Remember – If you're enjoying these podcasts, please leave us a review in iTunes. Thanks!
Topics:
1. Liz’s updates [8:21]
2. Diane’s updates [11:21]
3. Jet lag and sleep issues [14:21]
4. Travel food / snack options [24:56]
5. Diane’s favorite food in Greece and why [31:30]
6. How did you avoid all the yummy cheese the Greeks are renowned for? [34:27]
7. Is there a lot of bread/gluten in the food in Greece? [37:26]
8. Was it easy to eat Paleo in Greece? [46:54]
9. What was your favorite place in Greece? [49:36]
10. Did your trip inspire you to make any changes back home? [55:24]
Diane's Travel Snacks:
Links:
Subscribe to Real Food Liz! Subscribe to Dianesanfilippo.com
Click here to listen online
The episodes are currently available in iTunes, Stitcher & Blog Talk Radio.
Show sponsors:
 |
 |
 |
Liz Wolfe: Hey everybody! Welcome to episode 153 of the Balanced Bites podcast. I’m Liz, and that’s Diane.
Diane Sanfilippo: Hey everybody. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Hey everybody! What was that?
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m back dun-nununa {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: I think it’s so ridiculous that you’re recording a podcast the day after you get back from Greece. I need two weeks to recover. I need twice as much time to recover from vacation as the vacation took.
Diane Sanfilippo: I was ready to be done with vacation after 10 days.
Liz Wolfe: Only you.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, I’m bored. {laughs} I actually had to work a little bit on vacation, too, but I can talk about that. It wasn’t bad. I don’t know; I was so relaxed, I was like, great, I’m done relaxing now! {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Can we be done relaxing? I blocked out this much time for relaxing.
Diane Sanfilippo: I totally was, yup. Done relaxing now. Where’s the internet café? {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Oh my gosh. Did you ever watch any episodes of, you’re going to say no.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Of that reality show about people in Charleston? So much for me not talking very much on this podcast. Southern Charm?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. I’ve seen maybe 2 or 3 episodes.
Liz Wolfe: That kid, Shep, which is totally what I would name my next pet or farm animal. He’s like, my passion is leisure. And that’s exactly, I was like, somebody understands me.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} That’s exactly… I can’t help it though. You know what it is? It was the fact that, I mean, I’m basically going to talk all about this trip on this whole episode so we can get into it later too, but I wasn’t doing or making or creating anything on the trip. I was taking pictures and little video clips and all that, but my brain just turns to mush if I don’t… I didn’t work out. I was just bored. We went to beaches and that was great, but I’m sorry, I can only handle being on the beach for so long {laughing}.
Liz Wolfe: There’s something wrong with you.
Diane Sanfilippo: I know. I know! {laughs} I can’t even say it with a straight face because I know how ridiculous it sounds. But if I were at least cooking and buying groceries, that might have been mentally stimulating. It just makes me more tired. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: You mean a trip with Tony Kasandrinos was not moment by moment just a complete stim fest?
Diane Sanfilippo: I’ll tell what was a stim fest was {laughs} driving to the beaches. Literally, I feared for my life every minute. You’ve been in the car with him.
Liz Wolfe: I have.
Diane Sanfilippo: So, imagine… he’s the polar opposite of how Liz drives. Liz is 10 and 2, she’s really close to the steering wheel {laughs}, and whatever the speed limit is, she’s 1 mile below it. {laughs} And I feel almost safe to the point where I feel endangered again when you’re driving {laughing}.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: But, it’s fine. I’m the navigator when you and I are in the car. Anyway, when Tony drives, it’s like, oh, in Greece, we don’t have normal rules of the road.
Liz Wolfe: Nobody watches the road in Greece.
Diane Sanfilippo: No! We saw 2 cops the entire time we were outside of Santorini. We saw 2 there, and apparently it was only 16.
Liz Wolfe: Smoking and having an espresso?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, they were basically directing foot traffic. But there are 16 cops in all of Santorini, we learned, and probably only 16 on the rest of the mainland because {laughs} there were none. Anyway, it will be a two lane road, one lane for each side, and we’re just speeding past people on dangerous turns and passing them, and there was one mountain we had to go up and around and over to get to this beach, and it was practically a one lane road that allowed for two cars supposedly. No guard rail for 90% of it, and the other side of the edge of the road is a huge steep cliff. So, I’m in the backseat {laughs} with Tony’s mom, Cindy, who is the most adorable thing ever. The poor woman is just sitting there with her eyes closed, shaking her head, screaming, Tony, slow down! Freaking out!
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: There were a couple of points where I was like, seriously dude. I think you might actually make us not come back from this trip if you don’t slow down a little. But we made it. And it was scary.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} I think I’m going to read the sponsors now.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, do that.
Diane Sanfilippo: Because I know you’re having some technical difficulties with speaking {laughs} I don’t know.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing} I’ll explain that in my updates, since my updates are always so dense with information.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok. Alright, so our sponsors. Pete’s Paleo, bringing fine dining to your cave. If you’d like to make eating paleo a little easier on yourself, check out Pete’s meal plans. Great for those nights when you need real food fast. Pete’s Paleo is now offering 21-Day Sugar Detox friendly meals to make your life that much easier on the 21DSD. Check out Paleo By Season, which is chef Pete’s new cookbook. You can get more information on the meal plans and the cookbook and all that good stuff at http://petespaleo.com/. They also have a new Wahl’s protocol meal plan, which is the Terry Wahls, kind of goes along with her book, and I just noticed they had bone broth. That’s a part of that, so that’s really cool. Check that out.
Chameleon Cold-Brew. Very thankful for them as our sponsor, because that saved my booty this morning. Their new ready to drink single serving bottles are hitting store shelves all over the place. They have a black coffee, as well as a vanilla and mocha, which are just slightly sweetened, and the black coffee is completely plain, straight up. Those are not concentrates, so you can just pop them open and start guzzling them down. They’ll have new flavors coming out, I guess this month. I need to check with someone over at Chameleon and find out what those new flavors are. So stay tuned for details on that. You can find them all over the place now, so that’s the big update there.
