a regular one-off, so caution is needed, especially for folks who show an intolerance to wheat.

Interestingly, batter was originally intended to be discarded. Batter protects the fish from the intense heat of the fat and should be cracked open, the fish eaten and the batter ignored. That's how we do it.

Second, fats. So many Chippies now use so-called healthy fats which have poor resistance to oxidisation when heated. Luckily, our local uses beef dripping and only beef dripping, proudly displaying this behind the counter.

Dripping is traditional, and it's great to see that here in the north, particularly, this tradition is being upheld.

So, we have good fat, some slow-releasing carbs to fuel the evening's activity and a great pack of protein. It's a good meal by any standard. You know what? I'm going to have a can of D&B with it!

Best of all ...

Our local bags up all the fish scraps, tail-ends and so on to see at cat food. Three bags for a quid! Each bag over a pound in weight. Our kitten absolutely loves it! I say kitten, he is, he's just over nine months old, but just shy of 10 pounds and measured half an inch short of three feet!

He gives us a sound reminder to Eat Like a Predator.

Right! Off to go stab some friends ...

Cod & Parsley Sauce

Classic British, simple and homely.

Cod & Parsley Sauce is a really quick meal to put together, especially if you're simply re-heating leftover vegetables, but here goes ...

For the sauce, you'll need raw or A2 cow milk, cream, onion, parsley, white pepper and sea salt; cod, naturally; vegetables.

Gently simmer a roughly chopped onion in milk for a few minutes, drain off and return the milk to the pan. You could have poached your fish in the liquor, but I fancied fried tonight. Raise the heat and reduce, adding in double cream to help thicken and a good handul of curly parsley.

Meanwhile, prepare your vegetables.

Finally, in a heavy based skillet, soften some butter and fry off your cod steaks. They'll take maybe five minutes each side and once flipped, lower the heat.

Put it all together on a plate and you've got dinner sorted. Eat, enjoy, go about your evening.

Dairy

Anathema to the paleo lifestyle?

Not necessarily! It's about sourcing the right kind of dairy ...

Lactose intolerance aside, there is the secondary issue of A1 beta casein; a protein which has been implicated as a potential factor in diabetes mellitus, ischaemic heart disease and also as a modifier of behavioural symptoms associated with some neurological conditions such as autism.

You will find that most of the cow milk that you encounter will be A1 type, from Fresian and Holsten breeds representing the majority of milk cows in Europe, the US and Australia. A2 type milk can readily be had from other species:  sheep, goat, reindeer, buffalo; but there is hope for cow milk: Guernsey and Jersey breeds carry a very high incidence of A2 type milk.

For real world eating, fermented and fatty dairy is safest from cow milk. My sauce was made from Jersey milk and double cream, which is something like 50% fat; 48%, apparently.

That said, do consider dairy sources other than cow ...

Goat milk, for instance, has a number of advantages over cow milk: lacking in agglutinin, naturally homogenised, greater concentration of digestive-friendly medium chain triglycerides, significantly lower levels of allergenic S1 alpha casein proteins and higher in all manner of vitamins and minerals including B2, B6 and A, niacin, calcium and protein.

Moreover, rather than minimising the negatives by sourcing the best cow dairy, goat dairy can be considered to be actually positive, even healing for all manner of digestive disorders and thereafter promoting healthy digestion. Sheep dairy is practically identical to goat so sheep products should also be considered, along with buffalo. Mozzarella, anyone?

... an interesting aside.

Happy New Year!

While a new dawn fades ...

I had a half-cooked post around resolutions, lifestyle changes, dry January and all that, but J over at gnolls.org said is so much more elegantly: Will You Go On A Diet, or Will You Change Your Life?

That, and walk more.

I have no resolutions to make, only to carry on what I am doing and to that end I'll carry on posting here, but you will see a huge simplicity.

What we eat will go through cycles of really simple, easy food which might look very uninteresting, but I'll post it anyway - it might spark some interest, be the point of inception for a phase of interest and so a more interesting post might arise out of it.

