Podcast Episode #163: Artificial Sweeteners, Henna, and Mediterranean Paleo Cooking

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Topics: 
1. What’s new for you from Diane & Liz [3:02] 2. Shout Out: Cindy Sexton [9.43] 3. This week in the Paleosphere: Artificial sweeteners and gut bacteria [11:26] 4. Guest Interview: Caitlin and Nabil of Mediterranean Paleo Cooking  [16:03] * Introducing Caitlin [17:04] * Introducing Nabil [18:38] * The idea for the book [20:15] * Modifications of the recipes [24:33] * “Home cook” friendly recipes [33:15] * Mediterranean is not vegetarian [36:30] * Family style dinners [41:17] 5. Liz’s hair care tip of the week: Henna [47:54] 6. Diane’s Kitchen tip: blender versus food processor [53:32] 7. This week’s hashtag details: #BBRealitySelfie [56:52] [smart_track_player url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/balancedbites/BB_Podcast_163_final.mp3″ color=”00aeef” title=”#163: Artificial Sweeteners, Henna & Mediterranean Paleo Cooking ” artist=”Diane Sanfilippo & Liz Wolfe ” ]

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Liz Wolfe: Hey everyone! Welcome to Balanced Bites podcast number 163. It’s me, Liz, and over there is Diane. You're muted. She’s staring at a lovely picture of me in the Skype window on her computer.

Diane Sanfilippo: Hey, I was muted. What the heck!

Liz Wolfe: {laughs} You were muted.

Diane Sanfilippo: I unmuted!

Liz Wolfe: You ruined things literally in the first 5 seconds.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Let’s just start over. I’m ruining everything.

Liz Wolfe: No. We’re going to go.

Diane Sanfilippo: Ugh!

Liz Wolfe: Ok. {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Liz Wolfe: Balanced Bites podcast number 163. Welcome to all of our listeners. This episode is sponsored by Vital Choice, you're best choice for sustainably harvested wild seafood from Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Wild Alaskan salmon is our planet’s richest source of healing omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, and the powerful antioxidant astaxanthin. Get the best of the wild delivered right to your door by shopping Vitalchoice.com, and start making healthier choices, today.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: They’re offering our listeners 15% off any order using code BALANCEDBITES, and they always offer free shipping on orders over 99 bones, so you can take advantage of that, as well. I personally have been a customer of Vital Choice for a very long time, and I love them. They’re good people.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yum.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Delish.

Liz Wolfe: Delish. We’re also sponsored by Pete’s Paleo. Pete’s Paleo, the reason we had to get pop filters for our podcast.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Liz Wolfe: The 21-Day Sugar Detox is great for your body in so many ways, but it can be different for your life in just as many, let’s be honest, starting out is not always easy, which is why Pete’s Paleo makes delicious, seasonal, ready to eat meals that strictly follows the 21DSD program. They’re shipped directly to your door, ready to go. Let Pete’s Paleo help you with your 21DSD success. And don’t forget that their bacon is also 21DSD approved, and sugar-free. They have a couple of coupon codes. 5OFF21DSD, it’s a coupon code for $5 off 21DSD meals, and 5OFFPETESPALEO a coupon code for $5 off regular Pete’s Paleo meals.

I just ordered my Pete’s Paleo meals yesterday, plus like 8 pounds of bacon.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Which should be good. So there you go.

Diane Sanfilippo: Love the bacon. Am I muted still?

Liz Wolfe: No.

Diane Sanfilippo: Or are you just ignoring me. {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: It’s a pause space. Don’t you see it in red; pause space.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh, we were pausing?

Liz Wolfe: Again, with the ruining. You’re a ruiner. You ruin people’s lives.

Diane Sanfilippo: I thought I was just a pusher. {laughs}

What’s new for you from Diane & Liz [3:26]

Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, Liz. Why don’t you tell us what’s new with you. Whatcha working on for folks? What’s going on?

Liz Wolfe: Ok. So I actually have something that’s new. Which is, I know you put out an amazing Thanksgiving, I think, last year. So I’m super copying off of you, and I’m going to do a Thanksgiving 2014 menu, but it’s going to be Good Food for Bad Cooks style, so it’s like, there will be some dumping things out of cans.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: It’s going to be very easy, very low maintenance, and hopefully we’ll keep at least a few people from burning down their kitchens or having an epic freak-out in front of the family. So, we’re going to release the actual meal plan here pretty soon, probably in the next week, along with a shopping list, and then we’ll actually have the free PDF come out through Good Food for Bad Cooks and through my email newsletter.

