There is much interest these days in the Paleo Diet (abbreviated from paleolithic diet). It is also popularly referred to as the caveman diet, Stone Age diet and hunter-gatherer diet. The diet is a modern nutritional plan based on the diet of wild plants and animals that our ancestors consumed during the Paleolithic era—a period of about 2.5 million years duration that ended around 10,000 years ago with the development of agriculture. The contemporary Paleo Diet is centered on commonly available modern foods and includes fish, grass-fed pasture raised meats, vegetables, select fruit, fungi, roots, and nuts, and excludes grains, legumes, dairy products, salt, refined sugar, and processed oils.
Not a bad way to drop weight, but cruel in that is does not include God's Gift to man, i.e. drink. So, in a particularly McCainian way, I have trumped the Paleo Diet with the creation of my Celtic Bronze Age Diet.
Most people consider me slender, and I suppose I am, but when I arrived at middle age, my weight does try to creep up on me if I do not watch what I eat and drink. My normal mode of eating tends to be Paleo naturally. I do not eat sugar for example and I can not eat dairy products. I have a extreme sensitivity to casein or the proteins in cows' milk, and to a slightly lessor extent to the milk of other mammals. I love French bread, know how to make it from scratch, but since the age of 40 I learned if I eat bread my belly grows, so I pretty much have given that up as well.
I like the Paleo Diet in concept, but let's face it, as world without ale and beer would be a very sad place indeed, not to mention not being able to imbibe the delicious young wine from Catalunya, René Barbier... which can be had in Oxford for 12 yankee dollars for a 1.5 litre bottle, which ain't bad for this lovely young wine. So I have modified the Paleo Diet, reworked it, into the McCain Celtic Bronze Age Diet.
Because of my work, I know my racial ancestry, ethnicity, etc., I have had Ychromosome, mtDNA, and autosomal DNA tests done on myself. The McCains are about as Celtic as one can get. Our family and their migrations hither and you in Europe can be traced via our DNA results. Circa 10,000 ago we lived in northern Iberia. Our distant DNA matches are in Galicia, Asturias, Catalunya, and what is now extreme southwest France. Some time in the Bronze Age 3600-600 BC we migrated to what is now mid Argyll, the parish of Kilmichael Glassary. We are your typical Atlantic Zone Celts, of the Atlantic Modal.
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| Bronze Age Celts |
Our people were fit, slim, a warrior people during this time. Now the diet of our people was very similar to the Paleo Diet, but, some grains were grown at this time. A basic bread was made out of oats or barely, like the Scottish and Irish oat bannock, but most of the grain was used to brew beer. Wine was also very popular with Bronze Age Celts and those that lived on the Atlantic seaboard had easy access to it.
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| good for the Celtic Ladies also |
The Celtic Bronze Age diet then is fresh meat, sausage, fish, vegetables, select fruit (such as berries, gala apples), fungi, roots, some oils such as extra virgin olive, and nuts. For a treat I make up a batch of oat bannocks; they are naturally high protein and low carb, so not bad on your figure. The Celtic Bronze Age Diet excludes grains, legumes, dairy products, salt, refined sugar, and processed oils. No breads no dairy. But here is the good part, you can have all the Small Beer (like Miller Lite) you want, and the occasional strong beer, such as Andygator, or Timber Beast IPA, or any good ale (I am very fond of IPAs). In short you eat like a Celt 3000 BC to 1600 AD. It will keep you slim and contented.
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| oat bannocks; coarse oat flour, water, pinch of salt, drop of oil |