Mundane? Actually, no. Just run of the mill ...

Once again, I'll reiterate that this is my food blog; what I eat. Ancestral in focus, I'm not dogmatic - paleo, paleo+, primal, whatever the label, it's not a religion. In fact, I'm quite relaxed and hopefully you'll see that 80/20 split and not just focus on "that's not paleo".

But, if you're looking for recipes, you'll be disappointed. Here's why I don't "do" recipes. Ancestral eating is not about following recipes, but simply putting real food together, eating, enjoying and living.

Let ingredients be your inspiration, your mantra being "take real foods and put them together"

Let nature be your personal shopper, your mantra being "eat local, seasonal and organic"

Happy New Year! Have a great one ...

Why I don't "do" recipes ...

I don't "do" recipes.

Recipes constrain ...

Recipes force a lack of imagination with ingredients and steer the Cook away from inventive action during the cooking.

As ancestral eaters, we are intelligent, inventive and experimental. We understand that food sources are seasonal, regional and often limited in availability. Furthermore, our template might permit some foods which other ancestral eaters will not.

When we cook, we get to know our ingredients. I said "get to know", since often we can be cooking for the first time with a new ingredient and have no idea how it will turn out. All those flavours that we put into our ingredients to make a meal should be done on the fly - adapt to taste.

Do not constrain yourself with a recipe.

What if ...

What if you did not have something listed in the ingredients? What if the ingredients list something you will not eat? What if the method requires a gadget or a means of cooking that you do not have?

Will you ever be able to make the dish? You can, through substitution - use a different ingredient or gadget or means of cooking.

You could be making a classic dish, yet find several recipes that list different ingredients, different cooking times and look quite different to each other? Will you ever be able to make the dish? Often recipes conflict, but you read between the lines and form your own opinion on the matter.

Almost immediately, we've rendered the recipe useless since we are not adhering to it. Consider whether you needed the recipe to being with.

Do not constrain yourself with a recipe.

Recipes are merely a guide ...

Furthermore, the means by which we gain knowledge around cooking has changed. The traditional recipe book has been subsumed by the TV programme - a Chef will walk through a dish from start to finish and talk about the food they are cooking as they go.

... that is where I'm coming from.

What you see here, what you read here is quite literally what I did. It is utterly pointless to list ingredients from the outset, but from the picture and the ramble, you'll get a sense of the dish ... upon which you'll base your decisions around the ingredients you want to put in and how you want to cook them.

In all seriousness, does anyone assemble, verbatim, all the ingredients onto the work surface and follow the step-by-step method?

You might if you're not a confident cook, or perhaps doing some baking where weights and measures really do count. But, we're ancestral eaters, so the latter is out and the former is something that you really can do something about.

Do not constrain yourself with a recipe.

You can be a confident cook ...

Ancestral eating does not require weights and measures. I have to use the phrase, but what did Grok do?

Our archetypal ice age fellow would have taken whatever food sources were present and available to him, and eat them. Today, we cook meals, but the principle remains: take real foods and put them together. Confidently.

You really cannot get it wrong. Cook something, put fruit alongside. Forget to cook something and eat it raw with the rest of the meal. Enjoy those first looks in the fridge, discovering something that you need to use up and take your dishes in a random direction. Savour those last minute brainwaves where you suddenly see something that you think would work.

For the most part, cook meat very little or for a long time. Fish, fry off until opaque throughout or steam for a mere few minutes. Vegetables rarely need more than a few minutes steaming or boiling and try to err on the undercooked side - if you're waiting for meat or fish, veggies can always be re-warmed in a frying pan, "wet up" with a little fat.

Do not constrain yourself with a recipe.

Weights and measures? Don't!

As ancestral eaters, we do things differently. Our intake ratios are quite different, we rely more on fat energy, we might eat more since we are active, we might eat less since we are not being undermined by grains and beans which make nutrients bio-unavailable.