I’ll probably let folks know on Facebook at least once. That will be coming out in plenty of time to for you to plan your timing and who’s going to bring what, if you want to assign people dumping various.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Assign your bad cook friends various dishes.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Hey, you can dump some butternut squash out of a can, right? Yeah. So it should be pretty easy, and it’s going to be free. We do meal plans at Good Food for Bad Cooks for different occasions. We did a mother’s day menu, we’ll do a Christmas menu, and a lot of those are just for our members, because it’s kind of a member supported site, so we like to do stuff four our peeps. But this one will be for everybody, so that will be fun.

Diane Sanfilippo: Nice.

Liz Wolfe: Other than that, this will be a nice little segue into your updates, but I’m for sure going to be in Chicago with you and Caitlin for the Mediterranean Paleo Cooking book signing at Barnes and Noble, and everybody can come and get their copies of Eat the Yolks signed, or buy one. You can buy one at the venue. I’m excited.

Diane Sanfilippo: And that’s tonight.

Liz Wolfe: I don’t think I’m going to go anywhere else for the next year.

Diane Sanfilippo: If you’re listening the day this podcast launches out there into the interwebz, then come see us tonight in Chicago.

Liz Wolfe: Oh yeah. Sorry everybody if you’re listening after 7 p.m., you missed it. {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: Womp, womp. Sad trombone. But they’ll be books left there, I’m sure we’ll sign a bunch, so if you’re in Chicago, and you’re like, No!

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.

Liz Wolfe: You’re in the middle of traffic and you realize you’re going the wrong way at 7:05.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Whoopsie.

Liz Wolfe: Sorry. Come see me though, because it’s going to be probably the last thing I’m able to do until at least the middle of 2015.

Diane Sanfilippo: Until the year 2020.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Until, what is it now, 2014? 2032. It’s going to be about the last thing I do until then.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Well, let me finish updating people on the rest of the tour. So we’ve got November 1st, that’s this Saturday if you’re listening life, when the episode comes out, San Francisco. So Saturday in San Francisco. And then we take a couple of weeks off and we kick back up again November 16th in Framingham, so the Boston area, Massachusetts. And then, I think November 18th, we’re going to be in the New Jersey, New Yorkish area, so just stay tuned for details on that. Then, on November 20th, which is a Thursday, we’re going to be in Roseville, California, so that’s going a Sacramento area. November 21st, Los Angeles, actually in Manhattan Beach at Pages, the book store. And on November 22nd in San Diego, we’re going to be back in Mira Mesa at the Barnes and Noble we were at earlier this year in January with the paleo tour.

So, then we take a couple of more weeks off, then December 7th in Seattle we’ll have 2 events, and this part of the tour is actually going to be with Brittany Angell, who we’ve been talking about, who wrote the new book that’s coming out, Every Last Crumb, so she’ll be with us for this leg of the tour. December 7th in Seattle, we’ll have a couple of events, then December 9th in Portland. That will be a Costco event, and I’ll put up details on how you can kind of come into Costco and figure that whole thing out if you aren’t yet a member. And then December 12th in Denver, and Juli Bauer from PaleOMG will be with us. December 13th, we’ll finish it up in Rochester, and I think we’re going to do a signing in Pittsford plaza, and then we’re probably also going to do some kind of fun dinner event.

So it’s kind of a huge tour, and it’s really fun for me. I know Liz, last year, actually it was earlier this year, when we were touring around. Whenever I want to tour and do something, I just grab as many people as possible, {laughs}, want to come and do it? Because I always think it’s really fun for all of our fans and readers, because if it were me, I’d want to see as many people as possible in one place, especially for the folks who can’t get to something like PaleoFx. If we can get two or three of us in a room, I feel like that’s just more fun. Plus, my first year kind of being on the road by myself, that was totally lonely! I just love hanging out with my friends, and being able to go eat all over the country. So that’s pretty much it on the tour situation. You guys can follow #paleotour. We’re also doing a #medpaleotour and for #paleotour2. But I’m going to throw all those hashtags on all the pictures. But, check those out so you can follow along.

And then, the other update I wanted to give folks; I haven’t really talked much about, you mentioned, Liz, my Healthy Holidays recipe eBook. I’m definitely putting out a huge update for that this year as well, and again another free resource, so we’ve got lots of free, fun resources for everybody. So you can keep your eyes peeled for that one. It’s going to go out to my subscribers only.