We are super excited, as you guys know, about our newest sponsor, Splits59. Splits59 is a high performance and high fashion active wear company based out of LA. They have just launched a new line, Noir de’Sport, I think I’m saying that right, which is a super innovative, with hyper modern aesthetic, featuring things like welded seams, contrast geometrics, textural blocking and other intricate details. I actually got a brand new pair of their pants that are black and have these really funky mesh insets, so it’s a little bit of breathability and just looks pretty wicked. The lines are launching, well one of them launched at the beginning of this month, which is August, and then the next line launches September 1. So, check out their website, splits59.com. They are generously offering Balanced Bites podcast listeners 15% off of any regularly priced merchandise with Promo Code: BALANCEDBITES, so check them out.
Liz Wolfe: Very good.
1. Liz’s updates [8:21]
Diane Sanfilippo: Very good. Tell me what your updates are, my friend.
Liz Wolfe: So, the reason I’m talking a little bit less if possible this podcast is because I have wicked TMD, which is the correct term for TMJ.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, really.
Liz Wolfe: Like locked jaw on the right side, I think because of stress. We’ve had a ton of stuff going on at the farm, including an unexpected work trip, which sometimes happens when your husband is in the military. When it used to happen, I didn’t have 56 thousand farm animals in 100 degree heat, so, that. And I think I’ve been either grinding my teeth at night or I have no idea what it is, tension.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’ll send you a mouth guard. I’ve got some old trays from my Invisalign {laughs} you can use.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I was thinking about going to get one, for sure. But I’m basically on a liquid diet right now because I just don’t feel like chewing.
Diane Sanfilippo: I know, it’s because you really want to lose 3 pounds. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: I want to lose 3 pounds. But what’s funny, is we only have these giant spoons. My husband will take spoons to work; he’ll eat breakfast in the car, which ticks me off to no end, but he takes silverware with him and he doesn’t bring it back, so we only have these giant spoons now, and I can only open my mouth so far, {laughs} so I have tomato soup all over my face. {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: This needs to be Instagrammed.
Liz Wolfe: I know.
Diane Sanfilippo: Get a video of you eating soup with the weird spoon. Can you just tilt a cup back and slurp it?
Liz Wolfe: I probably could. I could probably be using straws and whatnot. I have been doing smoothies, I have been for the last 2 days, in the morning. So this is where a liquid diet might be appropriate.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: But I’ve been drinking a lot of broth.
Diane Sanfilippo: And not just wine.
Liz Wolfe: Yes, a box of wine, and in the morning I actually have the whey protein, from Tropical Traditions, and it’s goats milk capra whey. It’s really low-temperature processed whey protein so I’ve added that, some frozen strawberries, some coconut milk, avocado, egg yolks. I’m just throwing everything in there. Just all the nutrition for the day in this giant shake. It’s been alright, but hopefully this will clear up relatively quickly.
Diane Sanfilippo: Maybe you can have the goats put some acupuncture needles in your face.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, they’re not real careful about pressure points.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: They’ll just kind of {laughs} tackle any spot you leave vulnerable.
Diane Sanfilippo: I see.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. So that’s what’s going on with me. Not awesome.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mmm. I’m sorry.
Liz Wolfe: So we’re going to let you talk most of this one.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Shocking.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
2. Diane’s updates [11:21]
Diane Sanfilippo: Alright, awesome. Well, I’m trying to thinking if there are some updates. So, this episode we’re actually recording this pretty immediately before it goes live. So this episode will air tomorrow. {laughs} Our time tomorrow. And so, if you are listening to it live or within the week or so, the next 21-Day Sugar Detox kicks off on September 1. It’s not always the first of the month, but it is always the first Monday of the month. So if you’re having some labor day barbecue, have them on Sunday, so you can have your finally hurrah of your wine or booze, whatever you want to have, and join us September 1. I think that’s pretty much all. Just check out 21DSD.com or just jump into 21DSD.com/packages if you want to see all the goodies you can get with the new online program.
Liz Wolfe: Diane, what if you have a month where that Monday is like the 8th day of month, and you don’t have 21 days left in the month.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} It’s impossible {laughing} That’s impossible.
Liz Wolfe: I just counted on my fingers.
Diane Sanfilippo: Like, February? It doesn’t matter.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: It will always work {laughs} what do you mean?
Liz Wolfe: I don’t know.
Diane Sanfilippo: It will always work. I think February might be the only month where it might get close if February started on a Sunday, no, on a Tuesday. If it started on a Tuesday, I think we still make it. I think we still get 21 days.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, you’re right.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh! I’m always right. This is what everybody needs to remember. I’m a little punchier.
Liz Wolfe: You’re a little what?
Diane Sanfilippo: I think I’m a little punchier than usual. It’s what happens when we record at night. I’m always punchy at night.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: Because I just PR’d my snatch by 2 pounds. What?!
Liz Wolfe: Did you go work out the day after you got back from a transatlantic flight?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. We can talk about this, somebody asked a question about jet lag and sleep and all that, so we can talk about it.
Liz Wolfe: Alright. You remember I threatened to murder you if you did that.
Diane Sanfilippo: Ok. I don’t recall that. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: You never listen to me, gosh!
Diane Sanfilippo: Gosh, what do you think?!
Liz Wolfe: Alright.
Diane Sanfilippo: Alright. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Do you have a kitchen tip?
Diane Sanfilippo: Do I what?
Liz Wolfe: Do you have a kitchen tip?
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh. Hmm. No, mm-mm.
Liz Wolfe: Ok, I don’t have a kitchen question either. I’ve been eating Pete’s Paleo meals up until the point where my jaw stopped working, so.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: There you go. Alright, how about some questions about travel, Greece, things like that?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. You want to start with that jet lag question?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. If I could find it.
