I've been trying to follow a paleo/primal lifestyle lately, which is not as hard as it sounds (or extremely hard....depending on the day!) One of the big changes that seems to always happen for me when I take on a new diet, is trying to sort out my beverage selections for the morning. I LOVE my coffee, and coffee is on the 'unclear' list in the paleo/primal community so I've had to give this some serious thought. My pre-primal days (eat what you want and get really fat) my coffee sported non-dairy creamer and plenty of good ol' sugar. Then I went to my atkins diet phase, where my coffee went to real cream and splenda. Now that I'm doing primal....what should I do??
I've explored several options and I think maybe I've found a workable solution: Full fat coconut milk and stevia. Yes, stevia is also on the "questionable" list. Yes, I should probably learn to take my coffee without the sweet but...all things in time, right now I have enough changes in my diet life to want to let go of this small thing. I am REALLY liking the coconut milk as creamer though. I found an organic brand that doesn't have any added sugar or strangeness that I've been using. (But...it does come in a can, which makes me wonder if I should be worrying about BPA...) It's creamy and sweetish and coconut and coffee marry really well together. YUM.
Another option I've tried is grass fed butter, BLENDED into the coffee. (If you don't blend, it won't mix in well.) This is...interesting. I like it, it's definately creamy and froths up beautifully when I whir it through our blendtec. But butter...dairy. I guess it's better than most dairy, being grass fed and all (and I'm still sneaking in bits of RAW heavy cream when I can find it at the farmers market. What WILL I do when the season is over?)
If you are unfamiliar with the paleo or primal diet, I reccomend you start with Mark's Daily Apple (Primal) and The Paleo Diet (paleo). I lovingly refer to both as the "caveman diet" which amuses my kids to no end. By the way, they are not the same, just...similar...I'm not sure yet which one I'll be following religiously since I'm still considering how addicted I am to my coffee.
I do my coffee with creamer ( coconut milk, soymilk, non dairy, I am not picky, I only do coffee a couple times a week)cinnamon and nutmeg (freshly grated of course) and honey. It's almost like hot chocolate. Or take it black if I'm not in the mood for sugary.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how it would taste, but I've seen almond milk used. It's apparently pretty easy to make yourself, too.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty addicted to my coffee, I'm not sure I could give it up.