Also, the 21-Day Sugar Detox membership site/portal thingy just recently got kind of a big overhaul and we’re adding a couple of more guides to it, so I know you guys who’ve been members for a while are like, when do we get some cook updates? I’ve got a new eBook coming from Primal Palate, our good friends Bill and Hayley, and then also one from Cassy over at Fed and Fit who I know, Liz she was on your podcast recently on Real Food Liz Radio.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah!

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah! So, we’ve got a couple of cool extra little bonus goody eBooks coming from them into the 21-Day Sugar Detox membership site. So, I’m psyched about that.

Shout Out: Cindy Sexton [9.43]

Liz Wolfe: So this weeks’ shout-out is to my girl, Cindy Sexton, of Paleo Dish. Her book, Paleo Takes Five or Fewer: Three, Four, and Five Ingredient Paleo Recipes, is out now, and I love it. It’s a great book, and I absolutely love Cindy. I’m going to have her on Real Food Liz Radio. I think we’re recording tomorrow, and it should be out the first week of November. We’ll talk to Cin.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: All about her Canadian nest.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Liz Wolfe: And Paleo Takes Five or Fewer. Spence and myself; my husband, that’s Spence. He and Dusty, that’s Cindy’s husband, Duster. They hung the F out at the paleo royal wedding, at Bill and Hayley’s wedding.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing} I remember that.

Liz Wolfe: They were like, boys! {laughs} The whole time, I just remember watching Dusty, and Cindy was like, Duster, Duster, you’ve got to calm down. But they were like, broing out.

Diane Sanfilippo: Broing out! {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: It was the cutest thing, over their hard cider. No, I think they probably both drank beer, because they’re kind of those type of guys.

Diane Sanfilippo: Fringe. They’re fringe.

Liz Wolfe: But they bro’d out, and it was fun. Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s cute. Yeah, the book is awesome. I love the idea that she kind of threw together where you’re only getting three, four, or five ingredients that are kind of outside of just pantry items, and spices and stuff like that.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: So I thought that was really cool, because that’s pretty much how most of us cook a lot of the time. I’m going to be talking to Caitlin a little bit later in this episode about Mediterranean Paleo, which same kind of thing. You’re kind of adding a handful of fresh ingredients, but I love how she broke it down in Paleo Takes Five or Fewer. It’s a great book. I’m excited for her.

This week in the Paleosphere: Artificial sweeteners and gut bacteria [11:26]

Diane Sanfilippo: Alright. So, this week in the paleo/real foodosphere. {laughs} I’m the worst announcer ever.

Liz Wolfe: That’s not a word.

Diane Sanfilippo: It’s not a thing. {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Twerple, what? That’s not a name.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing} Oh boy.

Liz Wolfe: Wait, I have something really quick. P. S. So, the Royals as of right now are in the World Series, and they lost game 1, the Kansas City Royals. And apparently Rob Lowe texted or twitted something.

Diane Sanfilippo: He texted you? Rob Lowe texted you?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, Rob Lowe texted me. Super creepy Rob Lowe. He tweeted something basically saying the Royals were losers or something like that, completely unnecessary, and I was so sad because I was really hoping he was more like Chris Trager than his character from Chariots of Fire or whatever that movie was way back in the day. Because I really think he’s had a resurgence because of his nice character in Parks and Recreation. And now, it just turns out he’s just a really hot jerk. Just another really hot jerk. {laughs}. Which is not in the Paleosphere, but it’s in the Lizosphere, so I think it’s relevant.

Diane Sanfilippo: You said words in there that I’m like, I don’t even know what she’s talking about.

Liz Wolfe: Some people will get it. I was literally more angry than I’ve ever been in my life.

Diane Sanfilippo: Most people get you, and I’m totally the crotchety old lady who listens to Americas Test Kitchen. Which, I’m pretty sure is the actual podcast that they base the Delicious Dish off of. You know, schweddy balls. {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: See I know that one.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. But, I listen to the actual NPR type podcast. Anyway. How about we talk about nerdier things. Artificial sweeteners and gut bacteria, whoop whoop! {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Oh my god.

Diane Sanfilippo: Party in your gut!

Liz Wolfe: Party, party, party!

Diane Sanfilippo: So, ok. I’m going to have to give a little mini shout out to my friend, Jen, who is a neuroscientist. I have super nerdy friends. And she actually sent me this article a long time ago, and I just didn’t get a chance to look at it, and recently kind of took a minute, and actually posted about it on Facebook. It looks like a posted a week agoish today, about what the article was talking about it. And it was research on one of the actual effects of artificial sweeteners on our body.