Diane Sanfilippo: One, two, three, the fourth one down, from Beth. It’s pretty much.
3. Jet lag and sleep issues [14:21]
Liz Wolfe: Oh. How did you address jet lag and sleep issues?
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: That’s from Beth.
Diane Sanfilippo: Alrighty. Well, heading to Greece, we fly to the future by 7 hours.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s very strange to me. I’ve never been that far ahead, time wise.
Liz Wolfe: My husband’s in the future, like 15 hours in the future, right now. It’s very strange.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s so crazy.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. I think the most I’ve ever traveled is back 5 hours. I think Hawaii was backwards 5 hours. So, it was actually, it’s harder to go back for some reason. Anyway, we left New Jersey at 6, 6:30 p.m. on a flight and arrived to Greece the next day, and finally to our hotel, by the time we went through Zurich and Athens and we actually started in Santorini, so that was kind of an extra flight. I think we got there around 3 p.m., and basically we had a snack and then slept for a few hours. I think we slept from 4 to 6:30, or to 7. Something like that. We were totally wiped out, looked like zombies when we landed. Ended up getting up and having dinner around 8 o'clock, trying to stay up until a normal time, and then we, for the first probably 4 to 6 days or so, we were waking up pretty early. It was kind of like that was the clock we were on. I think we were up before 8 every day {laughs} which is pretty early for us on vacation. Up before 8, maybe even before 7 a couple of days. I know I saw the sun rise at least one day.
It really didn’t feel too painful. I definitely think when you’re headed to vacation, I think it’s harder to feel the effects of it. Because you basically get there, and, at least the way I plan a vacation, there’s no expectation the first day that you have any kind of fantastic energy level. So I guess that would kind of be my tip in that part of the question, just if you’re planning that far of a trip, I think anything 3 or so hours difference, I wouldn’t try to book yourself to do something important that same day, or even the next day, whether it means you’re running around all day sight-seeing or something like that. I would really just keep that as a down day, and we actually did plan an extra day in Santorini than we had originally planned for that reason, because I was looking at the itinerary and pretty much the next day after travel is always, let’s not have expectations to go see anything or do anything.
That was really it, and I didn’t notice much on that end. The second week of the trip, we ended up just sleeping in a little bit later the whole time. I think it was because one of the cool things, and I’ll probably talk about this with more of the food questions, but one of the cool things was both of the hotels we stayed at offered breakfast included with our room, and this is not like a continental breakfast, muffins and cereal and all that stuff. There was real Greek yogurt with fruit and honey, and eggs cooked any way we wanted them, and bacon or sausage and all kinds of really good stuff. So, we were ordering it up for breakfast. And the second hotel we were at didn’t start serving breakfast until 9, and so we kind of didn’t try and get up too early because we wake up, I wake up really hungry. I was like, I don’t need to be up super early, let’s just wake up before they’re going to make breakfast. That was kind of on that end.
Coming back, this was just yesterday, we got back. So we left our hotel at 4 in the morning Athens time, woke up at probably 3:30 in the morning. I probably slept 3 hours, if that. I don’t really sleep well before an early flight, I just have a lot of anxiety that I’ll miss the flight, and I’m just, whatever I’ll fall asleep on the airplane because I’m airplane narcoleptic. At least, that’s what I’ve diagnosed myself {laughs} I cannot stay awake. What?
Liz Wolfe: Is that a thing? Airplane induced narcolepsy?
Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: Wow.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think it is. I mean, I think {laughs} legitimately, I think it is something to do with the cabin pressure. But I also, I get on that airplane…I’ve tried to do work on a plane before, and I’m like, oh no. {laughs} I just keep falling asleep.
Liz Wolfe: Blame the airplane.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s crazy. Anyway. So we left the hotel at 4 in the morning, and then we got back here. There were some delays, and some stuff took a long time, so I think we got back to the house around 2 or 3, probably 3 p.m. New Jersey time. By the time we were going to bed, we had been awake for 24 hours, I calculated, looking at Greece time. So that was 8 p.m. last night we went to bed, and slept until; I’m usually awake first, I woke up a little after 4, so that was 8 hours of sleep. Kind of how I handled that on this end, I have, I wish I had brought it down here with me. I’m sorry I didn’t. I’ll see if I can get a link to it in the show notes.
I have a supplement that has a bunch of herbs and minerals and vitamins and all that kind of stuff, but it also has a really, really low dose of melatonin. I took 1 instead of 2 of whatever the dosage was. I feel like the total dosage would have been 5 mg, so I took 2.5 mg total of melatonin with everything else that was in that supplement. And this is something that I’ve talked about a bunch on the podcast before, people ask about it a lot. I don’t recommend supplementing with it for a long period of time, but this is exactly the time when I need to get to sleep, I need to try and reset my body, and that’s why I did it. I may take one again tonight after we’re done with the podcast and I wind down a little, just to kind of make sure I don’t stay up too late, just because it was so many hours off. Now, when I travel just to California and it’s a 3 hour difference, I just kind of suck it up. I’ll feel a little bit off, but it’s just not as bad. 3 hours is, I don’t know. I think you just regulate pretty quickly.
Anyway, I woke up, and I had had a full nights’ sleep. I had my cold-brewed coffee this morning, and I had another coffee late morning, maybe around lunch time. Uh-oh, the cat is potentially eating an important paper, so I am going to {laughs} go shoo him away.
Liz Wolfe: That hasn’t worked since third grade, Diane.
Diane Sanfilippo: What?
Liz Wolfe: The cat.
Diane Sanfilippo: Legitimately, he eats paper. He shreds it. He doesn’t eat it, he shreds it. Ok, so coffee a couple of times today. I don’t normally do that. I’m finishing some work on Mediterranean Paleo right now, super, super crunch time, so the second coffee kind of happened. I actually felt better today than I’ve felt outside of vacation in a really long time, energy-wise. All day. Especially all morning. My energy gets really weird sometimes. I felt really good today. So that’s what I did, that’s what I recommend to people. I did go to the gym tonight. I was considering going in the morning, and I did see your text yesterday about not working out, but I was like, well, I’ll see how I feel tonight, I kind of waited.
