!Grains

As an experiment a couple months ago I decided to forego both Gluten (wheat) and Dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt). I wanted to minimize the downtime I experience from feeling sluggish during the day for no-apparent-reason. I've heard anecdotal evidence from many sources about how Dairy in particular can be terrible on your system in many non-obvious ways. Gluten is the common second offender.

I did, in fact, mostly eliminate periods of unexplained sluggishness, although this change also coincided with Springtime, confounding any ability on my part to add to the body of anecdotal evidence.

In Chicago, this sort of experiment was looked on as truly bizarre while, upon my return to California, I was greeted with a "Are you going Paleo?" from my sister. Not only is the no-gluten no-dairy experiment popular here but, because of my novel footware, it was supposed that I had been attempting another even grander experiment, that of the Paleolithic diet.

I, as you gentle reader, was confused at the question as I had no idea what "Paleo" was at the time. The idea is that you eat those things that your body was designed to during it's Paleolithic evolutionary adolescence: vegetables, meats, nuts and berries while shirking those ultra-modern luxuries of cooked grains and dairy. Apparently, the pop-culture website devoted to it (and health foods company conveniently) has a proprietor who also rocks Five-Finger shoes as Paleolithic alternative to you modernites call "shoes."

My other sister at the time had given up grains and so it sounded like an interesting challenge.

With the exception of the occasional corn tortilla and pinto bean taco (I still have pounds of this in my freezer) I'm now eating mainly fish and vegetables and nuts. It has really forced me out of my old routine (oats, corn tortillas, beans) and I've been finding a number of good foods as a result. It has also found great synergy with my discovery that I actually like fish (hated it as a kid). I doubt that this will continue for long but I'll have found some new foods and, at the moment at least, I'm filled with energy.

And so that's what happens when I move from Chicago to Berkeley. I change from appearing truly outlandish to realizing that I need to step my hippieism up a notch.