We should eat sufficient. We do not snack, so our mealtimes are when we replenish ourselves and prime ourselves for the period until we eat next. If we are hungry in between, we might eat earlier or might eat more. Over even a short period, we understand how much we need to eat, and that is our only measure.

Don't weigh and don't measure - cook sufficient and enjoy leftovers. Enjoy leftovers for breakfast, or as the foundation for a new dish, sparked by your imagination.

Do not constrain yourself with a recipe.

Use your imagination and encourage creativity ...

The first bite is with the eyes. Attractive dishes are the product of imagination and creativity. There is no set definition of an "attractive" dish - put your meals together in a way that YOU think is attractive. Surprise your partner, your family, your friends with something pretty, something daring, something fun ... yes, food can be witty!

Do not constrain yourself with a recipe.

Lean to love food ...

Understand food. Understand which ingredients work well together and then get outside the guidelines. Remember your favourite combinations, tastes and textures. Understand flavour as distinct from taste - the spices, herbs and umami that enhances and amplifies taste.

Experiment. Always try out new things, be it a new ingredient or a new combination. Be inventive. Enjoy what you cook but moreover, enjoy cooking.

Let ingredients be your inspiration, your mantra being "take real foods and put them together".

Let nature be your personal shopper, your mantra being "eat local, seasonal and organic".

There is an abundance in meat, shell/fish, eggs, veggies and fruits.

I challenge you to never eat the same meal again. Ever!

Cottage Cheese & Samphire Salad

Bloody Hell! Where's the meat ... or fish?

Yeah, some days you just fancy something very light and very simple. Truth be told, I'd not got anything defrosted. My bad.

Anyway ...

In the absence of fish or meat, dairy provides a good protein and carb balance, and from good sources it's not at all bad.

I guess dairy was kicked out of the initial definition due to perceived intolerances by most of the population that was being considered. Once Paleo went global, huge and vast portions of the world showed themselves not to be intolerant, and even the scope of dairy opened up - sheep, goat, reindeer, buffalo; and huge and vast portions of the world showed that dairy was simply not an issue.

If you are not lactose intolerance, carry on ...

<soapbox>

Lactose intolerance aside, there is the secondary issue of A1 beta casein; a protein has been implicated as a potential factor in diabetes mellitus, ischaemic heart disease and also as a modifier of behavioural symptoms associated with some neurological conditions such as autism.

You will find that most of the cow milk that you encounter will be A1 type, from Fresian and Holsten breeds representing the majority of milk cows in Europe, the US and Australia. A2 type milk can readily be had from other species:  sheep, goat, reindeer, buffalo; but there is hope for cow milk: Guernsey and Jersey breeds carry a very high incidence of A2 type milk.

For real world eating, fermented and fatty dairy is safest from cow milk and many ancestral eaters are happy to include them in their diet, myself very much included.

</soapbox>

Here, Cottage Cheese, a curd cheese made from setting milk with rennet.

That's the cheese ... simply spoon over some samphire which has been immersed in boiling water and retrieved quickly. Nutritionally, samphire is packed with goodness - strong in iodine and in vitamins A, C, B2 and B15, amino acids and minerals, such as iron, calcium and particularly magnesium.

Chop some salad ingredients over: tomato, cucumber and chilli.

Garnish with boiled egg slices.

So, presenting a light, vegetarian and ancestrally-focussed dish: Cottage Cheese & Samphire Salad

Paleo Pussy!

No! No on both counts ...

You're not going to see some cavegirl porn, nor am I going to show you how to prep and cook a cat. No.

We are going to consider our pets, though: dogs, cats, rabbits, mice, whatever it is that we keep as pets.

Me? Cats. We have three. Two older cats around 15 years old now, both from the same litter, brother and sister, and a new lad who is somewhere between three and four months old and rapidly becoming "the boss"!

Cats are predators.

Our older cats have been raised as many do, on cat food, tinned and dry. Cat food is, itself, disgusting and when you look at the ingredients you see that only something like 4% of the food is actually meat, the rest filler - rusk, often.

Cats are predators.

