Cauliflower fried "rice" mise. Roasted chicken marinated in goat yogurt and citrus, seasoned BaltiCurry style

Stabby shares this video – oh the perils of going Vegan! We want to know why she is shopping in her undies? Why can’t she find a neck brace that actually fits? Why is eating meat not okay but violent sex in which one person is hurt is?

Our Finnish friend Jan tell us that his ancestors probably ate more than 1 kg of fish daily!

Check out this blog for more of the same goodness - http://mealpod.blogspot.com/.

Matthew shares some great FREE online lectures by John Hawkes.

One of our resident nutrition students Pat has a few new posts up on his blog.

Check out this blog if you lust for more...http://thedomesticman.tumblr.com/

Even though artificial sweeteners aren’t “Paleo” we still talk about them and the additive maltodextrin. Maltodextrin is one of the FIRST things added to weight gainer powders and has a glycemic index of 105. Table sugar has a GI of like 59 and honey can be as low as 31! So, check out your stevia to make sure this additive isn’t in there, unless of course you are using it in your bodybuilding drinks.

There were a few great podcasts this week. Sean Croxton interviews Chris Kresser.  Chris Masterjohn is on Jimmy Moore’s podcast as well. Both are worth a listen.

Chili-salted duck's egg crab with grilled oysters.

Will this microchip be the next bone loss drug????

Matthew's balls of meat.

We talk about this graphic:

and Amanda roots out the source: PCRM, the vegan doctor group. Maybe not an unbiased source of such information, eh?

Finally, some more horrifying stuff about the future of chicken farming. Is this for real?

Here is a wrap up of conversations, links, topics and photos that popped up in the Highbrow Paleo group this week.

Julia's post workout meal

Amanda is collecting information about infants and toddlers with Cystic Fibrosis – best meals for weight gain, symptom management and avoiding further inflammation. From our digging it looks like a lower carb Paleo diet with LOTS of MCT oil, egg yolks, liver and some high fat dairy products are the right fit. If anyone has any information regarding food and Cystic Fibrosis, particularly for toddlers, please email highbrowpaleo@facebook.groups.com.

Whole dried tiny fish are PACKED with nutrients.

Chris Masterjohn’s third installment on Chris Kresser’s podcast was VERY good.  Some take away points (thanks to Stabby for taking notes like a good nutrition nerd <3):

• Inflammation from trying to mop up oxidized LDL causes plaque to adhere to the artery wall and when there is further inflammation it ruptures causing heart attack.
• We want to use the lipids on our blood, but if they accumulate due to low thyroid or other metabolic disorders, then they stay around too long and have a greater chance of being oxidized.
• There are good reasons and bad reasons for increases of serum cholesterol. Cholesterol can increase if you’re resolving fatty liver disease, once you start clearing them you may get an increase in cholesterol and triglycerides…but it’s a good thing! People on diets high in choline, folate and methionine, paleo diets, may be seeing this.
• Potential paleo pitfalls: Too many plant goitrogens (thyroid antagonists) and too little iodine. Can cause hypothyroidism.
• Holy crap a lot of plants are toxic. Holy crap holy crap. Millet and cassava aren’t good staple foods.

Steak, mustard greens, lacto fermented jalapeño sauerkraut, Japanese sweetie pies. by Julie

Peter at Hypelipid brings us more interesting FIRKO mice stuff to read about. Rose shares “The reason I gravitate so strongly toward the hyperinsulinemia thesis, including the calories “locked” in fat tissue, is because that’s exactly how it *felt* when I was fat, and even when I was just *becoming* fat. And even before the pounds began to come, right after I switched to a ketone metabolism I could feel energy flowing through my body like water through a parched desert. “

Come on! Really? This lady is eating tons of pizza and kebabs. The fashion industry really needs to go paleo.

Do your kids like to dig in the dirt? Does it make them super happy? Let them! And while you are at it, join in! It just may improve your mood as well.

While we are on the subject of mood and the mind, beware of your cat!

Julia's recent meal out. A bunch of HBP peeps are gonna meet her for dinner soon.

Crossfit, is it a cult? Some say hell yeah, some say pass the Kool-Aid.

We wonder whether with today’s high rates of obesity, are we entering an epigenetic spiral of obesity?