You know, a lot of us kind of know that it’s not the best to eat artificial sweeteners. They are synthetic, man-made substances. They’re not real, natural whole foods. And for a long time, we’ve been talking about whether or not they make you continue to crave sugar, just giving you that sweet taste without also delivering nutrition, and so there’s lots of problems with artificial sweeteners, but this was really interesting to me because I feel like artificial sweeteners having the ability to affect our gut bacteria, to me that sounds like something that could cause some of the longer term metabolic damage we’re seeing in folks who’ve eaten diet foods for a long time. And specifically for people who may follow a low carb approach who haven’t yet transitioned to low carb real food, or low carb paleo as some might call or. Or maybe they’ve found out about it more recently, but spent 10 years eating low-carb foods that also included some of these artificial sweeteners.

The effect that could be having on their gut bacteria actually is potentially leading to some insulin resistance and their inability to tolerate glucose thereafter. I just thought that was really interesting because that could be really highlighting one of the reasons why folks who have had this long term metabolic derangement who’ve changed the way their eating, changed their diet, still aren’t maybe seeing the effects that we think they should be seeing in the longer term of eating real food. I mean, I feel like that’s kind of a little bit earth shattering.

Liz Wolfe: Pretty amazing. We focused on a lot of other things with relation to artificial sweeteners, but not so much gut bacteria in the past. So, this is very interesting.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, and they actually did research on mice, but then also did it on humans, which is really where a lot of times we see these studies and they’re not conducted on humans, and for whatever reasons I guess this one was deemed safe enough to conduct on humans, which is the reason why most nutritional, potentially unhealthy nutritional studies aren’t conducted on humans, is that they may not be moral. {laughs} So we can’t do that. But this is something that they measured in humans who were eating artificial sweeteners, so I find that super interesting, and just another reason to avoid artificial sweeteners.

Guest Interview: Caitlin and Nabil of Mediterranean Paleo Cooking [16:03]

Diane Sanfilippo: Hey guys! So I recently sat down with my good friends, Caitlin and Nabil, my coauthors on Mediterranean Paleo Cooking, and I wanted to give you guys some inside information all about sort of the process and how they came up with all the recipes and the background information on the book, so check out the interview.

Diane Sanfilippo: Hey guys, welcome to the podcast!

Caitlin Weeks: Hi Diane, thanks for having us!

Nabil Boumrar: Hi Diane, nice to see you.

Diane Sanfilippo: So we’re all here in Nashville, actually. We’re about to head out for the first night of Mediterranean Paleo Cooking official book tour. I’m super excited. Are you guys pumped to go on tour?

Caitlin Weeks: I’m so excited, I can’t wait. It’s going to be a great time.

Nabil Boumrar: That will be a good experience for me. This is the first time I’m doing a book signing, and I’m pretty pumped up to meet all these people who like paleo.

Introducing Caitlin [17:04]

Diane Sanfilippo: Awesome. So, I want to give people some background information, because obviously our listeners are very familiar with me, and my background and my work, but many of you may not be aware that Caitlin and I actually met because we went to the same nutrition program in California, and we also happen to live, we discovered after the fact, that we only lived about 5 blocks from each other. So we became really good friends just kind of hanging out, drinking herbal tea.

I always tell the story of how when we very first met {laughs} we had a grass fed burger at Rome in San Francisco, and then Caitlin invited me over {laughs} to do some kind of foot bath detox, and I was like, I don’t know, I don’t think I want to do that {laughing}. Do you remember that?

Caitlin Weeks: Yeah. I mean, I thought it was a really fun thing, because everyone at our school was into really holistic stuff, but Diane likes to test the waters, so to speak.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Caitlin Weeks: So she wasn’t too sure if that was a good idea or not.

Diane Sanfilippo: I was like, this sounds a little out there, I don’t know what I think about that.

Caitlin Weeks: But I kept pestering her, and eventually we started hanging out a lot.

Diane Sanfilippo: And then pretty soon after that, Caitlin would just stop by my house, whether I was there or not, maybe. You’d just walk into the kitchen and make yourself a cup of herbal tea. It was just like we’d been friends for 10 years, and talking about nutrition and all kinds of nerdy stuff.

Introducing Nabil [18:38]

Diane Sanfilippo: When I finally met Nabil, it was like I first went to their house, and my experience going to their house every time was smells of amazing food coming down the hallway, and then I walk in and I’m served like a 3-course {laughing} Mediterranean meal. I was always like, what is this? So, Nabil, why don’t you talk about your cooking a little bit?