It was snatch day at the gym. So for people who don’t do snatches, it’s a neurologically taxing lift, but it’s not something that’s actually a very heavy weight compared to what I’m strong enough to lift for, say a squat. It wasn’t something that was going to crush my body. I was a little concerned just because I hadn’t done it in a couple of weeks that it would be a little bit stressful, it was fine. Like I said, I actually PR’d that lift. It’s a technique based lift, so it really didn’t matter that I hadn’t lifted weights in two weeks.
That was really it. So, all of that to talk about how I deal with jet lag. That’s pretty much what I recommend. The other thing, I work for myself, as you all know, so there’s nobody here telling me, you have to do XYZ the day after you get back. And I definitely recommend, whatever time you come back from a long distance trip like that, whether you come back early in the day, or late, I think that that day and the following day you shouldn’t have too much on your plate that’s being demanded of you. If you have to count that as another vacation day, count it as another vacation day. Whatever you can do. If you travel without your children and they’re at grandparents house or somebody is taking care of them, plan an extra day into it. I know everybody has different stuff going on, but that’s something I would recommend as much as possible, to just accept the fact that when you get back you need another day. At least one full day, regardless of what time you get home. Do you agree?
Liz Wolfe: What? {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: Exactly. Listen. Listen, Linda.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Sorry.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m going to have to post a link to that video now.
Liz Wolfe: {laughing} You sent that one to me. I’m sorry, I promise to stay tuned in for the next answer.
Diane Sanfilippo: Well, I was just saying to take off the day after.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, hell yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} See.
Liz Wolfe: Take off the day after you do anything. You take the dogs for a walk, take the next day off.
Diane Sanfilippo: Take the next day, yeah.
Liz Wolfe: You hang up some pictures; take the next day off.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: You binge watch True Blood, take the next day off.
Diane Sanfilippo: For sure, off. I binge watched Mistresses when I got back. That is, literally, 3 hours on the couch. Scott was trying to talk to me, I’m like, excuse me, I’m watching my show {laughs}.
Liz Wolfe: Oh, isn’t that the worst.
Diane Sanfilippo: I was like, excuse me.
Liz Wolfe: Don’t fricking talk to me.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s so good, that show. It’s so bad that it’s good. I love it. Alyssa Milano. How could you not.
4. Travel food / snack options [24:56]
Liz Wolfe: Alright. I think this is one everyone wants to know. What were all your travel foods? Rebecca says, “I saw what you took on the plane, but what about your day trip snacks while traveling?”
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Day trips?
Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Day tripper! “Sometimes it’s easier at home because you know what’s at your favorite stores, but what about when you went into stores you were unfamiliar with?” I didn’t see a single conventional store when I was in Greece.
Diane Sanfilippo: No. No. There was no, look. First of all. We ate huge breakfasts. Let me backtrack. She asks what we brought; I’m actually scrolling back in my Instagram feed to look at the picture I posted, so anybody who follows me on Instagram. If you don’t, I’ll see if we can grab a link to the photo, because I think Instagram has a capability for us to imbed one of the pictures.
The stuff that I brought with me was airplane food, but I also had more of it, and that was planned for if we were in between meals and wanted a snack, or if there was for some reason; I didn’t realize that the breakfast would be so glorious, so I’m like, alright, let me have some sardines and have this stuff on hand, just in case. So everything that’s in this picture on Instagram, I have a few different kinds of wild caught fish. I have wild tuna in a flat pack, that’s a really easy one to travel with, and then a whole can of wild pink salmon. Sardines, let’s see, what else do I have.
I have a small jar of ghee, a small coconut cream, which I think those were in the suitcase. Tiny salt and pepper, small bottle of olive oil. What else. I have Sophia’s survival food jerky. That is my favorite jerky. She has a mild and she has a chipotle raisin. I really like that jerky; the flavors for me are good, and it’s really super clean ingredients. I also brought coconut sugar. I wasn’t sure; I didn’t know what would happen in terms of coffee. So the coconut sugar and coconut cream were thinking I might want them for coffee. I actually never used either of them. Love Bean, which is sort of like Nutella, but it’s coconut based, and as most of you guys listening know, I can’t eat hazelnuts or almonds or any of those yummy things, so I like to bring those. And then a seed and dried fruit mix. We had two bags of that. The last thing in this picture is these bars we’ve been getting at TJ Maxx. Scott can really eat a lot more in general, and a lot more carbs than I can. He’s a bigger guy, and he’s tall, and he needs lots of calories. So he’s been eating sometimes these chocolate covered coconut bars. They’re kind of like a Mounds bar, but a little bit healthier.
Liz Wolfe: Yum.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. They’re sweet, but not as sweet as the Mounds bar would be. I think they’re made with rice syrup, which is not something I would keep in the house. So we had that and these sesame bars that are date syrup and rice syrup and sesame seeds. They’re kind of like the sesame candies. I ate them growing up, and we actually have a recipe in Mediterranean Paleo Cooking for some sesame candies, but just all different stuff. Protein, fat, carbs, all kinds of good stuff. Of everything there, we definitely ate the jerky on a bunch of days, just kind of in between things. Like I said, I didn’t use the coconut cream at all. Usually, when I travel I do use coconut milk, but I was drinking Greek coffee, or espresso, and I just found that I didn’t need it. We definitely tapped into the sardines and the tuna on the trip back on the airplane. I think we ate most of the bars we brought, kind of throughout the two weeks. I think we pretty much finished the seed fruit mixture, which I put those seeds on yogurt sometimes.