Happy Valentine’s Day bitchez! l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DBKPoHgKcqag&h=3AQFA9RnBAQHD3L8RjYTTbb6A-gw8izFtQFRB_klpsn8TZQ

Matthew's coconut Banana Cakes

Andrew is cutting out coffee for the month of February, and here is what we learned: Cutting coffee cold turkey can be difficult but not impossible, Jan, our Finnish friend hails from the country with the highest coffee intake, and Greatist shared why coffee and tea are good for you in this infographic.

We LOVE Tony’s virtual paleo cookbook. Amanda loves the eggplant fries.

Matthew started a new blog and shared this recipe for coconut banana cakes. Julie runs with her bad self and tweaks the recipe to come up with coconut banana chocolate chip cookies. If we’re nice maybe she’ll copy down the recipe for the Eats section.

Julie's cookie version of Matthew's coconut cakes.

Crazy ass featherless chickens that do not need to be plucked are NOT paleo!

The Fuck?

Matt Metzgar posted about the effect eating in front of the computer has on overeating later in the day. It looks like many of us are guilty of this, however those who plan their meals and control their portions don’t see this as a problem for them. Maybe the planning is a form of front end mindfulness.

We talked about Paul Jaminet’s post on Carbohydrate levels. In the end a few of us continue to be macronutrient agnostic, while doing our best to avoid NADs and be nutrient replete.

Amanda shared this nifty NY Times blog post about the effects exercise has on autophagy.

Russ wonders what we feed our pets? Are they Paleo too? Russ buys Blue Wilderness, Fazila has a herd of cats and she likes Origen, Taste of the Wild, and Feline Caviar. Some do feed their animals a raw diet of bones, offal and meat. Some are happy getting the best kibble they can get while supplementing it with eggs and meat from time to time.

If you could go on a long vacation (4 months) to top off your vitamin D reserves, where would you go? We recommend: Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Thailand, Indonesia, East Malaysia or Belize.

Thailand ::dreams::

What's up!??! Sara's badass steak and onion spread!

• Andrew gives us this link about an ND’s recommendations for weight loss.
•  Wyatt offers up Gary Taubs’ latest post for discussion and we cover everything from the Ancestral Weight Loss Registry to That Paleo Guy’s nice post on omega 6 intake.
• Rose shares a study about phthalates and obesity.
• We chat about Paul Jaminet’s take on the Peatatarian diet.
• Andrew is prepping us for our group hydrotherapy experiment. He promises it will improve our mood and enjoyment as well as physical capacity! Ready…set…plunge!
• Pat is disappointed to see PubMed sources on mice and lard feeding. Wyatt brings us back to base by saying, “The general theme from “high fat mouse-murder” studies is that a high fat diet causes metabolic syndrome, except when sufficient omega-3 fats are supplied http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22204953 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8352478http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3303333 There is also the issue that lard isn’t the healthiest fat to be getting the majority of one’s calories from, especially if it is the kind used in rodent research http://www.westonaprice.org/blogs/cmasterjohn/2011/11/25/good-lard-bad-lard-what-do-you-get-when-you-cross-a-pig-and-a-coconut/.”

Lucas's Lomo Saltado (Peruvian Beef with tomatoes, potato and rice. A safe starch bonanza!)

• Mary shares the secret source of vitamins in many manufactured foods – petroleum!
• Several enablers *ahem* I mean group members helped Stabby out with his NEED to eat up some potato chips (crisps for our international members). Derrick recommends Grandma Utz lard fried crisps for the WIN!
• We LOVE Chis Kresser’s new transcript that comes along with his podcasts. His recent show covered food reward, set point, inflammation the hedonic/homeostatic response and leptin. No Rx needed, this show sums it up so nicely.
• We peruse this USDA PDF that covers American eating patterns from the 1950s to 2000. “ERS data suggest that average daily calorie intake increased by 24.5 percent, or about 530 calories, between 1970 and 2000. Of that 24.5-percent increase, grains (mainly refined grain products) contributed 9.5 percentage points; added fats and oils, 9.0 percentage points; added sugars, 4.7 percentage points; fruits and vegetables together, 1.5 percentage points; meats and nuts together, 1 percentage point; and dairy products and eggs together, -1.5 percentage point”
• Lucas shares a few wacky things that are healthy for us - fecal transplants are so HOT right now.
• We chat a bit about brown fat. Our local mitochondria expert Adam tells us that we can activate its thermogenic properties by icing the upper back area (or try an icy cold shower). A good way to GROW your BAT is through HIIT type exercise. Who has more BAT? Women, lean people, and babies.

