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Review: Paleo Lunches and Breakfasts on the Go

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paleo lunch, paleo breakfast
Preparing paleo meals has never been easier!

One of the biggest challenges I see patients face when adopting a Paleo diet is incorporating it into their daily life. It can be daunting for a busy professional or a mother to cook breakfast and lunch on top of dinner every day, and that’s even without following a grain-free, Paleo diet. Many of my readers consistently request advice on how to make Paleo work for them when cooking throughout the day isn’t an option, or when the demands of their career or family make eating nutritiously a challenge.

If you’re like the majority of my clients who don’t have time to be in the kitchen all day, you’ll love Diana Rodgers’ new cookbook, Paleo Lunches and Breakfasts On The Go. Diana’s book is an excellent resource that offers 100 delicious yet simple recipes to make following a Paleo diet as easy as possible.

Don’t have time to be in the kitchen all day? Check out the new on-the-go cookbook by Diana @Radnutrition.Tweet This

Drawing from her experience as a nutrition therapy practitioner, graduate student in nutrition, mother of two, and full-time sustainable farm owner (whoa!), Diana knows the importance of simple-to-prepare meals when juggling a full-time job and a family, and she shares her wisdom and practical tips in this great book. The introduction includes straightforward recommendations for getting started with Paleo, and how to choose the right foods to include in your diet, both from a nutrition perspective as well as an eco-conscious focus. She gives tips for eating out, finding healthy food on the road, making Paleo work with kids, her personal pantry staples, and the common Paleo pitfalls she has seen with her own clients. She also provides a variety of resources that can help readers find the best quality food in their area.

The recipes are simple to prepare and yet still delicious – you’ll never miss your daily bagel at breakfast or sandwich at lunch with so many great options for healthy, easy meals. The cookbook is full of recipes for Paleo-friendly wraps, portable salads and soups, quick and easy breakfasts, and even day-to-day essentials like homemade dressings, grain free crackers, veggie-rich snacks, smoothies, and basic go-to recipes for nights when even using a cookbook is too much of a hassle.

The book is an excellent resource for anyone brand new to Paleo, those who don’t want to spend a great deal of time or energy cooking, and even those who are daunted by the more complicated recipes that often fill the pages of most cookbooks. While I always appreciate the chance to be a gourmet chef, some days you only have time to throw together a quick salad, and Diana’s book gives great inspiration for keeping your simple meals interesting.

Paleo Lunches and Breakfasts On The Go is available now from Amazon.com, and also comes as a Kindle version, so now there’s no excuse to eat healthily even with a busy lifestyle!

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32 Comments

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  1. I am on my way to be completly PALEO!!! I have still some point to get used to… Although I love cooking I am always blank when it comes time to make snacks… I will dft look at the Kindle version!! Thanks

  2. Awesome! Lunch and weekend snack are so hard to plan following Paleo that sometimes It make it hard. I can’t wait to start making some of those recipes and to see what my family think of them 🙂 Thanks !!!

  3. I have been trying to go Paleo for a couple of month now but I am having trouble to stick with it especially making lunch for work…..!!! Not having any guide/cookbook to rely on was also a big part why I did not stick with it the 2 last time. Let’s hope those recipe are good and will help me this time. Thanks

  4. Thanks for the review. I’m trying different ways to get fit and eat healthy. I tried juicing for two weeks, but only made it through half of the 2nd week. Paleo diet looks very reasonable and hopefully something i can live with.

  5. I didn’t read every single response, so forgive me if this is a repeat of what someone else has said. I guess I approach this as a relative thing. I fully KNOW my school lunch prep isn’t 100% paleo sometimes. BUT, it’s a heck of a lot better than sending them with lunchables, or letting them eat what is being served. I love ANY lunch ideas. I do very well with what I cook at home, but lunches are tough, because they can’t keep them in a fridge (so must pack a cooly thing) – then no way to warm them up – so it must be palatable to them cold. I just think of it as a relative thing. That being said, I am fortunate that my children do not have food allergies or true health issues. I am simply trying to AVOID health issues for them. I don’t lo-carb them, either. And I do cook paleo treats. (less so when the grandfolks are supplementing with fro-yo treats……but….It’s summer, so I’ve let it slide.) I can’t wait to download the book!

  6. As aside here: would you please consider changing the second sentence to “a busy professional or a parent”? Thanks, from the year 2013!