Cats have no need for or taste for vegetables. Cats eat meat. Left to their own devices, they hunt - they catch mice, rats, rabbits, voles, whatever they can.

When we got our new kitten he had digestive distress which manifested itself as loose stools and a mess to clean up, especially on him being a long hair. No, that was not fun ... not for him, or for me.

Knowing the principals of paleo eating, I spent some time looking at the ingredients in the food that was on offer for cats. It is possible to buy "good" cat food, and the food we give the little one is tins of mostly fish and some simple starch (tapioca), a good ratio; likewise, the dry food is 80% meat.

The older cats are also transitioning to this new food, which they are wolfing down where otherwise they'd be pretty unimpressed with the regular offering.

As if I needed to say, the kitten is now well beyond his digestive issues, now eating good, real food suited to his evolutionary needs.

Can we do better?

We can, actually. We could feed our pets meat, every day. Alas, my income does not stretch to that and when we're eating cheaper sources to make ends meet, the cats don't get ideal ... but do get the best we can afford.

Can we do better?

Fish!

Today's fish is Trout a la Creme ...

Yes! Our local Chippy (colloquial term for Fish & Chip shop) bags up all the tail ends of the fish and sells them 3 bags for £1, each bag being around a kilo. That's around three kilos of fish for £1.

Incidentally, our local Chippy fries in beef dripping, a tradition that is held dear to fryers in the north of England, and an establishment that I am happy to patronise because of this. Chips are great for days when we are very active, the fish, yes fried in flour batter can simply be cracked open and the fish eaten, batter discarded.

Back to this fish ...

Defrost and sort through. These are the tails from fish that are battered and fried for humans, collected up, bagged and frozen. They're fresh and they have very few bones in, not that a cat would have an issue avoiding the bones, but the little one ... well, all of them ... wolf the food down so quick, I'd hate for them to get caught on a bone, so I simply slice the bones out and they eat the rest.

Happy cats indeed!

Beyond this, I am actively encouraging scavenging, an activity that is evolutionarily accordant for our young mog. Trying to pinch our food, begging for scraps and being treated to occasional (okay, regular) pieces of meat and fish thrown to him whenever I'm in the fridge.

The older cats also get the scraps, but they're not too bothered. They like to chill out, which generally means the kitten gets their scraps.

Here's my little kitten lying here purring away as I type.

Food for thought ...

www.livingintheiceage.co.uk

Yes, www.livingintheiceage.co.uk ...

I've moved the site up to a top-level domain of its own. Migration is now completed and hopefully you didn't notice the change, but do take a second just to update your bookmarks.

Any links back to the old domain will continue to work, but will be redirected to the new domain ... even pages from the old domain will be redirected. You won't notice anything unless you look at the URL bar (where you type in the address) where you will see that the old domain has been automagically transmogrified into the new one!

What does this mean?

Well, nothing really. I'm not looking to make any major changes to how I do things; Living in the Ice Age will remain my personal adventure in ancestrally inspired eating.

More, soon ...

Breakfast ... Primally

I could make the time, I guess, but I prefer those few extra minutes of sleep over eating something ... I could be prepared and have something ready to grab and eat on the go, but prefer to simply continue my overnight ketosis and fast my way through to lunchtime where I enjoy a good salad.

I find myself a sharper person through the morning; more focussed.

Cordain maintains that our ancestors would not have eaten breakfast of the type and at the time that we do in the West, but if they did eat anything upon waking it would be leftovers from the meal the night before or whatever was easily obtainable in the immediate surroundings ... perhaps the morning lay of eggs?

Cordain encourages us to consider our meal frequency and timing, and places most emphasis upon the evening meal which should be the focus and provide tribal time. Lunch is simply food which is easily obtained while hunting and gathering, eaten on the go; small amounts.

So, fasting through breakfast, a light lunch and a good evening meal is the recommendation.

Weekends are different ...

No work to get up for, a more relaxed awakening and potentially a more active day ahead, breakfasting is something I "do" at the weekends ... and ... you guessed it, it's leftovers and eggs. Almost always.

