Turkey burger nutrition is phenomenal!  We know that lean meats were a large part of the paleolithic diet and turkey burger fits right in. Turkey is a good source of iron, zinc, potassium and, of course, protein.  It is such a great source of protein that eat it everyday.

Of course, wild turkey would be best, but for convenience and cost, lean turkey burger is a great choice.

Turkey Nutrition Highlights (per 4oz)

• 19 g Protein (40% DV)
• 1.6 mg Iron (8% DV)
• 1.6 mg Zinc (8% DV)
• 0.4 mg Riboflavin (20% DV)
• 336 mg Potassium (8% DV)
• 25 mcg Selenium (36% DV)

Turkey is Low in Saturated Fat

Turkey is one of the leanest meats making it a great protein for those watching their saturated fat intake.  A typical 4 ounce serving of very lean hamburger has much more saturated fat than the same very lean turkey burger.  Whether saturated fat is categorically causal in heart disease has been questioned recently. Nonetheless, eating lean meats will allow you more control of the types of fat you decide to eat.

Turkey Burger Staves hunger

Lean turkey burger is great for reducing your appetite. In fact, it takes more energy to metabolize protein than other macronutrients. So you can burn more calories just metabolizing turkey/protein compared to other foods. According to researchers, “There is convincing evidence that a higher protein intake increases thermogenesis and satiety compared to diets of lower protein content.” [1]

Finding good Turkey Burger

Theoretical turkey burger is great but, I have found it very difficult to find LEAN turkey burger that is both convenient and cheap. I’m told that many of you have found the same.

So…I was thrilled to find easy-to-cook, lean turkey burger at a great price at Costco!  You have to get the patties and not the ground turkey as the “ground turkey” sold is much higher in fat.

Costco turkey burgers compared to other brands is both very LEAN and cheap…about $2.50 per pound.  It is also very convenient to grill and freeze.

Kirkland Turkey Burgers

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 1 Burger
Amount per Serving
Calories 200 Calories from Fat 50
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 5g 8%
Saturated Fat 1.5g 8%
Monounsaturated Fat 0g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0g
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 85mg 28%
Sodium 390mg 16%
Potassium 0mg 0%
Total Carbohydrate 2g 1%
Dietary Fiber 0g 0%
Sugars 0g
Protein 35g 70%

Turkey Burger Ingredients

Maybe the best part of Costco’s turkey burger patties is the simplicity of the ingredients:

Ingredients listed on the back of the package:

• White Turkey,
• Kosher Salt,
• Natural Flavor,
• Black Pepper

It doesn’t get any simpler and natural than that!  Well, I guess we could do without any added salt, but this is about the best I’ve seen.

[1] Dept. of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115, USA., http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/full/23/5/373
Wild Turkey Photo above: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rickh710/ / CC BY 2.0

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We’ll be sharing more paleolithic recipes going forward to demonstrate how easy it is to eat paleolithic foods.  Who knows, maybe we’ll compile a paleolithic cookbook!  Until then here are some zesty paleo recipes:  Paleo Eating for Modern People – Cookbook

Scrumptious Baked Banana Dessert

Just because you are taking on more paleo eating habits doesn’t mean you don’t get to eat dessert anymore!  This is one of my favorite desserts and was inspired by seeing a banana dessert at a Thai restaurant one night.  I eat this a few times per week.  It calls for bit of honey which you can eliminate if you are trying to lose weight.

Why cook a banana?  You’re right if you’re worried about losing nutrients, but cooking a banana enhances its aroma, sweetness, and texture.

Ingredients:

• 1 fairly ripened banana
• 1/2 ounce of crumbled walnut
• 1/2 Teaspoon of honey

How to cook quickly:

1. Peel the banana and place on a microwave-safe glass plate and microwave for 60 seconds (just like any caveman would do).
2. Remove from the microwave and crumble the walnuts over the top of the banana.
3. Add just a few drops of honey over the top.
4. Enjoy!

How to cook for better taste:

1. Bake the banana without peeling it at 350 degrees for 15-30 minutes (until the peels are black) or even better, over an open fire.
2. Peel the banana and place it on a glass plate.
3. Crumble the walnuts over the top of the banana.
4. Add just a few drops of honey over the top.
5. Place under a broiler for a few minutes to lightly brown the bananas and nuts.
6. Enjoy!

I’ve tried other types of nuts, which taste great, but none of them have the great Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio that walnuts have.

This contains relatively no protein, so be sure you have a good amount of protein for dinner first…and look forward to more Paleolithic Recipe examples!

Bananas, Honey, Paleolithic Recipes, Walnuts Hide

I used to pay $50 per month to go a simple gym and do weight training.  As my nutrition and fitness passion has evolved, so to speak, I’ve begun trying to get great workouts without going to they gym.

One of the easiest places to get creative with resistance training is the playground that I go to with my kids!  I get to spend time with the kids and simultaneously get a great workout.  I don’t have to feel guilty about leaving them for an hour to go to the gym and I don’t have to pay $600 per year to be a member at the local fitness club.

It’s just a matter of being DECIDING to get a workout at the playground…and doing it.