The wild pink salmon, we did take that on the plane, and that was the only thing they actually questioned. I think because the can is larger, and there is some liquid in there, so if anyone is curious about what to carry, generally you can carry, I think it’s up to 3.5 oz. Usually, they like the jars to be labeled, but they know what’s how many ounces and never got a question about the olive oil or the ghee, which was semi-solid. It was really just the one can of salmon. So I probably wouldn’t recommend bringing that as a carry on unless you empty it out into a container first. But everything else was totally legit. Again, we’ll put a picture in the show notes. The jerky is super light to carry. The love bean, just little packets, they’re just like the Justin’s nut butter packets. We ate a good portion of that stuff. I think we ate most of the jerky. We ate a lot of here.
I’m definitely someone who packs {laughs} I pack more food than I’m going to need, and part of it is just, if you get stuck on an airplane on the tarmac for 3 hours, and you have no idea what’s going on, I just don’t want to hear it. Bring the food, you never know what’s going to happen. I’d rather have extra that actually ends up coming home with me than be in a situation where I’m pissed off because I didn’t have food.
That being said, the international airports had really good food. Munich had the best food. There was a chef who was cooking fresh eggs for us, whenever, yesterday morning whenever we were traveling. {laughs} He kind of got mad at us for not ordering fast enough, but he was very nice to make our eggs without bread and all that great stuff. So there you go.
Liz Wolfe: Did he speak the English?
Diane Sanfilippo: No, not at all. I said no bread, and he wasn’t even touching bread yet, but he got it. I don’t know, he was totally not speaking any English, and I was like, I’m a jerk because I just like pointed to the thing on the menu that I wanted, which was scrambled eggs with smoked salmon. All fresh food, which was crazy. We seriously were staring at them chopping peppers, like, wait they have real produce here at the airport? {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: He cracked eggs into a bowl to scramble them to then cook them on the cook top. I was like, ok.
Liz Wolfe: He just heard that all Americans don’t eat bread anymore. Ever since the Atkins diet.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.
5. Diane’s favorite food in Greece and why [31:30]
Liz Wolfe: So, I’m curious what, and a couple of other people are too, what your favorite food was while you were in Greece, and why.
Diane Sanfilippo: So, we ate really similar stuff all the time. I don’t know if this was your experience, too, when you were there. I know you and Spencer were there for your honeymoon a couple of years ago.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.
Diane Sanfilippo: And, we ate really similar stuff all the time. Probably my favorite was souvlaki that we had when we were, I don’t know, at some waterside restaurant. Every single place we went to eat was outside. We didn’t once eat indoors. Souvlaki, and horiatiki. Which is village salad or Greek salad, so tomato, cucumber, olives, maybe green pepper, maybe red onion, olive oil.
Liz Wolfe: We hardly ever had lettuce in our Greek salads.
Diane Sanfilippo: No lettuce.
Liz Wolfe: Ever.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s not a thing. And then feta. And so that was definitely my favorite. I think I ate Greek salad every day, maybe twice a day. {laughs} I was like, I’m turning into a tomato! And I never used to like tomatoes until probably the last couple of years, when I tried some that were what they were supposed to taste like, and not this watered down version of a tomato. So, yeah, that was my favorite. Nothing too complicated.
You know, the octopus, I really like octopus, but everywhere we had it outside the hotel in Santorini, the place we stayed at was called the Petite Palace. Somebody was asking on Instagram; it was called the Petite Palace. We really liked that place. They were just super nice, going out of their way to make everything really comfortable for us. Apparently, it was fully booked and we saw very few other people, so really quiet, private kind of place. Surprisingly, the Hilton in Athens, there’s a restaurant called Milos there. Which, I guess they have a few others, there’s one in New York City, and maybe a few other cities across the world, maybe. Their food was probably some of my favorite. Which I was really surprised.
I totally enjoyed the village food that we had. When we went with Tony down to Monemvasia, which is kind of an area of Greece where a lot of Greek people will vacation, but it’s not really heavy with Americans. Everybody there pretty much speaks English, or somebody in the establishment will. We had probably the best octopus and the best Greek salad in the hotel in Athens, which I was kind of surprised at. The food was great pretty much everywhere. Easy to eat and clean. Pretty straightforward. I know we have a couple of other food related questions, maybe we should just tackle those all together.
6. How did you avoid all the yummy cheese the Greeks are renowned for? [34:27]
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, like how did you avoid all the yummy cheese the Greeks are renowned for? I didn’t.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} I didn’t either. I did not avoid it, and my face is broken out so I’m kind of recovering from that. For me, that’s what happens, so I was like, well, I’ll just get a little sunburn. Maybe you won’t notice it so much.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: I did break out a lot. The other thing I ate a lot of was Greek yogurt. You know, I think I would have broken out a lot more, and differently had it been cow dairy, because I know that I break out differently when I eat dairy here at home. But, my digestion was on point {laughing} for that entire trip. We ate yogurt almost every single morning. Real, thick, full fat, not from cows, Greek yogurt. Which I’ve got my Greek yogurt blog post is almost done! I promise.
Liz Wolfe: I ate a lot of Greek yogurt when I was there. Greek yogurt with honey and walnuts.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm. I did it with honey and other fruit or the seeds we brought, because I can’t have walnuts, but yeah, it was amazing. So, no, didn’t avoid it. But if you absolutely can’t have dairy, it’s really not that hard.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: To ask them to not put it on the Greek salad. Some of the places we went it didn’t come with the Greek salad, you would have to order it extra or they would ask if you wanted that. We were with a native Greek speaker, so it was pretty easy to have him communicate with anybody who was waiting on us, but everybody really did speak English. According..
Liz Wolfe: … less though, because you were with a real Greek.
Diane Sanfilippo: Probably what?
Liz Wolfe: They probably hated you less because you were with a Greek.
Diane Sanfilippo: Oh. Maybe. {laughs} Maybe. Well, what was the other thing I was going to so? Oh, yeah, Tony was like, they speak English even if they say they don’t, or pretend that they don’t. He was like, they learn it in school. Depending on how old they are, he said if they were a little bit older and weren’t in school at the time where they were really teaching it a lot, but I guess they learn English from a very young age. And especially when you are in the touristy areas. If you were in Santorini or if you were in Athens, everybody speaks English there.