Two adorable Highbrowers shared this meal. Duck, sweet potato roasted in duck fat and something green.

We all came here for the food.  Sometimes it feels as though parents are in the minority in the world of paleo-ish.  I have a 4-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son, and while they do not eat a paleo diet, I do all the cooking and shopping and they don’t, so they suck it up and deal.  Kids can be picky and downright monstrous around feeding time, and while its tempting to lay a tarp on the floor and toss food down to them from a safe distance,  its not always feasible.

Kale chips, blueberries, and chicken and veal liver pate. Just frickin' eat it!

I have a few recipes up my sleeve that the kids are cool with, and that are cheap and healthy.  My favorite is Sister Slaw.  I originally got the idea from the beautiful and incomparable Primal Kitchen, who you should love tightly, particularly if you have children and you feed them food.  Her bento box posts are hypnotic.  Anyhoo, get yourself a big bag of kale, or two bunches  I have to mince that onion into practically a puree without my daughter seeing it.  She’s highly suspicious of anything resembling an onion, but its an important addition to the Sister Slaw.  We otherwise make the slaw together meaning I (wo)man the blood-thirsty mandoline and she gets to dump everything together.  It’s important to really massage the dressing into the veggies.  Put on some Al Green and work it.  Make sweet love to it and when you’re done, stick her in the icebox for a couple of hours. [Editors note: The slaw, not the child.]  The kids get this with some U.S.Wellness hot dogs and then I congratulate myself.

Second helping of Sister Slaw

Use the other half of your kale for some chips.  My daughter is actually licking the plate right this second.  She just ate an entire bunch of kale. [Editor's Note: Meredith just tried kale chips with coconut oil and ate all the kale in the whole wide world because it was so delicious.]  A good trick to keep in mind for the kiddos to get them to eat their veggies is to add more fat and more salt.  Plain kale is kind of gross, but drown in sea salt and good quality olive oil and it’s snack.  I serve these up with some sweet potato puffs, or chicken tenders dipped in egg and rolled in crushed Rice Krispies.

Kids are cool; they will generally eat whatever shit you put in front of them if they get hungry enough.  Note that they tend to get hungrier if they are running around than if they are in front of the TV all day.  Adding fat and salt makes things more delicious and harder to resist, and if they had a hand in cooking it, even more likely that they will try it.  Don’t stress, yo.  Also, be confident in your child’s ability to not starve themselves.  They are remarkable creatures who will likely outlive you.

Sister Slaw

• 1 bunch Lacinato kale (dinosaur kale), shredded
• 1/2 head green cabbage, shredded
• 1/2 head red cabbage, shredded
• 2 carrots, shredded
• 1 small red onion, minced
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 pinch ground black pepper

I was so excited to learn last year that Melissa Joulwan was coming out with a cookbook. Melissa writes the very popular blog The Clothes Make The Girl, which is my go-to resource for fun Whole30 meals, delicious homemade sauces, and paleo-friendly ethnic recipes. After checking out the handy-dandy free sample though, I saw that this book is so much more!

If you’re a paleo-eater, you may find yourself spending a pretty ridiculous amount of time in the kitchen. I don’t have children or a spouse to cook for, yet I often find myself coming home from the gym, and spending upwards of two hours preparing my dinner for that evening, plus my lunch and breakfast for the next day. I love to cook, and I know this is an investment in my health, but it’s still a bit much! Well, I am happy to say this is now a thing of the past, thanks to Melissa’s tips. Well Fed outlines how to run your kitchen like a restaurant, so you’re never more than a few minutes away from a good meal. Melissa recommends taking a couple of hours each week to cook up a few pounds of meat and partially cook a bunch of veggies (this is the “Weekly Cookup”); these items can be infinitely combined into “Hot Plates” with seasonings and sauces to keep your belly happy over the week. It makes so much sense, I was kicking myself for not thinking of it before! I did my first cookup this past Sunday; my self-diagnosed ADD was raging, but I got it done (and unfortunately burned up a batch of bacon) and it was SO worth the effort. When I got home from work on Monday, I had my dinner on the table within five minutes, ate it, and then had my Tuesday lunch and breakfast packed away fifteen minutes later. Shazaam!

Cookup #1 (with the Beggarcat)

Ask nicely and your copy can by signed by the Melicious herself!