I saw this video and just had to share.  I’ve been wanting to get a video camera on myself to show how easily you can do resistance workouts wherever you go without using weights.  Until I get the videos published, get some ideas from this!

Paleolithic Excercise, Paleolithic Pushups Hide

As a part of getting back to our natural paleolithic diet, we have to consider the amount of man-made chemicals we have introduced into our diet.  Further, we have to look at the covariance of these introductions with disease rates, etc.

We find the promises of sucralose (mostly marketed as Splenda) disturbing.  It may not kill us all in the next 24 hours, but given the choice I don’t think we should be using sucralose in place of natural sugars.  See the following promises and our responses:

• “Safe for everyone”
  Sucralose is positioned as safe for everyone.  But we have found that (among other side effects):
  • It reduces normal intestinal flora (anaerobes and bifidobacteria) by 50% at a high dose in rats[1].  You absolutely need a your intestinal flora unharmed as it is essential to absorption of some nutrients and critical in immunity.  Further, it is needed to produce vitamins like Vitamin K and Biotin. Clostridium Difficile (C Diff) sufferers out there?  How would you like to reduce your normal flora by even a small bit?
  • It significantly reduces the size of thymus glands in animal testing at a dose of 3000 mg/kg bw/day [2].  Granted, this is a fairly high dose, but if it reduces my thymus gland a single bit, I’m not interested.  Your thymus is where T lymphocytes grow and it is essential in preventing autoimmunity.  So, if you are worried at all about autoimmune diseases, take care of your thymus gland.
  • Other studies show sucralose causing enlarged liver and kidneys.
• “Made from real sugar”
  The manufacturers of sucralose admit publicly that it is NOT NATURAL.  In fact it starts as regular sugar, but is then chemically modified by replacing 3 hydroxyl groups on sugar with 3 chlorine atoms.  So, what if it comes from “real sugar”, it is no longer real sugar, it is something chemically new that humans have not consumed in thousands or millions of years.  Want a picture of the molecule?  See http://www.feingold.org/Research/splenda.html.
• “Splenda helps you lose weight”
  Because sucralose is chemically altered sugar, our bodies don’t recognize it as food anymore and we don’t get calories from it.  Well, that isn’t entirely true, search for some studies and you’ll see some people do metabolize and most of us store some of it without passing it through which also isn’t a good thing.  Anyway, there are studies suggesting that artificial sweeteners in general actually INCREASE appetite.  Eat sucralose, get more hungry?  I guess so.
• “Splenda is Sweeter than Sugar”
  Sucralose promises the benefits of a super-sweet taste (600 times sweeter than table sugar) without the risk of gaining weight from eating regular sugar.  Remember the first time you ate a “sweet and rich” type of food?  For me it was custard when I was still a kid.  As you eat more of it over time you are able to eat more of it without the “too-rich” feeling making you stop eating it.  When dieters use a lot of sucralose they get used to the ease of sweet tasting foods.  When they return to “real” sugars after quitting their diet, they are accustomed to sweeter and sweeter foods and put on pounds as a consequence.

Sucralose (Splenda) may be ok to eat according to studies across large populations, but these types of studies sure do raise red flags to me.  Is it worth taking the risk?

So, yes, we do need to evaluate the new chemicals we are putting into our bodies.  Our diets have changed drastically since the Paleolithic Age and we likely aren’t optimally running our bodies if we take new chemicals everyday that our bodies have never seen.

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[1] Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, Volume 71, Issue 21, Pages 1415-1429, “’Splenda Alters Gut Microflora and Increases Intestinal P-Glycoprotein and Cytochrome P-450 in Male Rats”, Authors: M.B. Abou-Donia, E.M. El-Masry, A.A. Abdel-Rahman, R.E. McLendon, S.S. Schiffman
[2] Report from NICNAS, The Australian Government regulator of industrial chemicals (PDF)

Coffee Picture Above: http://www.flickr.com/photos/streamishmc/ / CC BY-ND 2.0
Scale Picture Above: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bensonkua/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

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What is the Paleolithic Diet?

Simple answer: Think of a caveman…what did he eat? You got it.

Bigger answer: The Paleolithic Age or “Old Stone Age” was from 2.5 million* years ago to about 10,000 B.C. Human’s genetic makeup has not changed much in the last 100,000 years. So, in theory what we as humans were eating 50,000 years ago is probably the best diet for our bodies today. At that time, and today, we were wired to desire the highest calorie foods in order to survive times of hunger. It wasn’t until 10,000 B.C., around the Neolithic Age, that we started moving together into cities and started farming to more efficiently get our calories. So we went from hunter-gatherers to being farmers. Hunter-gatherers would spend their days on their feet roaming the earth (considered exercise by some) hunting and gathering foods. Farmers learned to grow the highest calorie foods in small areas (what we needed to do at the time to feed our families more effectively). Fast forward to today and we find super-sized meal deals at McDonalds and artificial chemical sweeteners. See the changes and our problem?

