Baking the Paleo Diet Way and is it Safe?
How to Bake the Palaeolithic Diet Way
Baking the Paleo Way is easy as long as you know how to swap ingredients in your usual baking recipes.
Paleo is a very nutritious way to bake because the Paleo Diet has a focus on ingredients rather than whole foods. With the Paleo Way, there are no rules for no cakes, cookies, health bars or puddings. You choose the Paleo Diet ingredients to Bake the Paleo Way.
With Paleo baking, you create new and tasty recipes avoiding wheat and flow from other grains, additives, preservatives, colorings, anti-caking agents, gums and other ingredients added to our bought food.
Before we move on to the Paleo Way Baking, a few words on the dietetic and therapeutic health benefits of a Paleo Diet as there are many.
Image Source: Boldsky.com
With training and clinical experience as a Dietitian and Diabetes Educator, I need to show you the health benefits of the Paleo Way as well as any misconceptions.
Removing Your Paleo Diet Health Benefits Rose Colored Glasses
There are many reasons to go Paleo.
First, let’s be clear, some food blogs incorrectly report that the Paleolithic diet will cure polycystic ovary syndrome, autism, mental illness, dementia, and obesity. These reports have been slammed by Medical Associations and authors discredited. 
11 health benefits with the Paleo Diet
- Improvement in Gut Health and this is no surprise with the increase in soluble fiber
- Improvement in Irritable Bowel symptoms
- Significantly reduced symptoms from gluten intolerance and insensitivity
- Improved blood sugar control
- Reduces high blood sugar spikes
- Possible Anti-inflammatory benefits
- Possible Strengthened Immunity
- Reduced constipation
- Reduced calorie density
- Feeling full faster and for longer
- Improved heart health
Weight loss and Paleo Diet
There Vegetable advantages of weight loss with the Paleo Diet. And, like all diets, this can be achieved by controlling the portion size and frequency of eating.
The Paleo Dietary Guidelines allow ad libitum vegetables, fruit, lean meats and poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts, and seeds. There is very little likelihood of any weight loss when you eat as much as you want of these foods and here are the reason why.
Easting too much, more than your body needs. The more you eat, the more you store as fat. Every time you eat, your body releases insulin.
Insulin is the hormone to store the energy from the food you eat. The more you eat, and more often you eat, your insulin increases and when this occurs, you can not use your fat stores for energy, ie, fat loss. margarine is simple body biochemistry 101.
Dietary Deficiencies and the Paleo Diet
For all diets, when you remove an entire food group, it is likely that over time a dietary imbalance leading to a deficiency will arise.
The food groups omitted in Paleo are dairy and grains. The most likely nutrient deficiency will be Calcium.
Calcium Deficiency and the Paleo Diet
The main dietary caution arising from the Paleo diet is the avoidance of all dairy foods. Some calcium can be replaced by eating the bones of canned salmon or sardines as well as calcium-enriched soy milk. Follow the tables below to see how much calcium you need and whether you are getting enough.
Calcium is needed for good bone health, good teeth and connectivity between muscles and nerves.
Advocates of the Paleo diet, promote vegetables as a source of calcium. Another rose-colored glasses reality check is needed. High levels of calcium-containing vegetables are spinach, kale, collard greens, turnip greens, Chinese cabbage.
But can you physically eat enough vegetables to get all of your calcium?
How many Paleo Diet vegetables you need to eat get enough calcium in a day.
Use this table to work out how many cans of sardines or salmon and pounds or kg of vegetables you need or how many glasses of calcium enriched plant-based milk you need in a day.
How Much Calcium You Need In a Day
It really depends on your age and gender. The amount of calcium to eat is the same everywhere. Their values are recommended from reliable Medline Data.
| AGE | DAILY CALCIUM mg NEEDS |
| 0 -6 months | 200 mg |
| milk months – 1 year | 260 mg |
| 1-3 yrs | 700mg |
| 4- 8 years | 1000 mg |
| 9 – 18 years | 1300 mg |
| Men 18-70 | 1000 mg |
| Men 70 + | 1200mg |
| Women | 1000 mg |
| Women over 50 | 1200 mg |
Children absorb about 60% of the calcium from foods, while adults absorb only 20%. Calcium absorption decreases with age and people over 50, children and pregnant women should eat more calcium.
Starting with vegetables, think about what you eat and see if you can eat enough calcium for your Paleo Diet.