Matthew's Drippings

• We looked over Chris Masterjohn’s new paper about the benefits of green tea.
• Carly quotes Dr. Cordain:

“If you are about 75% Paleo compliant, you won’t need any vitamin or mineral supplements (except possibly vitamin D and fish oil). Many new studies suggest that antioxidant supplements may actually increase overall mortality and disease morbidity. I have listed these references in my new book.The vitamin and mineral density of a typical contemporary diet based on Stone Age food groups (748 milligrams of C or 1247 % of the DRI) is quite high.”

What say you?

• We talked over Melissa McEwen’s post over on Huntgatherlove.com regarding the invisible women of Paleo.
• Smelts, you know those little fish you are supposed to eat bones and all. For Elizabeth it was a 50/50 experience. The bones were kinda gross, but she’s got quite a few heads with which she’ll make a nice stock.
• Looks like many HBP peeps like their fish sauce. Winning brand is Red Boat. 
• Since the people in our group are very much so interested in taking health and diet into our own hands, we tend to pay attention to “outside of the box” nutrition advice. However, Matthew offers up this blog post to stir some debate over how to stray from mainstream advice while staying out of the “crazy stuff”.

Julie's gluten-free coconut cake

• Dennis shares the secret to identifying what produce is GM just by looking at the PLU number.
• Shit Fruitarians say. We totally need a Shit Paleo Dieters say too.
• Paula Deen, evil temptress or pawn of the food/pharma industry?
• So much talk about the human microbiome.  Did you know that  ”if some twisted genius vaporized all 10 trillion cells in your body — along with the hair, the fingernails, and other tissue they create — it would not leave empty space behind. A body-shaped cloud made of bacteria, viruses, and other former stowaways would hover briefly in the air. The cloud would outline your skin, delineate your lungs, trace your digestive tract. You might be gone for good, but your shadow biosphere would remain.”
• Richard shares his love of cheese and of vitamin k2. Gouda seems to top the list of cheeses with this important nutrient.
• We listened to Dr. Ron Rosedale in this Jimmy Moore podcast as well as Paul Jaminet in this Underground Wellness podcast.
• Paula Deen, Queen of deep-fried cream cheese doughnut burgers with a side of sweet tea, has come down with a case of Type II diabetes! Shocker. As Derrick so eloquently put it, “the more nuanced me should say that the game is rigged by powerful forces, however, when given the information I’ve observed many people choose to remain ignorant instead of making the hard choices to reverse the damage. It’s very disheartening…”

Fazila's tripe, mutton and beef satay with mini cucumbers and tapai (fermented glutinous rice wrapped in guava leaves)

• Whether you think it tastes like spoons or ambrosia, beef heart is a superfood. Get comfy preparing, cooking and eating it!
• There a quite a few very strange things that turn out to be good for your health. Fecal transplants are just SO HOT right now. Also, don’t forget all of those beneficial worms.

