My apologies for missing your question: this is a very old article and I didn't see it until now.

Anyway, don't stress about vegetable intake. If you hate them, don't eat them! I suspect you'll find, over time, that your appetite for them starts to come back once you're not filling yourself up with bread and starch. And keep in mind that just about anything tastes delicious with homemade Caesar or Hollandaise dressing on it -- even a salad.

Whole fruit is fine in moderation, but stay away from fruit juice, dried fruit, and any processed fruit snacks.

If you're on a serious budget, you'll probably need to shop supermarket meats vs. grass-fed. The key to buying meat is to watch for sales and buy a bunch for your freezer when a really good price comes up. Example: tri-tip is normally $7.50-8.00 per pound where I live, but occasionally it goes on sale for $4. Often stores will put out their shop trim as hamburger late in the day and price it very cheaply...sometimes 99c/pound! Chicken thighs are normally $2/pound but go on sale for $1 every so often. Ask the guy at your local meat counter what the best deals are...if you tell them you want to buy more meat but your family is on a tight budget, they'll usually help out.

Eggs are cheap, so no problem there. Potatoes are nearly free when bought in 10-20# bags, and 20# bags of rice are too. What's expensive are processed grain-based foods like cereal, bread, cookies, chips and snacks...do the math for how much they cost per calorie, and you'll be surprised to find that hamburger is cheaper! Same with soda...when you're only drinking water, you'll realize how much money you're spending on soda, juices, and other junk.

As far as "exactly what should I eat", my advice remains the same: Eat Like A Predator.

Hope this helps!

JS

A "grain" is a grass of the family Poaceae, cultivated for its seeds.  So all grains are seeds, but not all seeds are grains.

"Vegetable" is a culinary term, not a precise botanical term.  That said, it's usually understood to refer to any edible part of a plant that isn't a fruit or a seed.

Corn isn't a vegetable: it's a seed.

And I see no problem with pepper seeds as a spice...I would have a hard time making chili without them!

JS

Sure, it's nerga: but it would be purely for the humor value.  "Thou shalt have no other foods before meat."

As far as activity, I'll have to think about that.

JS

Paleo Commandments? Does paleo need a constitution? The Primal Blueprint and Archevore have their 10 or 12. You already got it down to 2:

• Eating foods that best support the biochemistry of human animals with a multi-million year history of hunting and foraging, primarily on the African savanna.
• Avoiding foods, such as grains, grain oils, and refined sweeteners, that actively disrupt the biochemistry of these human animals.

A third one around activity is useful, so an "Holy Trinity" of Paleo?

In fact, if you compressed the above two into one about (1) food and water, and made up a second one around (2) activity and rest, I think you'd have paleo lifestyle in a nutshell. Everyone can count to two.

Absolutely!  It's even worse when you realize how seed oils are made.  

I coined that phrase in Eat Like A Predator ("Eat food, not diesel fuel"…"If you can put it in a truck and the truck starts, it's not food") and I hope it continues to spread.  Maybe we need to work on the Paleo Ten Commandments...?

JS

Yes, that's what we should call seed oils. Diesel fuel. Perfect.

"Thou shall not fry thy food in diesel oil, nor the food of any in thy house or that of your servants or any of your guests or customers."

I'm jealous.  In the USA all you can get in a supermarket is terrible hydrogenated lard.  I have to mail-order my tallow.

Chris:

I'm sitting at 12-13%, which I think is about where a healthy male body getting adequate nutrition wants to be.  And many "primitive" people have to stay active whether they're eating well or not, so they'll often dip under that.

Remember that "10% bodyfat" on the Intenet is more like 15%.  Under 10% qualifies as ripped for anyone but a BB going into a contest.  

JS

Lucky for me, I can buy dripping at my local supermarket:

Thanks Chris - to be abolsutely honest, I've not been interested in potatoes so I have not made chips yet. I have found a really neat small fryer which has a 1 litre capacity (so 500ml fat) to do small portions. I can pour out the fat while it is warm into a container to store in the fridge between use.

Chris:

Bodybuilding isn't about health: your body really doesn't want to be at 4% bodyfat.  Fat is our energy reserve against hunger, and Paleolithic humans were selected for surviving without food far more often than they were selected for ripped abs.  Furthermore, bodybuilders train for bulk, not for real-world strength: you won't find any hunter-foragers who look like Jay Cutler.  

So if you want to "get ripped", you're going to have to do some unnatural things to your diet.

(Yes, there are some people who are genetically gifted and look like an anatomy chart on any diet, just like there are some women who are natural E cups.)

JS

JS:

For sure - I was partly musing on a thought process that I went through during my trials (hell after doing it once my body refuses to do it again! Sort of.). It's not doubt unnatural. But that does beg to question. How low is unnatural? 6%? 8%? 10%? 15%? The "gold standard" 12%? I'd be curious to see what the results might be. Looking at "non Westernized" people, especially those who have had minimal contact with "us" - from their pictures I might estimate 10% or less for most of them. Perhaps. And then, while I'm musing a bit (stay with me), even though certain culture idealized the "big brawny" look and even iconicized it, like the Greeks, was there really the ability to big that strong, big, and bulky as Hecules, and others were described? (Ignoring the relativity of poorer classes, etc being rail thin). It's an interesting brain exercise - and I'm not even sure there's an answer to be honest.

As always, your thoughts are welcome, and always provoke me to think on the next level!