Liz Wolfe: So, did you drink wine, or more importantly, did you drink ouzo?
Diane Sanfilippo: I had a little bit of wine, champagne a couple of times. Not much wine. I’m not that much of a drinker. You guys, sorry to disappoint, but I’m a really good eater. I eat a lot of food {laughs}.
Liz Wolfe: I am the same.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’m just not a good drinker. I’m just not, it burns my throat. I don’t like drinking. I had champagne a couple of times. I really don’t care for red wine, so I didn’t have red wine. I had maybe a little bit of white wine one day, I don’t even remember.
Liz Wolfe: You didn’t have red wine? Baba Wawa. You didn’t have “wed wine”.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Baba Wawa. Wed wine. No wed wine.
7. Is there a lot of bread/gluten in the food in Greece? [37:26]
Liz Wolfe: Alright. Go ahead
Diane Sanfilippo: No, that was is.
Liz Wolfe: That was it? Ok, here’s something I noticed when I was in Greece. We spent a couple of days in Athens and then we were on a boat, and we took that to the islands to Sifnos and Milos, and then Santorini. And what I noticed was on the mainland, like in Athens, there were a lot of pastries, and on the boat everybody was eating these rings of bread, and all kinds of things, but once we actually got to the islands, we just didn’t see bread as a really central thing. They’d bring it out, but it wasn’t really part of every dish. So we had this question from Janice, “did you eat any local wheat-based foods or could you stay gluten free? Was it possible to find out info on ingredients?” And I found it was really easy to stay gluten free, I wasn’t that interested in bread anyway. Most of the dishes were stewed meats, the Greek salad with the big block of feta on top, just really basic stuff. Was that your experience?
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. This will kind of be the fun spoiler for people who listen to the podcast. I’m going to write a blog post about it. I actually ate bread for the first time in 4 years on this trip.
Liz Wolfe: Oh my god!
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} I know. I didn’t tell anybody.
Liz Wolfe: You are excommunicated. You’re fired.
Diane Sanfilippo: So, I’ll kind of go through a little bit of the details that I’m going to flesh out further in the blog post. I’ll kind of talk about it now. But first, let me talk about, for the first week of the trip I didn’t. And I found it like you said, it was really easy. They don’t use a lot of flours in the sauces there, and the bread comes, and it will just be on the side, and it’s really no big deal.
We had a travel card, a gluten free celiac travel card, so that does give the impression that you’re celiac. So if you’re not celiac, and you’re not wanting to be that strict about it, then maybe don’t use that card. But celiac, I think it’s celiactravel.org or .com. I actually have a link to it written in Practical Paleo in the guide to hidden gluten. I’ve known about this website for a long time and actually pretty much never went anywhere where I could take advantage of it. But you can download their gluten free card in any language. So, we downloaded the Greek one, and we showed it to a couple of servers; a waiter at one place, a waitress at another place, and they both were like, oh this is great. In their language, they could understand what had gluten and what we didn’t want, and what we could have.
One waitress, she was so adorable. I wish I had filmed her looking at it, because she was like, this is great! She was so excited. And she was like, oh, you can have potatoes! Potatoes don’t have gluten. So people just don’t know. They’re not super aware. But those cards are really helpful, and I think you would do just fine using it. So for the first week, that’s what we did and we really didn’t have any trouble. I did notice that while there wasn’t bread in everything, for breakfast it definitely was offered a lot in terms of pastries and things like that.
But like I said, since we were able to order from wherever we were staying, it was no problem. One time, they did serve eggs on top of bread, and they took it back and remade it. Which, I didn’t need them to do that. I think if I just took it off the bread, I would have been fine. But for folks who are celiac or highly sensitive, most of the hotels. I guess it just depends on the kind of place that you’re staying. I just found they were really accommodating and nice about things, so they just wanted to get it right and give you a good experience. They know that people are reviewing their establishment. A lot of these places are really sensitive to places like Trip Advisor. Places like that online.
So, yeah, I found that that was really easy. Then what happened was, our mutual friend, Liz, Erin Davidson, the owner of Crossfit Center City.
Liz Wolfe: Love her.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. She’s awesome. She and her fiancée had just been visiting with Tony. And {laughs} I’m blaming all this on Erin {laughs}, so Erin if you’re listening, this is all your fault. I’m waving my finger. They went with Tony to this, in the middle of the hills and woods restaurant. Somebody said if we wanted to name it, we could call it Helen’s house, because this woman Helen owns it and cooks all the food. And you would never find it. I can’t tell you how to get there, or where it is, or any of that. If you live in a village near it, you’ll know where it is, but otherwise it’s a very exclusive club.
But she was telling about this dish that, it was kind of a cross between gnocchi and ravioli if it were flat and not stuffed with anything. And it was this really delicate pasta that was then tossed in a brown butter and sort of burnt crispy parmesan cheese topping or sauce. And, she doesn’t eat gluten, she eats paleo, and she was like, I tried it. It was ridiculous. Totally worth trying. And I have literally not eaten gluten knowingly in over 4 years. And one of the reasons, well, a couple of the reasons why I wanted to try it was, I’d been talking about trying it again for a really long time, because it’s been this long.
So the reasons I did it, number 1, I don’t personally want to be scared of a food. And I don’t want other people to be scared of a food. Just because it’s probably not healthy for any of us to eat with any regularity, just because some people maybe are celiac or have a reaction that’s very strong to gluten that they know about, I don’t know what my reaction would be now because it’s been 4 years. I don’t know. So I was like, ok, I don’t want to be scared of it. I want to try it. I want to see what would happen if I eat it. And then the other part of it was, I wasn’t in our country. And I do feel, and I believe really strongly, that we have different food here. And I was like, if I’m going to try it, I’m going to try it in Greece. Especially in this remote are where we’re not even, we weren’t even in Athens. This was 4 hours south of Athens. I was like, I’m going to try it and see what happens. I just don’t think it’s the same genetically modified wheat. Or I’m going to guess that it’s probably not.