I’m excited to share the Neo-Paleolithic Diet with you and how it is going to make you feel great, lose weight, get lean, and regain your youthful cholesterol, and insulin levels. We combine the lessons learned from the Paleolithic Diet with current day research on diet, exercise, diseases, and wellness, and we get what we’re calling within our team, the “Neo-Paleolithic Diet”.

What foods make up the Paleolithic Diet?

The Paleolithic Diet simply consists of lean meats, fish, vegetables, fruits and nuts. It is thought that Paleolithic Man ate these foods in variety as they moved about the earth as hunter-gatherers.

Lean Meats

Lean meats made a large portion of the caveman’s diet. How much protein versus carbohydrates and fats it tough to determine exactly. But, we think that protein was probably eaten in higher proportions than it is in today’s American diet. There are many researchers who believe that protein usually accounted for the MAJORITY of calories for paleolithic man.

Grilled Chicken Breast

Wild game would be the most like what paleolithic man ate. Because larger animals would have been worth more calories for a given effort of hunting them, you can bet that cavemen preferred larger animals over smaller. You can also bet that wild game was more lean that the hamburger we buy at the grocery store or McDonalds. So, choose leaner meats over the more fatty ones, especially if you are wanting to lose weight.

Another key to remember about the paleo diet is that it varied from day to day. So, the more variety you can get in your diet the better. There is a whole debate over whether saturated fats are good for you or not, and whether they should be considered “paleo.” But, if you eat a variety of wild-like meats you’d be better off.

Fish

Salmon Fish, Very Paleo

Fish was eaten by Paleolithic cavemen 5x more that it is by us today. You know there are tons of dietary benefits to eating more fish, starting with reducing your overall saturated fat and increasing your Omega 3 to Omega 6 fat ratios.

Omega 3 fish oils have been show to be anti-inflammatory, so if you are battling any disease associated with inflammation, eating more fish will be beneficial.

Omega 3 fish oils have been shown to be fantastic for brain growth and maintenance as well as overll cardio health.

Wild Vegetables

Nutrient-rich vegetables that could be gathered.

The biggest failure of our modern diets is the deficiency of fresh vegetables. Most of us consume most of our calories in the some form of wheat, which is not what a caveman would have done. You are missing vital nutrients and minerals when you skip the extra servings of vegetables everyday. Over time, missing out on these nutrients and anti-oxidants is going to wreak havoc on your health.

Although we may have slightly different vegetables available to us today, we know that our caveman counterparts out-ate us in vegetables by a large margin. Some vegetables we eat today that are surprisingly harmful were not even available to paleolithic man. Think of a caveman wandering around in a forest, he has to eat vegetables to survive. We all know that there are tons more nutrients and fiber in vegetables than in a Big Mac.

Wild Fruits

Luscious berries to be found in the wild.

Mmmmm, the best tasting part of the paleo diet, fruits! Wow, packed with natural sugar you can get lots of quick energy and extremely important nutrients and anti-oxidants as well.

Just like vegetables, a caveman wandering around in a forest would be eating a lot of fruits and berries. Because of their great taste and color they were very appealing. Fruits and berries are power-packed with vitamins, antioxidants, and other great nutrients.

Nuts

One of the healthiest nuts: Almonds

Finally, the main sources of fat for paleolithic man were nuts and the fat found in wild game. Nuts are overwhelmingly more nutritious than our modern sources of fat…butter, cream, french fry grease, etc. There have been numerous studies showing nuts to be helpful in preventing cancer and other ailments.

Each type of nut has it’s special benefits. Be sure to get a mixture of walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds (not really a nut), cashews, etc. For those of you with auto-immune or allergy concerns you may want to avoid peanuts, like paleo man most likely did.

Paleolithic Diet is an Exclusion Diet

The most difficult thing about the Paleolithic Diet is avoiding all other foods that aren’t on the diet. No pizza, dairy, cheeseburgers, bread, colas, etc. It can be very difficult to live the fast-food-lifestyle and eat only the Paleolithic Diet. Some of us are just too brainwashed into thinking that we must eat these other foods to quit. But, the rewards are lavish…lean body, good muscle mass, sharper thinking, less disease…see the other articles on this site for proof.

Paleolithic Diet Summary

So, in a nutshell (sorry for the pun), this is the traditional paleolithic diet. We are learning more all the time about what the Paleolithic Man must have eaten (and some of it is surprising us!). The Paleolithic Diet should serve as a basis for your dietary guidelines. Combining it with clinical studies to prove out additional theories, we are well on our way to the optimum diet. Shall we call it the “neo-paleolithic-diet”?
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* Depending on your beliefs and the origins of the universe this number may be way off. I personally believe that humans have existed more on the order of thousands of years rather than millions of years.

Red Berries Picture Above: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlbezaire/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
Salmon Photo Above: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlastras/ / CC BY 2.0
Chicken Breast Photo Above: http://www.flickr.com/photos/startcooking/ / CC BY 2.0
Vegetables Photo Above: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckaysavage/ / CC BY 2.0
Berries Photo Above: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wandering_angel/ / CC BY 2.0
Almonds Photo Above:http://www.flickr.com/photos/melintur/ / CC BY 2.0

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