  7. Thanks for this review. I was really looking for paleo books like this. Now, I have something to learn. It’s really hard to have a paleo diet if you don’t have ample time to prepare.

  8. Um I trying to get used to the paleo diet although I not really good at cooking so I really hope I can make these recipes. Also I didn’t know that there was a kindle version, that’s great.

  9. Stay-at-home dad here, do you know if her book has an IPAD or kindle version ? would love to read this in the kitchen with my ipad. If not I guess I’ll hunker down and get the book.

    I wonder if the wifey will get surprised I start going all paleo on her !

  10. Hi Diana,
    I do have serious autoimmune disease and the low carb diet I follow helps me control my autoimmune diseases. The low carb diet I follow excludes sweet potatoes, white potatoes, honey, maple syrup, and starches except for arrowroot starch.

    I am not afraid of starches, they spike my blood sugar and promote inflammation in my body causing my neuromuscular disease to flare up. Arrowroot starch in small quantities I use for a variety of dishes but mostly when I am trying to replicate a mainstream dish for my family. Arrowroot starch does not spike my blood sugars or increase my neuromuscular symptoms.

    Several years ago when I first started learning about the low carb Paleo and Primal diets it was simple and easy. It seems with the advent of more people becoming interested in Paleo lifestyle that Paleo is becoming diversified and expanding. That doesn’t mean a wider variety of Paleo acceptable foods fits every person’s lifestyle or health needs. Food elimination helps most of us determine what foods wreak havoc and what foods our bodies enjoy and tolerate. My diet is more restrictive due to food elimination.

    I agree with you about Against All Grain having great recipes being a beautiful cookbook, and has a different approach to Paleo. It just happens to fit my dietary needs better than some of the other newer Paleo cookbooks. I don’t use all the recipes in any of my Paleo/Primal cookbooks due to an anaphylactic allergy to shellfish but I do choose cookbooks that use my basic Paleo/Primal pantry.

    Also, I had already pre-ordered the cookbook you recommended by Sarah Ballantyne.

    Kind Regards,
    Rina

    • Hi Rina,
      Most folks on an autoimmune paleo protocol are nut free and also avoid the treats, which is what I suggest to my clients. That’s interesting that nuts work for you. Also baked goods with nut flours is really something from a nutrition standpoint that should be avoided, as their delicate oils don’t really do well when exposed to oven temperatures. In addition, chocolate is also not not something I suggest for people that have neuromuscular symptoms. In addition, paleo does not “have” to be low carb. Especially for active children, who burn energy much faster than adults. If you were to increase healthy starches in their diet, they may not require so many sweet treats – as their cravings for sugar might just be a reflection of a low carb diet. Paleo simply refers to a diet with the highest nutrient density foods possible, with the elimination of inflammatory foods. Nuts should be used in very limited quantity by healthy people, and not be turned into baked goods, especially for someone who has autoimmune issues. You may find that you feel much better without nuts.
      Best of luck on your paleo journey.
      Diana

      • Diana,

        Your assumptions are way off.
        I am close to 60 and my children are all active healthy young adults in their early to mid-20’s who do not “crave” sweets as you stated, but they do enjoy them. It is probably due to their Nordic/European genes and years of eating healthy baked goods with nut flours, real butter, yogurt, and farm eggs.

        Baked nut flour treats are a tradition in my family for over 200 years with relatives living into their late 80’s and early 90’s so evidently they aren’t that bad. I have never read any Paleo book that said nuts were bad for healthy people and nothing about baked nut flours being bad for anyone, healthy or unhealthy.

        BTW, my mother who is almost 90, was a certified/accredited nutritionist who ran her own health/nutrition business for 40+ years. She has been instrumental in my autoimmune disease management over the years and it works.

        Rina

  11. People, do yourselves a favor and get a small, portable stove! I have one in my vehicle and at work and can fry up a steak or eggs in no time! Even working 50 hours a week! I cook all my meals.

  12. I may just have to go to the book store and check it out. Do book stores even exist anymore? lol. Personally I just love a big hunk of meat at lunch (grass-fed or pasture raised of course) and for breakfast, sauteed squid, it’s so good!

  13. I was so excited about the book “Paleo Lunches and Breakfasts On The Go” that I had ordered 4 copies for myself and adult children. When I perused the cookbook yesterday, I was disappointed to see recipes including white potatoes, some other starchy indgredients, and ingredients that those with auto-immune disease should avoid. This is not the paleo diet our family has been used to eating and what I learned by reading Robb Wolf and Loren Cordain, Ph. D. books and cookbooks.