Surplus poached chicken and leftover macerated salad served with avocado and cottage cheese:

Remainder of a packet of smoked salmon, fried leftover baked potato and leftover salads served with avocado and scrambled eggs:

Leftover chicken and peppers from a Friday meal of Chicken Fajitas served over spinach and some scrambled eggs alongside:

Leftover Chilli Con Carne with fried rice served on a banana pancake:

Surplus poached salmon served with leaves, bacon and a poached egg:

Leftover Curried Seafood Rice bulked out with some chopped lamb's liver and a boiled egg:

... you get the idea.

You don't need to think with leftovers ... just put them together with eggs and you have breakfast.

Beef Fillet Steak

Fuck all this fish! Some days, only a steak will do ...

Fillet steak, completely naturally reared, killed with captive bolt and absolutely gorgeous! I do miss meat.

I have been somewhat quiet about my move away from meat. You might well have noticed that I eat a lot of fish and maybe the lack of meat slipped by.

Well, there's a reason ...

Where I live, there is so much religious meat that is passed into the food chain unlabelled that I cannot ... almost ever ... tell whether the meat I am eating has been well slaughtered.

Well slaughtered? Yes! Rendered senseless, quickly, efficiently and irreversibly, prior to bleeding.

I don't apologise for bringing this right into your face. We are primal and paleo eaters and invest a lot of time and effort into ensuring that the meat we eat has been well reared - outdoor reared, naturally fed and free of anti-biotics and other modern intervention.

What about beyond that? What about how that animal is killed?

Humane slaughter might well be an oxymoron, because in the end the animal is dead, is food and is going to sustain our lives. Let's take a leaf out of our ancestors' book and consider that beast - we're going to hunt it down, kill it and now we're going to eat it.

No. We're not ...

We're going to let a slaughterman do it. Out of sight, out of mind and out of reach of our conscience. I'm not going to challenge you too hard, because that is not for everyone, but I would encourage you to look at some slaughterhouse videos and consider the plight of the animal that you are about to eat.

Slaughter is not pretty.

Slaughtering an animal should be done with reverence. It should be done quickly, efficiently and, I think, quietly.

Some months ago, I watched the video contained in Don Matesz' post: Human Slaughter ... a cow is killed, so be warned. I watched this video and yes, it affected me, but not in the way that Don intended, but it stopped me in my tracks.

The video is actually a very good example of how to slaughter an animal well - she is killed quickly, one bolt, done fast. Her rolling eyes, lolling tongue and her "what did you just do to me" expression is the reason you might be tearful, but actually, these are all signs that she has been rendered senseless. Irreversibly rendered senseless and without any way back. That is the key - she will not come round in a few minutes.

What struck me was to consider how the meat that I ate was killed and whether it was killed well.

I looked into it ...

... and I concluded that most often I could not tell how the animal was killed, particularly whether the animal was religiously slaughtered, without first rendering fully and irreversibly senseless. The animal might come round prior to slaughter, might not fully and painfully aware of the slaughter. Slaughter, not kill.

That turned me away from eating meat ...

If I could kill the animal myself, I could eat it. If I knew the death of the animal was done quickly and efficiently, by captive bolt, great! If the animal was shot - game, for example. Great! These are animals I could eat.

Religious meat? No thanks!*

Granted, some, perhaps most religious meat is killed in exactly the same way as non-religious meat, albeit with a rolling tape of prayers running, but some is not. The RSPCA have some really good information on this which you can look into yourself:

http://www.rspca.org.uk/allaboutanimals/farm/slaughter/factfile

Since, in the majority of cases without the full and proper information, I could not tell whether the meat I got was religious or otherwise ... I gave it up.

Thankfully, here in the UK we can get meat clearly labelled with both farm and slaughterhouse. Supermarket meat is not yet doing this routinely, but much of the meat I see at our local Farm Shops does. If not, the butcher there can look it up - you'll get the codes for the slaughterhouse, but little more information around methods of slaughter.