Herring with fermented DURIAN sauce and cassava shoots by Fazila

• Some of us can’t get enough of Aravind. We keep sneaking off in the middle of the day to do it with him. Meditate that is.
• What are some of our favorite cheeses you ask? Here’s a few: Danish bleu, blueberry goat cheese, Epoisses Appenzeller, Manchego, Stilton, aged Gouda, Parrano, Camembert, Mizithra, raclette, curds, Brie, Stilton, Roquefort, Mozzarella, Ricotta, Limburger and Feta. And member Sean tells us that all Swiss cheeses are made with raw milk, by grass-fed cattle…by law! Good to know.
• Physical therapy versus naturopathy, bitches!
• Cut off the tip of a finger in a cooking accident and now need a nice healing protocol? We pieced together this one: Vitamin C, Zinc, B12, Folic Acid, Gotu Kola, topical St. John’s Wort and olive oil.
• We listened to and discussed Chris Masterjohn’s interview on Bulletproof Exec.
• We “stabbed”away at this paper – a unifying theory of obesity and metabolic syndrome.
• One of our members shared her amazing transformation with us and on her blog.
• Speaking of awesome blogs we need to appreciate more, how about Tony’s blog FED- Fitness in an Evolutionary Direction? Pretty great, right
• Fat + vinegar + cooked, but then cooled potato = Lower glycemic response to starch. 
• One member’s month-long no grocery shopping pledge is well on its way and is chronicled here. 
• One fascinating thread started with this: “I am going nuts on nuts. Am I going to die?” Here’s how it progressed: Yes, but not because of the nuts. —-> There’s the omega-6 content, which of course should probably be kept fairly low for best results. Macadamias barely have any, though.  —-> Ratio within a food doesn’t matter, it’s a more complex relationship having more to do with absolute amounts in the diet. Eat all foods with no omega-6 except for fish, and you’re doing as well as you can do. —-> Grass fed beef has more omega-3, that can be good to meet a requirement. But the ratio within a food doesn’t matter. The absolute amounts of both in grass-fed beef are pretty low, which makes it an ideal meat because of the low omega-6 content. If there is no fish in the diet, it is desirable to get grass-fed, but if there is fish then it’s not important because there is enough already. —-> It seems like I would still eat loads of butter, bacon, grass-fed beef, and fish, and not much would change at all…except maybe feeling a bit better about eating pecans. —-> And indeed nothing changes, as long as you stay under the magic number, nothing really does. But when people compare something stupid likely 25g of omega-6 and 15g of omega-6 in a study, when we should definitely be getting somewhere under 9 for optimal anti-inflammatory signaling, that’s when it’s useful to know. It’s a very important academic point, not because it’s relevant to us but to public policy in a world full of soy oil and no inhibitions about it —-> Re: high omega 3 and low omega 6, I think there is a substantial amount of evidence (both experimental and theoretical) to suggest that at least initially, obese patients might benefit from increasing omega 3 intake, despite its chemical nature. This is one part of a theory I have in mind, which seems to contradict my (and other people I respect) support of SFA. —-> What do you think of the idea that various saturated fats need omega-3 to function properly in the body? Stearic acid here specifically  —-> I’m not sure we can be in full agreement on the fish, though. There are major sustainability questions having to deal with wild caught fish, and even bigger health concerns with farm raised. —-> A problem with the omega-3 in meat is that it’s not long-chain, it’s the same kind in flax, so it may be better than nothing, but it’s generally not going to cut it from brain health. —-> Krill or algae oil may be better if one were putting sustainability considerations in the foreground? —-> Neptune krill oil specifically has 3 positive studies done on it, it appears to work.

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Here’s what some of us had for dinner this week

~ HBP MENU~

~Roasted green beans with a chicken stir-fry

~ Leftover pot roast and some liver for good measure

   ~ Sesame cucumber salad with pork carnitas

~ Venison short ribs with veggies

~ Chicken breast stuffed with pureed and herbed chicken livers and spinach all wrapped in bacon served with steamed local tiny beets

~ Chili, with liver of course

~ Lamb shank and lamb ribs sautéed spinach and onions and honey-candied squash

~ Roasted chicken leg, broccoli and a sweet potato with lots of butter

~ Home-smoked pulled pork, oxtail broth, egg yolks fried in bacon grease

~ Pecans, dried pineapple, ginger yogurt, oven bakes thick cut bacon, two eggs scrambled, potato, turkey patty, collard greens, apple

~ Oxtail and root veg stew 

~ 3 idlis (fermented with iodized salt), spinach with ground coconut, sweet potatoes cooked in ghee, misc Indian spices.

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“In medical school I had not received any significant instruction on the subject. I was not alone. Only approximately 6 percent of the graduating physicians in the United States have any training in nutrition. Medical students may take elective courses on the topic, but few actually do… the education of most physicians is disease-oriented with a heavy emphasis on pharmaceuticals — we learn about drugs and why and when to use them.” Robert Strand, M.D., Death by Prescription.

I was on an airplane late last summer while returning from a weekend jaunt of head-clearing and writing. On the second leg of my flight, I was seated next to a woman who turned out to be a liaison for a pharmaceutical company returning from a business trip. The primary purpose of her trip was to push her company’s new diabetes drug. She explained to me that the new drug she was pushing was groundbreaking because it was an inhibitor of a particular protein which extended the half-life of another drug which aided beta cell health in diabetics (beta cells are the place insulin is made).

She explained all of this using the language of he education: biochemistry and pharmacy. She also had an air of infallibility.

After she finished describing this drug, I only had one question for her: “What is the function of the protein that your new drug inhibits and what effect does that have downstream?” She looked at me with a puzzled and sheepish look and confirmed what I had been thinking all along. She had no idea.