Nabil Boumrar: Alright. I came from North Africa, which is Algeria. It’s Mediterranean country. And I learned cooking from my mother and my sisters, who were doing most of the cooking. When I came to the states, I went to a cooking program in San Francisco, and I did it for two years. I heard about Diane for maybe 4 or 6 months before I even met her.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Nabil Boumrar: Literally, five blocks away from me, I knew her, but without the face. When we met her, I felt like she was one of my best friends.

Diane Sanfilippo: Aww! {Laughs} That’s so nice.

Nabil Boumrar: So, I feel really comfortable around her. When she comes home, I just cook whatever is in the kitchen. Literally, just something from the fridge. She’s always giving her ideas and stuff. I use them, so now we made a book.

The idea for the book [20:15]

Diane Sanfilippo: So, I always would eat the food, and be like, what is this, it tastes like magic! Everything just tasted, I don’t know, like there’s love in the food. Caitlin told me it’s pretty much always cinnamon {laughing} and that was the love. But one thing you guys may not know is that when Caitlin and I first met, we were both studying nutrition, we weren’t actually teaching about it yet. But Caitlin was at the part of her own health journey where she had just recently discovered that she had Hashimoto's. Do you want to talk about what you were experiencing kind of before you went paleo and you were in Bauman and how that was?

Caitlin Weeks: Sure, great. I’m glad you brought that up. So, for a long time as a child, I had a lot of problems with my weight. After college, I lost a lot of weight doing the low-fat, kind of conventional wisdom. I did a lot of endurance exercise, a lot of half marathons, extensive cardio. I did a lot of weights, too, but the cardio I really started to overdo it. And then I kind of experimented with vegetarianism for a while, and then I started feeling extremely run down. I had a lot of 6 a.m. clients, and I just found I had to drink a whole pot of coffee to even get out the door. It was really becoming a problem, where I just wanted to sleep all the time. I just knew something was wrong.

I started having some digestive symptoms, so I started seeking some holistic practitioners, and I saw some regular doctors, as well. I got some tests done, because I just felt so out of energy, and it wasn’t the norm for me. So I found out I had Hashimoto's. Then I sought out some more help, and I got into an ancestral diet, and when I met Diane, I realized that that had a name, and it was called paleo.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Caitlin Weeks: So we just really hit it off. She encouraged me to start my blog, and really get the word out there about what I had done, and what happened to me, because I really wanted to help other young girls who maybe were following “doing everything right”, and getting sick from it. I just really had a passion to get the word out there, so I started my blog, Grass Fed Girl.

With my husband being a chef, I really wanted to write down his recipes from his home country, because we had so much fun eating all this new food. So we started adapting them to be gluten free and grain free.

Diane Sanfilippo: So, that was the point when I was at their house many times eating food that was just, not like my food, and I just thought it was really, really good. I remember encouraging Caitlin to put everything into an eBook, and then basically once they finished the eBook, which some of you guys may have it. I was totally into promoting it at the time because I thought it was just a fantastic eBook. It was great. It was loaded with a ton of recipes that, once I saw it, I was like, I think we could really turn this into an amazing printed book, and then that’s where me as kind of the {laughs} I don’t know, creative control freak, I guess is what I call myself.

Caitlin Weeks: Evil genius {laughs}.

Diane Sanfilippo: #Evilgenius. But, I don’t know, because I was a graphic designer before I ever became a nutritionist, when I saw the food and had eaten it, I think that was a lot of it for me. I had eaten a lot of these dishes whether or not I knew they had a name, and I just felt like other people would love this food, and I have this vision for how it could look in a book, and really make the food, and how robust the flavors are, and how vibrant the food is, kind of come to life. Then kind of showed it to the publisher, and we just started talking about putting it into a book, and that was kind of how the book really came to be. I just really wanted to bring this to people in a different way.

Modifications of the recipes [24:33]

Diane Sanfilippo: I know a lot of you guys are wondering how did the collaboration work, and how did all of that work. Most of what I was really helping with was the look and feel of the book. But the other part that I really encouraged Caitlin on, and she really took the lead in doing all this work was the modifications on every recipe. So I’m just kind of opening the book and flipping through here. You guys will see; I know this is a huge thing for most people who are listening to this show, maybe you eat paleo, or maybe you don’t. But some people who eat paleo, it’s not really enough. They’ve got other issues they’re struggling with. I see this because of the 50 page guide to SIBO I have on my emailing list every week is so heavily downloaded, that you may be eating paleo but you may need further tweaks from there, or maybe you still can’t do nightshades, or nuts and seeds, or eggs, or whatever it is. I can’t eat nuts either, so I totally get how frustrating that can be, to get a paleo friendly cookbook, but then you still have more restrictions.