Contact those slaughterhouses and ask what their methods of slaughter are. They're all coded and you can look them up here:

http://www.tracingpaper.org.uk/foodtracer/abattoirs/

All meat can be traced through the whole system so the information is there. Learn your farmer and slaughterhouse codes ... keep a list of known good farmers and abattoirs in your wallet and ask to see the codes for any meat you might buy. UK only, of course. YMMV.

Meanwhile, if I can't tell ...

I'll stick to fish. Baltic and North Atlantic, naturally.

Oh, did I say? I loved this steak, so thank you to the farmer, the slaughterman and most importantly, the cow. You know I don't mean that lightly.

Best put that meat with good things: onion, mushroom, asparagus and potato.

* One for the '70s kids there. Remember 'Nuclear Power? No thanks!' slogans from the CND?

AnySharp: The World's Best Knife Sharpener

The World's Best Knife Sharpener

Bold. Very bold.

I have a sharpening steel, and like many, I was curious about what this device could bring to the table.

I also have a couple of favourite knives which would not sharpen with a steel and were in need of regrinding.

Before taking all my knives for regrinding (yes, after gaining a quote) I thought I'd give this little device a go, which I've had in mind to buy and try out for some time.

Very impressive, indeed!

It took my very blunt knives and put new edges back on them, honed up to razor sharp.

The tungsten carbide blades are set to 22 degrees, perfect for Western knives. Simply draw the blade through gently a couple of times and you're done! Blades in need of a new edge need a couple of strong pulls through, taking care to follow the blade shape and then a couple of times gently to perfect the edge.

The device fixes to just about anything with a really powerful suction cup. With two, you could probably scale buildings!

Once finished, simply use a fridge magnet to collect up all the metal filings.

Two downsides ... of sorts ...

• First, it is for Western knives only. It is not compatible with single edged Japanese knives.

• Second, real perfectionists will want to strop the blade, but the vast majority of us will simply not notice and enjoy the new found life in our knives.

Cost? Somewhere around £10 posted will get you one of these, available in blue or silver.

Highly advisable!

AnySharp make a "gift pack" for shy of £30 which will get you the sharpener in polished metal alloy body, lifetime guarantee and a tub to keep it in.

AnySharp also make a "plus" model which can sharpen scissors as well. Somewhere shy of £20 for this model, available in grey or carbon fibre.

I have an Amazon Associates account, so if you want to try one for yourself and give me a little percentage then please use one of the adverts below.

... and, don't worry. This is not the start of a trend to monetize Living in the Ice Age; simply, I am so impressed with this little device that I had to share.

Iceland, Nordic and ... OMG! How good is whale?

Fuck all this shit!*

I'm going Nordic.

Apologies ... no, I don't apologise ... I don't apologise for the passion.

I've just had a few wonderful days up in Iceland. I am so invigorated, changed, fired up, inspired ... whatever the phrase.

I'm into a new approach and I am so excited.

Living in the Ice Age just got Nordic ... proper Nordic! Actually, quite Celtic.

Hold onto your teeth! There's a Viking punch coming!

* Not all of it - it will still be ancestral in focus and paleo for the most part. I won't be extolling the virtues of muesli and rye bread just yet!

Lunchtime Salad

Lunches can often prove difficult - something portable, something that won't go off if withdrawn from the fridge in the morning and not eaten until noon, something which will not get boring after a while ...

Mark Sissons has his Two Minute Salad which he eats regularly. I have mine, which I have eaten pretty much every day for the last couple of years and not yet got bored of it, not one bit.

Here's my approach ...

• Base - any variety of lettuce, shredded, perhaps white cabbage, perhaps red cabbage, perhaps a mix. This is to make up the bulk of the dish, something to chew on and keep the whole thing moist. Very occasionally, salad potatoes might form the base.

• Protein - any protein will do, be it leftover meat, cooled and shredded, canned fish, flaked fish, shellfish, spicy chicken. This is the good part of the meal.

