Kitchen Heaven or Kitchen Hell paleo diet-min

Kitchen Heaven or Kitchen Hell?

As I mentioned in my Paleo Pets post, I’m currently house sitting and looking after someone’s dogs

I always look in peoples shopping trolleys with interest, but living in someone else’s house offers such a unique insight into what people really eat. The pantry in the house I'm staying in could not be any further from mine. And I find it really sad.

Paleo-v-Sad-Pantry-kitchen heaven hell-min

Obviously fresh food was used up before they left, but even so, it appears that almost all of the families meals come from tins, packets and jars, with expiry dates far into the future and lists of ingredients I don’t recognise.

The kitchen counters are full of gadgets like toasters, popcorn makers and microwaves – all absent from my kitchen. Meanwhile gadgets that I rely on in my kitchen are no where to be seen – a blender for soup and sauces; weighing scales for trying out new recipes; a big stockpot for broths and a slow cooker are very evidently missing. Instead of measuring cups and a julienne peeler I've found a pizza cutting wheel and an ice cream scoop.

The pantry is filled with a fat fearing agenda. There are all sorts of fat-free, reduced fat and low-fat instant options. Even the olive oil is “light” – but of course the fat of choice appears to be canola oil. The spread options (for bread, I presume) are low fat margarines. There is a shelf full of cereals, all boasting some amazing health benefits (and lots of mention of wholegrains) on their packaging.

I've been really surprised to find the herbs and spices (of which I have a rather large, regularly refilled collection in my own kitchen) consists of just a packet of cooking salt and an unopened jar of black peppercorns. I suppose when you reheat and eat out of packets and jars, all the taste you need is provided for, by the unrecognisable ingredients listed on the packet. With some good meat or fish, vegetables and a handful of the Paleo ingredients I can use my herbs and spices to make literally hundreds of completely different meals, with far superior tastes to anything the packets could provide.

Water doesn't appear to be the drink of choice, judging by the collection of shockingly coloured cordial bottles and shelf of soft drinks bottles.

The other interesting comparison is in the cooking materials themselves. Plastic (for use in the microwave and for storing food) is in almost exclusive use, and most of the cookware is non-stick. I used to use this type of cookware too – until I started to replace my pots and pans with safer options.

Tellingly the kitchen also houses two medicine cupboards full of all sorts of medications. My medical supplies are housed in a small container and consist of paracetamol (not used this year as I just don’t get headaches any more), some old forgotten about inhalers (my asthma disappeared without trace a couple of years ago), some out of date antihistamines (my allergies have also disappeared) and some plasters (bandaids for any Americans in the house).

I can’t accept it takes too long to bother to prepare proper food, it definitely isn't more expensive than buying everything in packet form. I think for some people opening and reheating from a packet has just become a sad habit, that is hard to break.

The effort to buy low-fat and “healthy” cereals clearly indicates an desire to be healthy – it’s just sad that the intention has failed so strongly in execution.

Have you seen such a SAD kitchen recently? Do you think this is typical?

Kitchen Heaven or Kitchen Hell paleo diet-min

Paleo Cookbooks cavemanfeast paleo-recipe-book
6 replies
  1. Dannie McCulloch
    Dannie McCulloch says:

    “Have you seen such a SAD kitchen recently? Do you think this is typical? ” Of course it is, welcome to an Australian kitchen lol.

    Reply
  2. Pete
    Pete says:

    This sounds rather like my kitchen 6 years ago. I had a full on stress ful life, you know the way things go. Very ill parent demanding job, long hours, so very little time to shop let alone cook.
    It was only after I had a bad health scare myself that I knew things had to change. I was very overweight.
    So these days my kitchen probably looks a lot like yours! ( & boy do I feel better)

    Reply
  3. Elissa
    Elissa says:

    Yes this kitchen pretty much represents the Australian household we are just busy people who want convenience and quick meals which is dangerous to out health if we dont know how to achieve this! last year my kitchen was a state which consisted of ready nade pastas, grains, tinned soups, diet jellies and frozen meals I just didn’t know better. I was a sad case of low fat high carb eating and wasn’t until I read primal blueprint that I educated myself on how to eat better and how to look after myself. Each day I enjoy eggs, organic meats, veggies raw, nuts , coconut oil, butter and the occasionally full fat dairy and combined with Crossfit training my body fat is stripping away! It’s so exciting I can’t wait to get to goal! I’ve still managed to avoid the flu and been telling everyone what I have eating , I just feel healthy and so much happier with myself! I can never go back to how I ate before it’s poison!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.