I started doing this with Practical Paleo, but not even to the degree that Caitlin has done with this book, and she is really the one who took all the time to test the recipes and really think through modifications. So, every single recipe has notes for if you need to be nut-free, egg-free, low FODMAP, AIP friendly, which that covers nightshades as well as the eggs, and nuts and seeds, etc, and then SCD/GAPS, and lower carbs. So she’s written notes; if it’s not friendly for that, and it really can’t be adapted easily, or it will lose the sense of the recipe it just says no, or it will give you an idea of what to do instead. Because I’ve seen, as you know Nabil, you’ll probably have 4 ideas of something different somebody could do, but not everybody thinks that way as a home cook. They’re just not used to swapping something out. That’s a huge part of it. Caitlin, is there more you want to say about the modifications and that kind of stuff?

Caitlin Weeks: We really did make the recipes three or four times with different ingredients. Completely different ingredients, to make them safe for certain diets. For example, there are 112 AIP friendly recipes. And we didn’t just say, “no tomatoes.” We substituted zucchini, or pumpkin, or carrots, or whatever, beets for example. Because so many recipes have peppers and tomatoes and other spices. So we really found the substitution and put it in there. It wasn’t just, you know, cross something off.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.

Caitlin Weeks: We gave you something else instead. Like maybe a plantain.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s a huge question I’ve been getting, is it AIP friendly, or is it going to be a lot of nightshades? Because everybody knows Mediterranean food, lots of tomatoes and peppers, and a good amount of eggplant as well. I know one recipe that’s my favorite in the book is the paleo Moussaka, and that was one that Caitlin was texting me from wherever she was. She might have been here in Nashville at the time, and she’s like, alright. I tested this for the third time. It’s a religious experience, {laughs} eating it, even the AIP version. Even down to changing some of the spices.

So that was kind of a big thing that I’m really excited about for you guys, who may be getting the book. I’m completely impressed by how much she really did to take that to the next level. It’s actually pretty much like no other paleo book in terms of that detail in the recipes. I don’t think there’s any other book out there that does that, so I’m really excited about that. Do you want to say something about that, Nabil?

Nabil Boumrar: Even myself, as a professional chef, and I went to school and studied most of the basics of cooking, this experience taught me a lot. With all this diet restriction, you learn. Doing it, you learn how to substitute things. At the end of the line, you’ll end up, you have the same reaction and every executive chef in the kitchen to come up with special. So basically, at the end of it, when you do some recipes out of the book, you go to the fridge, you just look inside, and you know how to substitute things.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.

Nabil Boumrar: You already have the knowledge. You get it from the book. You know what the substitute, this ingredient to another.

Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.

Nabil Boumrar: Which, it helps a lot of people, especially the working people. They come home late, and the recipe calls for zucchini, then you open the fridge. You have all the ingredients, but no zucchini. With this book, it will teach you how you substitute it, or just put something instead, or just even take it off without messing up the flavor and the texture of the dish itself. I mean, literally, I learned myself, even though I’ve been doing it for 15-20 years.

Caitlin Weeks: Speaking of quick week night ideas, we actually have 17 slow cooker variations, so that’s really good for people who are coming in from a busy workday. Maybe you can throw it in before you go, and then have a warm, hot, and flavorful dinner when you get back.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. I think one of the things, like what Nabil is saying, basically, even if you don’t need to follow modifications, if you kind of read through what the ideas are in the recipe, I know that as a chef, he wants to teach people, not just say, follow this exact recipe. I know every recipe has a chef’s tip, almost every recipe has a chef’s tip and a nutritionist note, and those are tips so that you guys can learn a little bit as you go. Because, actually those of us who write cookbooks, almost never cook from a recipe. And it’s because like what you were saying, Nabil, we just open the fridge and we just go from what’s in there, and I think that’s one of the points of the book, is to teach you these new flavors, and techniques, and different things that you can change around. Once you learn it, if you don’t have certain ingredients; if you don’t have raisins, but you have some dates, or you have some apricots. You can just swap things out that are similar in texture and in flavor, and purpose in a recipe.

I think that’s one of the things I’ve learned from eating the food too. As someone who’s half Italian and half German, most of the food I ate growing up was Italian. So it was all tomato, basil, garlic, onion, certain flavor profiles. And a lot of the flavor profiles in this book, they’re similar with different nuances. And I’ve learned, even from being with you guys cooking the recipes, how to incorporate some of those flavors in my food, because now all of a sudden I’m able to eat slightly more interesting food than what I would cook four or five, six nights a week for myself, just learning those different flavors. Or even just having the spices on hand. Right? Once you stock your pantry with certain spices, throw some cumin into your burger.