• Fat - fatty meats and oily fish are all well and good, but we can always do with a little more fat. An avocado cubed or sliced is always welcome, as it Salad Cream. I am quite happy using Heinz brand since here in the UK, the only offending ingredients are a touch of sugar and the oil - yes, those together make it wholly bad, but it's a condiment. Let's not get stressed, eh? Olive oil and avocado oil made into a vinaigrette to slosh over is another approach I often take.

• Interest - lettuce, salad cream and protein is all very well, but any dish can always do with some interest. I like pockets of interest around the dish - cubed cucumber, small tomatoes, radish, cubes of good cheese, olives, perhaps capers, pickled gherkin, pickled beetroot, pickled chillies ... the options are abundant.

• Garnish - garnish with a boiled egg. I don't need to say how good eggs are and all the wonderful micro-nutrients you get from them. Also, herbs and seeds. I have a jar of mixed seeds: flax, pumpkin and sunflower. Just a sprinkle over.

So, that's my approach. Here are some examples ...

Squid and flaked salmon.

Fresh mackerel.

Pickled herring over potato and havarti.

Crab and avocado.

Bacon and egg.

Anchovies with cottage cheese.

Prawn with beetroot dyed egg.

Spiced chicken.

Have fun and eat well!

What do YOU want?

Happy New Year!

Happy new year to all my readers, followers, fans and friends ... actually, you're all friends.

It's a new year and I'd like to make the best of the opportunity by asking you guys what you'd like to see, what you'd like to read and which way you'd like to see things progressing.

We all know that paleo is quite a loose description, some of us have one view, others, quite another, but we all hang together with something in the middle in mind.

Living in the Ice Age is an ancestral focussed food blog. I prepare, eat and enjoy real food, made from real ingredients.

I'd like this to be an open post ...

In the comments, pop up an idea, a request, a challenge ... I'll do my best to work it in and show you how I'd do it.

Also, if you're having difficulties, post up a question ... I'll do my best to help you out.

Fantasy Sea Bass (The Hunger Games)

Day six of seven days of fun with sea bass ...

Tonight is day six and ... a fantasy meal, since we've done a bunk! We've run away to Manchester to watch the Ballet!

'Sleeping Beauty' ... the English National Ballet ... and ... Manchester United are playing, which means we have absolutely no hope of finding anywhere at all inside the Manchester postcode area to eat, drink or relax before the ballet.

Thankfully, it's winter and we Brits have a love of continental markets.

We found one ... we ate potatoes, garlic mushrooms and some form of spicy chicken in a plastic box with a wooden spoon.

Score! That is a fucking score for us hunter/gatherers. I was banned from slaying the sad sods in the queue before us, banned from raising my voice and deploying my sharpened wit in the hope that the queue before us would melt away shaking their heads ... we had to sit it out.

We queued, we saw, we conquered!

We got some chow ...

So, day 6 ...

I was ... WAS ... going to make a hot and sour soup from sea bass, chilli, ginger, garlic, sea veg, asparagus, that kind of thing, but ... we wound up on the streets of Manchester, unable to eat at Gaucho, not pissed enough to eat at Bex Brasil and too clad in (irony) combats to drink at Revolucion Cuba!

I wish I'd stayed at home (to eat) ...

Except, the Ballet was absolutely excellent and every bit worth the trip to an overpopulated city the wrong side of the good hills (the Pennines) full of pissed revellers high on winter, Christmas and the football match, messing up my potential appreciation of good food, a fine city and almost ruining my love of a fine art played out by the English National Ballet.

Bravo! It was bloody good!

I hope you enjoyed my fantasy meal ... I hunted! I gathered! I enjoyed my evening ... and then followed the signs back to civilisation (east of the Pennines) which were wrong ...

We got home.

I drank some JD (you Yanks do one thing right!), watched the remake of 'The Omen' (you Yanks did this quite wrong) and had a good night's sleep.

Cheers, all ... maybe I'll make this evening's planned meal some day.