So I tried those clouds of whatever delicious I don’t know, little pasta thing, and they were amazing, and I ate some bread. It was alright, the bread. Mostly it was there to sop up oil and sauce. And I actually ate bread every day for the next 6 days. It was like, well, it’s here. I was in this mode where I wanted to see what happens. I wanted to see what my breaking point is. Does something happen?
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: Where all of a sudden I just feel like crap or I have to run to the bathroom, or I don’t know what. And really, what ended up happening for me is by the last day, after our meal, my stomach just felt really distended. I just felt like I had to loosen a belt and just go lie down after I ate. I was like, this is uncomfortable. {laughs} But I don’t know if that was really just the fact that I ate so much, because I really do eat so much. But I really didn’t notice anything. And my takeaway is really not anything different for what I’ll do here about it. I still don’t think that the wheat or gluten-based foods that we have here are anything worth eating health wise, or even taste wise for that matter. I’m just not interested in it. It was a fun experiment, and it was interesting, whatever. Most of the bread was not that great. I liked the texture of the crust, but otherwise it didn’t taste that great. It tasted just like I thought it did. That was pretty much it.
My take on how I will address the whole gluten thing in other countries is, you know what, if I end up going to France and I’m at a place where someone says they have the best croissants, I’ll try it. I want to experience things, and before I ever became a nutritionist and learned about all of this stuff, I’m pretty sure I was a foodie even then. I know Michelle Tam talks about this a lot, how, I’m a foodie first, before I’m a nutrition geek. And that’s how I am too. I just think in our country, I just don’t think the food is worth it most of the time.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: You know, I even figured there the bread wasn’t worth it. Oh, I did also try saganaki, which was kind of..
Liz Wolfe: I’m pretty sure that’s a country in Japan.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} It’s like spanakopita, but …
Liz Wolfe: Spanakopita!
Diane Sanfilippo: But there was spanakopita anywhere, which I totally was like, I’m going to eat spanakopita! Phyllo dough is my jam. Give me some good phyllo dough. That is really something I could get on board with. But, the saganaki was kind of like spanakopita, but it was like a small version of it. Not layered. I tried that, which was really good. I think that’s pretty much it.
8. Was it easy to eat Paleo in Greece? [46:54]
Liz Wolfe: So there was a question from Julia, was it easy to eat paleo in Greece, and did you have to search for high quality foods, or are more high quality foods than norm there? Which you kind of already answered it.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, totally easy. Mostly local food everywhere we went. Especially, again, in the country. I’m calling it the country, I don’t really know what else to call it. On Santorini, I think a lot of food was from Santorini. Some of it was probably brought in. But I know the tomatoes were from there, they were really proud of that, really beautiful tomatoes. Local meat. You know what surprised me? We didn’t eat as much lamb as I thought we would.
Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.. We didn’t either. I think we had it once.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. I think we had it a couple of times. I mean, we were there for two weeks. We had it a few times maybe. But we ate a lot of seafood, and more pork than I expected. Pork souvlaki was really, really common wherever we were the second week. A lot of souvlaki.
Liz Wolfe: We went to Milos, which was phenomenal. Milos is known for their really unique beaches, and what was cool about that, I can’t remember where we stayed, but I think our travel agency was a ____thesaurus, and they were wonderful. We took a boat tour, a tiny boat tour with this guy, and I can’t remember his name, but basically we saw him out on the docks pulling up freshly caught fish earlier in the day, we ate some of that fish later while we were on his boat. We went to some beach where we took his fresh veggies and his fresh Milos cheese, he called it, which was just fresh goat cheese from his mom.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: And we stopped at this beach, and there’s pictures of it somewhere I think on my blog, I think the post is Primal Honeymoon. But he just pulled this vent, basically, this grate out of the salt water, put it on top of some rocks, and cooked a bunch of, I think pork, and veggies on it. So I don’t know, it was really cool. There was a lot of fresh food, and you really saw it go from the ocean to the table so that was cool.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, even the street foods. Oh, what?
Liz Wolfe: There were some mountain goats there on that island, and they had, can I say testicles on a podcast?
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: I’ve never seen such massive testes.
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} You can definitely say that word.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, ok. It’s clinical.
Diane Sanfilippo: It’s totally clinical.
9. What was your favorite place in Greece? [49:36]
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. So I would definitely go to Milos. And since we don’t have that much time left, before I forget to ask you, what was one place that you went in Greece that you would recommend everybody go? And you can’t say Santorini, because everybody goes to Santorini.
Diane Sanfilippo: I thought Santorini was ok.
Liz Wolfe: I thought it was ok. It was not my favorite. Milos and Sifnos were definitely; I liked them better. And we stayed at The place on Santorini; we blew the whole budget there.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, I remember your pictures, and I’m like, where was she staying?
Liz Wolfe: Yeah.
Diane Sanfilippo: That looks like one of those fancy places over here.
Liz Wolfe: It was fancy.
Diane Sanfilippo: Our place was really nice. We didn’t have a private pool or anything.
Liz Wolfe: {laughs}
Diane Sanfilippo: We also, were not on a honeymoon. {laughs} I don’t know, although we feel like every trip is a honeymoon.
Liz Wolfe: Awww.
Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know, we’re just like, it just feels like fun. Well, I think Monemvasia was amazing, and it was like being back in time. It’s this little rock island down, like I said, maybe 4 plus hours south of Athens. You can look it up. Cobblestone streets. There was one main street that takes you through this island. All little rooms to rent, people have anywhere from 2, to 5, or 7 or 10 at most rooms that they kind of own or a little inn that they own to rent. We found out our place had 3 rooms. I was like, wait, what? {laughs} We’re only one of 3 rooms in this place?