Nabil Boumrar: Yes.

Diane Sanfilippo: We had burgers last night that Nabil put cilantro and some cumin; it just all of a sudden it tastes gourmet. {laughs} It’s like a Mediterranean burger. So I think that’s a really fun part.

Nabil Boumrar: And at the same time, those substitution things will help you to save money. Like I said earlier, you come in late from work, and you want to eat, and you’re missing one thing. You don’t want to get the coat back on,

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Nabil Boumrar: Go to the produce store, buy, and come back home. Or even you have the recipe, and you’re going to Trader Joe’s or Whole Food, you go and buy, some ingredients in the recipe, you have to buy 10 or 15, I don’t know, a bag of cucumbers. You don’t really need that much. So you just substitute with something, even inside the store, you learn how to play with the recipe. You buy really what you need, because two days after, you’re going on vacation. You don’t want them to rot inside the fridge. So those things help a lot in food cost, and put a couple of bucks back inside your pocket.

“Home cook” friendly recipes [33:15]

Diane Sanfilippo: So, one of the other things that we did with the recipes in this book from some of the original traditional recipes that Nabil kind of brought back from what his family normally cooks, Caitlin and I will talk about what do the average home cook here, either have access to or want to buy more easily. I think one of them was one of the recipes that had artichokes in it. And normally, Nabil would just go ahead and start with whole artichokes, and cut them down, and really go through the process. Part of my experience with writing three books before helping with this one was just that perspective of, I know which recipes in my books don’t get made. {laughs}

And I really wanted to help encourage that, these recipes, of course there’s going to be a few that somebody that might see that aren’t their taste or they might not want to try it, but I really wanted to help push the recipes in a direction where the ingredients were as simple as possible so that people would be encouraged to make it. So that was one thing I know you guys kind of made some modifications to keep the recipes a little more, I don’t know, American home cook friendly, in a sense.

Caitlin Weeks: Yeah, I mean, we used bagged, frozen artichokes, because I know those are easy to find at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. In Nabil’s country, we actually got to go there for 6 weeks this year, and two weeks last year, and it’s a totally different food system. I really wish it was more like that here. It’s coming around, but slowly.

So in his country, people just walk down to their local farmer’s market. And there’s one in almost every single little tiny town. People just sell fruits and vegetables out of the back of their truck from the farm, and they’re covered in dirt, and they’re covered in vines. Parts of the vegetable you didn’t even know where on there.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Caitlin Weeks: Because you’ve never seen it like that. You know, I didn’t know that garlic had this giant thing that sticks out of the top of it, because I didn’t even know, I’ve never seen it like that. I’ve only seen it in the plastic. So, the great thing about that is you can get the fresh ingredients. But here, we know, because we shop here as well so we know what’s available. So we tried to find spices too that were easy to find, and you didn’t have to spend a bunch of money and change everything about what you do. We just try to add some new flavors.

I think one of the best, my favorite things is the use of fresh herbs in this book. We used some all the time, and they were a great source of antioxidants, and they add this sort of freshness and crispness to every recipe. So, we hope you’ll get some fresh cilantro and mint, and Diane’s favorite, parsley.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Caitlin Weeks: And put them on everything.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s sarcasm. Parsley is the devil.

Caitlin Weeks: Yeah, she doesn’t like parsley. We mostly have cilantro, but a few times we would put cilantro for her because she doesn’t like parsley when we were cooking at her house. {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, that’s like inside secret. There’s actually no parsley in Practical Paleo, at all, in case anybody hadn’t noticed. I think I might have told you you could use it in a recipe, but I definitely didn’t use it because I think parsley is the devil.

Mediterranean is not vegetarian [36:30]

Diane Sanfilippo: One of the things that I want to talk about with the book, because it’s a super common thing I think that’s going on with Mediterranean books as we all see in bookstores, or just when people talk about Mediterranean diet. I don’t know; maybe it bugs you or not, I don’t know Nabil. You can tell me, but it seems like they’re pushing this slant of almost a vegetarian Mediterranean way of eating. And I think we all know that there’s a good amount of seafood in Mediterranean eating, because it is on the Mediterranean sea, but one thing I was really surprised about was not only how much standard land animal protein there is, chicken, lamb, beef, etc, but even combining or using two kinds of meat or two kinds of protein in recipes. Do you want to talk about just how people really do eat in the Mediterranean versus sort of the Americanized version of it?

Nabil Boumrar: I mean, it’s just funny that when people talk about Mediterranean food, they always try and make it as vegetarian, which is like, really, have you been there before?