Further on you’ll see how to top up on calcium if your intake is low.
| VEGETABLES | AMOUNT | Calcium mg |
| Collard greens | 1 cup cooked | 268 |
| Broccoli | 1 cups raw | 86 |
| Broccoli rabe ( this is turnip leaves not broccoli, its flowers look like broccoli ) | 2/3 cup cooked | 100 |
| Kale | 1 cup raw | 100 |
| Edamame | 1 cup cooked | 100 |
| Bok Choy | 1 cup raw | 75 |
| Okra | 1 cup | 80 |
| Spinach | 1 cup cooked | 245 |
| Mustard Greens | 1 cup cooked | 165 |
| Swiss Chard | 1 cup cooked | 102 |
| Acorn Squash | 1 cup cooked | 90 |
| Butternut squash | 1 cup cooked | 85 |
| Sweet Potato | 1 cup mashed | 75 |
| Brussel Sprouts | 1 cup cooked | 56 |
| For a list of 200 vegetables, here is a more extensive list of 200 vegetables. | ||
| BEANS, NUTS, AND SEEDS | ||
| White Beans | ½ cup cooked | 63 |
| Nuts | 10 g most types | 15 |
| Seeds | 10 g most types | 5 |
| For a list of individual seeds and nuts, look here. | ||
| Tofu =-fried, stir-fried, grilled or BBQ’d, | ½ cup | 434 |
| FRUIT | ||
| Orange | 1 large | 74 |
| Orange Juice | 1 cup | 27 |
| Fruit most varieties fresh | 1 cup | 1 |
| FISH, MEAT, CHICKEN | ||
| Sardines | 3.75 OZ / 120 gram | 400 |
| Trout | 1 Fillet | 121 |
| Bass and most other fish | 1 fillet | 1 |
| Chicken | Leg and thigh (3 oz) | 3 |
| Beef | 2 thin slices (3 oz) | 3 |
| Pork | 2 thin slices (3 oz) | 3 |
PLANT-BASED MILKS
Plant-based milks are quite variable in what they contain while cow’s milk is pretty standard. We know where cow’s milk comes from. Plant-based kinds of milk are manufactured and can have a variety of additives. I urge you to read the label to determine what’s best for them.
None of the plant-based milk is the same as cows milk. They are all different and the message is to buy calcium-fortified milk and you’ll get the calcium your body needs.
Always look at the label, different kinds of milk and brands can be different. Aim for for at least 100 Calcium mg per 100ml ? for a good source of calcium.
If you can’t take calcium, go for a Vitamin D – Calcium supplement. Just make sure to get enough calcium to grow and maintain your bones.
| PLANT-BASED MILKS Calcium mg | ||
| Soy | 200 ml / just under a cup (250ml) | 25 |
| Almond | 0 | |
| Rice | 1 | |
| Oat | 0 | |
| Macadamia | 1 | |
| Fortified Milk – most plant varieties | 120 | |
| Soy Fortified | 160 | |
| Soy Yoghurt with fruit | 125 | |
Data Source: Here
Paleo Bakers Food List
So you’ve decided to go Paleo and want to bake.
Here is the list of foods you can choose from the Paleo Diet.
As you can see, there are a couple of sugar. baking ingredients missing, and these are flour and sugar.
So how in the heck do you bake and follow the Paleo Way. We’ll show you but first, look at the list.
Paleo food list
Here is a quick list that I found on the website, ultimatepaleoguide.com
Paleo Approved
All meats but not processed like sausages
Fish/seafood
Eggs
Fresh fruits
Fresh vegetables, some advocates avoid potato
Nuts/Seeds
Not on the Paleo Food List
Cereal grains
Legumes (including peanuts)
Dairy (milk, yoghurt, cheese
Refined sugar
Processed foods
Candy/junk/processed food
Food lists like these make it easier to pick and choose what you you’ll bake.
Paleo Baking Ingredient Swaps
| Baking Ingredient | Paleo Swap | Baking Tips |
| Butter | Plant-based Margarine | Look on the label to avoid Trans Fats. Olive oil margarines are a good choice.
Low fat spreads result in a crumbly texture so choose so that varieties. |
| Vegetable Oils | A Paleo Food | Use as usual |
| Eggs | A Paleo Food | Use as usual |
| White Sugar
Agave Maple Syrup Beet Sugar Artificial Sweetener Coconut Sugar Brown Rice Sugar |
Honey
|
Honey is almost twice as sweet as sugar, so one would use 1/2 to 2/3 of the amount of sugar |
| Chicory Root Powder | Replace 1 cup sugar with 1 cup Chicory Root | |
| Stevia leaves | 1 tsp dried stevia leaves = ten tsp white sugar .
Some stevia plant varieties have a slight licorice aftertaste,
Take note powdered stevia has added nonpaleo ingredients. |
|
| Erythritol made from corn and sold as “Swerve Sweetener” | 1/3 cup Swerve = 1 cup white sugar.
Doesn’t dissolve as well so take care especially with fruit jellies, cheese cake, and mousse desserts |
|
| Flour and Grains | ||
| All-Purpose Bakers Flour | Mix
3 cup almond flour 2 cup arrowroot flour 2 cup coconut flour 1 cup tapioca flour |
Use cup for cup with plain all-purpose baking flour |
| Cassava Flour | 1 cup for 1 cup |
Natural and unprocessed, except for plant-milks, all the way is the key to success with paleo lifestyle.