And {laughs} the woman who was managing the place, maybe she was the owner too, was the sweetest thing, and totally reminded me of Grover on Sesame Street. This is so dumb. But didn’t he play 4 or so characters in one skit; he was the waiter, and he’s the maitre de, and he’s the chef, or something? Anyway, I just felt that way about this woman. She was at the front desk, and then she was our waitress, and then we needed to do some laundry, and were like, where can we do some laundry? And she was like, I’ll do it for you, just give it to me. We were like, {laughs} ok, we’ll give you our laundry. We didn’t know what to do about. Tony said one person he knew out of 10 had laundry capabilities there. He was like, just give it to her, she said she wants to do it. We’re like, ok you can do our laundry.
So I would definitely recommend checking out Monemvasia. It’s definitely a drive. You know you want to spend a few days down there. The food is really inexpensive there. That was one thing very, very different there versus someplace like Santorini or anywhere else that is pretty known for tourists. Three or four people could easily eat for 40 euros or less for a big meal. So, 40 euros, what’s that translate to, $50-60? Something like that. So, you could eat a dinner, a full dinner, and maybe somebody had, maybe Tony had a beer, or they ordered a bottle or wine or something like that. The wine might have racked it up a little bit more, but even with somebody having a beer, I think our bill was 40 or 45 bucks. And we eat. Not bucks, but euros. But really cheaply, we could eat down there.
I didn’t find that to be the case as much, obviously, up in Santorini. I would definitely say to check out Monemvasia if you can get there. And probably anywhere you could stay; just check out Trip Advisor. That’s what we did. We had no idea what we were getting into. But we stayed on the rock, and that’s definitely something I would recommend. Because if you’re going there for the first time, I don’t think you want to stay on the mainland. It’s really fun to be on the rock. If you saw my pictures of all these, almost looked like Spanish tile roofs, but that ceramic orange red tile. Just really beautiful. That was probably my favorite thing about the trip. And the views from Santorini were really fantastic, too. And the beaches were really cool, but a beach is a beach anywhere you go. That’s probably it. Were there any other big important questions here?
Liz Wolfe: Let’s see; a lot of people wanted to know about places to stay, eat, and visit, and I just think that’s a little too hard to answer.
Diane Sanfilippo: yeah.
Liz Wolfe: There’s just so many.
Diane Sanfilippo: I’ll do a recap post of the trip on the blog. So I’ll tell you where I was, because I can’t really give you recommendations of places that I was not. Then I’ll see if I can find your post, Liz, and I’ll link over to it. Or, if you want to throw me a couple of notes of places you went that you liked or wherever you stayed, and we can definitely…
Liz Wolfe: I just, I can’t remember. I’ll definitely send you my post. But when you stay in a small city or enclave, you just go down to the place where there are restaurants.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: I don’t even know what they’re called always. You just go, and you’re like alright, this looks good, let’s sit down, outside.
Diane Sanfilippo: Yep.
Liz Wolfe: You know, by the beach, and enjoy the food.
Diane Sanfilippo: That’s exactly how it was everywhere. There were a couple of places where Tony was like, well this one looks the most crowded, so let’s go here. Because if he didn’t know the town, he was like, I’m going to trust the places that seems to have more people, for some reason. Maybe more locals are eating there, whatever. I mean, pretty much every place had the same food, so it wasn’t too crazy.
10. Did your trip inspire you to make any changes back home? [55:24]
There’s one question here that I do want to answer; it’s kind of two in one. Was there one moment or thing that you appreciated most while you were there? And the other one was, how does the trip or anything that I learn apply to life here? What will I take from the trip. Scott and I were talking about this morning while we were walking the dog. One of them was, just taking a little more time at meals. I think, he and I are the same way where, if we’re done eating, we don’t just sit there at the table. It’s actually physically uncomfortable for me to sit upright in a chair that long just sitting there. I don’t like it, it’s not comfortable. But for me, it was to kind of get back the appreciation for preparing food and spending a little more time doing that and being a little bit more adventurous in choosing some different produce and trying to just keep it simple with the preparation. Literally, everything was olive oil, salt, lemon, oregano. Nothing crazy. It was pretty straightforward. It was just kind of a little reminder to keep it simple with the food and really focus on the company that we have when we were at the meal, and trying not to wait until we’re starving to eat so that we can eat a little bit more slowly and enjoy each other’s company while we eat.
Liz Wolfe: I like it.
Diane Sanfilippo: No you don’t.
Liz Wolfe: I think we pretty much covered all the questions.
Diane Sanfilippo: I think we did. Thanks everyone for all the questions.
Liz Wolfe: Yeah, for submitting all these questions. And I do feel like if you get the chance to go to Greece, go. Don’t spend all your time in Santorini, it’s really easy to hop around.
Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.
Liz Wolfe: I would definitely recommend that. Cool. Are we done, can I go feed myself soup with a straw again?
Diane Sanfilippo: Go bring the goats in. It’s like, let the dogs out, but not. {laughs}
Liz Wolfe: Yeah. {singing} Who put the goats in?
Diane Sanfilippo: Who, who, who, who.
Liz Wolfe: Baa, baa, baa baa. {laughing}
Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}
Liz Wolfe: Alright. We’ll be back next week with, I believe next weeks’ episode is Mark Sisson.
Diane Sanfilippo: The Sisson, what!
Liz Wolfe: The Sisson! If you’ve been enjoying the podcast, please remember to subscribe and help us spread the word by leaving a review in iTunes. As always, you can find Diane at http://dianesanfilippo.com, and you can find me at http://realfoodliz.com/. Be sure to join our email lists, where we provide exclusive content to our subscribers that we don’t put anywhere else. Thanks for listening.
Cheers! Diane & Liz
Comments 1
Pingback: Podcast Episode #153: Eating Paleo While Traveling: Diane’s Greece Recap | Paleo Digest