Prior to this, we had spent close to an hour arguing about what she “knew” as a medical professional and where I was far astray regarding topics where I disagreed with the medical establishment’s conventional wisdom- which were many. But this was a turning point in our conversation because it was the opening for her to see what I had been trying to get her to understand during our conversation up to this point. She knew the biochemical mechanisms and pathways of the biological systems she studied. She knew that if you introduced this drug, the result would be the alteration of a particular pathway in a specific manner. However, what I was trying to get her to see was what I’d learned reading about and experimenting with various approaches, and eventually beating obesity, was that there is a common thread running through obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancers, and other modern illnesses and diseases.

Though our medical professionals are better equipped and more knowledgeable about the human body than at any other time in history, their main accomplishment has only been to keep a sick populace alive longer in its chronic state of illness. They have become masters of the microbiology while ignoring the “macrobiology”- I think the fact that that “macrobiology” isn’t a recognized word is indicative of how we’ve approached overall health. The point is that even though people are living longer, they are becoming sick and debilitated much earlier leading to a greatly reduced quality of life.

The reason for this is complex but at the base level I think it can be explained by the fact that our bodies are out of balance. We have strayed from our original stasis. Stasis is a Greek word that represents balance and equilibrium. There is a baseline of health and wellness that allows us to enjoy a high quality of life virtually devoid of the chronic physical pain and ailments, that have become commonplace in modern societies, well into old age- a beautiful stasis.

The common occurrence of ailments before the onset of middle age is a new phenomenon. On every level of nature there is a balance that holds each system together until an outside force upsets that balance and a period of disruption occurs until a balance is restored. It’s the way nature adapts. It’s the way we survive.

From a biological perspective, human beings in modern society are in a period of biological disruption. The rapid onset of obesity and other modern diseases are harbingers of the fact that we’re out of balance. The changes that are happening in our bodies are too rapid for natural adaptive mechanisms to take over and adapt to survive, so we end up sicker and weaker.

Even if we don’t get caught up in the speculative nature of looking too far into the past, just looking at present-day traditional cultures- those that eat and live closer to the way humans have traditionally-who are as a whole are almost always healthier and free of the modern illnesses and diseases than those of us in more modern societies. I’m not suggesting we fully adopt hunter-gatherer lifestyles.

Technology and modern society has provided us with many creature comforts that many of us don’t want to leave- nor should we. Science and technology progress have given us medicines and treatments for viral and bacterial ills that, in the past, would have killed many of us. Our lifestyles are different and many of us have permanently changed our biology in some ways where some things that have been innocuous in the past are now harmful.

Having said that, I do believe that scientific and clinical success has brought upon us an era of arrogance in the medical community where the main measurement of success is longevity with less and less focus being on quality of life. Myself and many others who eat an evolutionarily appropriate diet have taken control of our health because we perceive that the modern medical establishment has failed us. In response, we’ve taken control of our health and wellness and stopped outsourcing our overall well-being.

Our bodies aren’t like taxes you drop off at Jackson- Hewitt or the family car that we drop off at the mechanic. After battling obesity for most of my life with the health problems that usually accompany that, I began to research biology, microbiology, dietary literature, epidemiological studies and other sources trying to educate myself to better health. I discovered a lot- particularly about obesity and other modern diseases- about how diet is the main factor driving modern ailments and what foods and lifestyle choices are the most egregious offenders.

I don’t know everything, or anything close to it, but what I have learned is that we should be more proactive and educated when it comes to our health and not leaving it in the hands of the medical field, no matter how auspicious those certificates on their walls are

This is one of those uber-easy, yet impressive-looking dishes!  I’ve been disappointed by the lack of wild salmon at my local BJs, but they do have wild haddock and cod; either is great in this recipe. 

Almond meal is something I like to just use in moderation; when I first went grain-free, I was going pretty buckwild with almond flour-based baked goods, but I’ve cut way back since learning about that pesky oxidized omega-6   Yes, some things are too good to be true…  This makes 3 servings (I like to have leftovers to microwave at work the next day and stink up the office).

1 lb cod filet

3/4 cup almond meal *UPDATE* I have also done this with chopped, slivered almonds and liked it even better!

3 TBS melted clarified butter

1 lemon

1 tsp salt

2 tsp Italian seasoning, herbes de Provence or whatever herbs you like

- Preheat oven to 500

- Lay fish out on a cookie sheet lined with foil

- Combine other ingredients and spread evenly in a thin layer over the fish (if using almond meal, it should be a wet-doughy consistency)

- Bake for about ten minutes until fish is flaky and topping starts to darken; serve with lemon wedges

For sides, I just sauteed some quartered baby bella mushrooms and green beans with garlic.