    “Paleo Lunches and Breakfasts On The Go” is a well written cookbook that to me is Paleo friendly and not the lower carb Paleo diet my family follows. In several of the newer released “Paleo” cookbooks, I have noticed that they trend towards being more Paleo friendly instead of low carb Paleo.

    “Paleo Lunches and Breakfasts On The Go” I am sure works well for some famlies but not mine.

    In contrast the new cookbook “Against All Grain”, is a great fit for my family with its very simple everyday ingredients that we all stock in our cupboards and is in line with the Paleo diet we follow.

    • Hi Rina,
      I do include 3 recipes (out of over 100) which include white potatoes, based on their nutrient density profile – they are in fact more nutrient dense than sweet potatoes. Mat Lalonde presented this information last year at the Ancestral Health Symposium, which Chris Kresser wrote about http://chriskresser.com/take-home-messages-from-ahs-2012 and Robb Wolf also talked about in his podcast. There is no reason to be fearful of starches, and most in the paleo community are in agreement now that a very low carb diet is not ideal for most people. Low carb paleo is fantastic if you don’t move much, or have other serious health conditions. Robb Wolf has a long post about myths of low carb here http://robbwolf.com/2012/12/19/carb-paleo-thoughts-part-1/

      I am not a big fan of the use of low starch/carb diets then loading them up with paleo treats to compensate. I’d much rather eat a potato/sweet potato than a paleo brownie or paleo cake. You’ll see in my book I do not use lots of honey or maple syrup in my recipes, nor do I include lots of paleo desserts.

      If you follow autoimmune paleo, then I would suggest a book focused on that topic like this one http://www.amazon.com/The-Paleo-Approach-Reverse-Autoimmune/dp/1936608391/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1376084166&sr=8-2&keywords=autoimmune+paleo

      Against All Grain is a beautiful cookbook and has great recipes, however our books have very different approaches.

      Best,
      Diana, Author of Paleo Lunches and Breakfasts on the Go

    • Against All Grain’s a beautiful cookbook (I’ve recommended it to a few friends already), but it’s certainly not “low carb Paleo.” Half of the book contains desserts and bread substitutes (Banana Cream Pie, Lemon Vanilla Bean Macaroons, Pumpkin Donuts, Hamburger Buns, Rosemary Breadsticks, etc.) I love these treats once in a while, but I’m fairly certain Robb Wolf and Loren Cordain didn’t have Chocolate Fudge Sauce and Peach Streusel Coffee Cake in mind when formulating “Paleo.” Sugar is sugar is sugar.

      I haven’t yet received my copy of Paleo Lunches & Breakfasts on the Go (argh), but a few recipes with little starch from potatoes or other root vegetables certainly isn’t anything to be concerned about vis-a-vis treats with fudge and honey and coconut sugar. Just my 2 cents.

      • Lola,
        For my low carb Paleo diet, “Against the Grain” provides excellent recipes that use my Paleo Pantry. In any of my Paleo cookbooks, if the recipes use ingredients that I or a family member cannot eat, I substitute with another ingredient that works.

        I don’t understand why you think the Rosemary breadsticks aren’t low carb. I made them last evening for dinner to accompany a carb reduced version of Italian Pork chops from the Beyond Bacon cookbook. Absolutely delicious and no blood sugar spikes or other repercussions.

        I have adult children, elderly family members, and a husband who love their sweets. It is much more satisfying to indulge their sweets making a healthier version of cookies, pies, donuts, and homemade ice creams. Especially with my elders, the extra protein and nutrition they get from the whole food ingredients I use makes them function better through the day. None of them eat sweets on a daily basis but if they need some coconut cream fudge, coconut milk ice cream, almond flour cupcakes, or coconut flour doughnuts, almond waffles, I can certainly whip some up for them.
        Yes, sugar is sugar and starch is starch in both unhealthy and healthy forms. What sugar and starch have in common is they both raise blood sugars. That is a problem for those of us with autoimmune diseases that blood sugar affects.

        Healthy fudge can be made with coconut cream, cocoa, vanilla, with nuts of choice mixed in. We make our our coconut milk ice creams without added sweeteners.

        I have the cookbook and reviewed it for my family’s dietary needs. Hope you receive your copy soon.

        Regards,
        Rina