On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 00:13, Tom and Anne Donlon wrote:

>Did you gradually change your eating habits, or abruptly
>change everything at once?

Well, I was always eating organic foods while I was a vegetarian for 30 years.  I stayed organic but
stitched to Paleo 100% overnight.

>Do the cravings go away, and when?

In my case, the cravings were never strong, but disappeared after about three days, but it's easy to
get them back in summer when my fruit trees are laden with sweet fruit.  So, I give in to them -
but only with my own fruit (up to 30 ripe plums or apricots or 15 or 20 apples some days!).
Seems the natural thing to do to eat ripe fruit and to put on body fat for the coming winter.

For by far the best explanation of cravings - and the solution, see Rob Faigin's book "Natural
Hormonal Enhancement".

>Anyone lose a significant amount of weight?

I put on about 5kg (11lbs) body fat in autumn and lose it over winter.  I also put on 3-5k in
muscle as I was able to lift heavier weights at the gym. So now I'm heavier.

>If you had a small book budget, which would you buy? I bought Neanderthin
>(it was 6.99) at Borders but didn't see the others I've seen referenced
>online.

You don't actually NEED much more than Neanderthin unless you are making a study of Paleo
eating or are stuck in the [very un-Paleo] groove of needing recipes. If you use your imagination
and use locally-produced food, imaginative combinations and eating more raw, you'll work it out
for yourself.

>Did your food bill go up when you started buying nuts and meats
>and lots of nut butters and flours and organic produce? I'm
>assuming that it'll even out since I won't be buying all the
>other stuff - ?

Could be more; could be less.  I grow my own eggs, fruit and vegetables so haven't bought any
for four months (I'm in the southern hemisphere, so it's early autumn here).  I'll be buying more in
winter and early spring.

>Is flax paleo?

Pretty much.  Depends what you do with it. Flaxseed meal is at the more Paleo end while Flaxseed
oil is at the less paleo end.  Just think of Ray Audette's rule "Can you find it on the savannah with
a sharp stick?"

>Do you take supplements?

(Make savings here you can apply to books and organic meat!) A multi-vitamin pill once every 7
-10 days, a single fish-oil capsule every day and selenium 5-7 days a week.  Selenium is lacking
in our soils so it's just not in our foods. No pharmaceuticals at all.

>Finally, anyone know of a paleo egg substitute? I'm allergic, and all of
>the replacers I know of are either soy or potato. I've tried bananas with
>somewhat mixed results.

Depends what role you want the eggs to play.  Nutritionally, eggs are about the same as red meat,
so nutritionally there are no problems.  If you are concerned about a substitute in recipes, see
what I wrote above: you'll easily grow out of the 'recipe ingredients' way of thinking if you want to
and then it won't be an issue.

Sorry I'm not able to help with the baby food question.  There has been useful discussion on this
list over the years and a rich one about 18m ago - check the archives or come back again with a
baby food/weaning question.

Keith