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Nabil Boumrar: Are you going to tell me that cote de boeuf, which in English is bone in ribeye, that we don’t eat it? French don’t eat it? Italian don’t eat it? Come on. We eat almost everything that comes out of a cow or sheep. Everything. Literally, everything. We don’t waste anything out of those things. France is one of the best cooking countries on this planet, and what is the pate? Is it vegetarian?

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Nabil Boumrar: No! The filet mignon; it’s not come out of Persians or Asians. It’s all Mediterranean. Every time we cook, literally, we cook with bones. And you don’t get bones out of a vegetable.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Nabil Boumrar: So I just think it’s funny that this new trend tries to make it sound like we eat, yes, it’s true we eat a lot of vegetables. Vegetables are great for you. Especially the colorful ones. But to cook the vegetables and make a broth, we always use bones. And it does not matter what kind of bones, like fish bones or beef bones. We eat even tails. Animal tails, we eat it. We don’t throw anything away. So whoever wants to say that Mediterranean cooking is just vegetarian, it’s just not true.

Diane Sanfilippo: It’s just not true.

Nabil Boumrar: It’s just not true.

Diane Sanfilippo: One of the things, too, with a lot of these dishes. I remember when I looked through the original version of the eBook, I felt like there were no filler recipes. There’s no fluff. Of course, there’s a few spice blends, and stuff like that that are important. I don’t think that stuff is fluff either. But these dishes, most of the dishes, you guys will find that there’s not a ton of we would call just vegetable sides in the book, because most of the recipes are meat and vegetables all together. There are these tajines, they’re slow cooked, whether they have broth and something like tomato or pumpkin in the broth, where you’re getting vegetables that way. But I think you guys will find that most of the recipes it’s meat and vegetables kind of together in one. I think that really helps people.

One of my experiences with my previous books is that people want to make what’s exactly in the picture. And I think you guys all know, as listeners, you see a picture of a recipe, that’s what really inspires you and motivates you to make it. And I was a really big proponent of making sure that we tried to, if it was recipe that didn’t have vegetables in it, that we showed something in the picture, if we could. So I think that’s one thing that people are going to be really excited about. A lot of these recipes you open it, like Siva’s cauliflower and meatballs, it’s a one pot dish. And I think a lot of the recipes are kind of like that. I think that’s a really easy and a very comfort food, and gives you everything you need kind of in one dish.

Caitlin Weeks: Yeah, the only thing you would need to make is maybe some cauliflower. We called it cauliflower couscous, but its often called cauliflower rice. You just make some of that on the side of you want to, because that makes it really fun, because it kind of absorbs a lot of the broth/sauce.

Family style dinners [41:17]

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. So, what else do you guys want to tell people about the book, and that you kind of hope that they get from cooking from the book. I’m flipping through, and I don’t know if you guys can hear me flipping through the pages, but is there something that you really want to encourage people to try, or anything you want to leave people with?

Caitlin Weeks: Well, I just remember the funnest day when we were all at your making all the food, was the pizza day. And we made all 5 pizza recipes at once, and had this huge spread of all the pizzas. WE took a picture of that, and Nabil’s hand is in that picture, actually. He’s the hand model in that one.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Caitlin Weeks: It was just so fun to make all those pizzas. Your fiancé, Scott, had a great time with us. It was just, you know, when we want you to bring that same feeling into your home. Enjoy food, and have things that you’re familiar with, and just have fun making all these new twists and new interesting flavors.

Nabil Boumrar: The only thing, is have fun in the kitchen. Believe that you can do it. I mean, started by saying in your head, oh this one looks hard, or oh maybe I cannot do it, or something. It’s just you are going to eat it. And the flavors you like, you just put them in. And feel free to switch the recipe. It doesn’t have to be exactly like Nabil wants it.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Nabil Boumrar: Live a little. Diane will make the same recipe. Caitlin, and I? all 3, we’re going to add a little bit of something we like. So feel free. You don’t have to follow recipes from A to Z and not have fun. Just have fun, add, minus, and believe me, in the long run, you’ll become one of the best, your own chef. No one can cook better than you for yourself.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} I love that. I definitely get the vibe, and you know, we were eating all these recipes together, and cooking them, and that pizza party. I mean, that breakfast pizza. I’m looking at it right now in this picture.

Nabil Boumrar: That was your favorite. {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: That was my jam right there, made with cashew flour so I could eat that one. That, just for me, was I really loved that pizza. I think it’s fun. You guys will notice that a lot of the pictures are taken in kind of a full dish of whatever was made, and sort of family style, and that’s really kind of how everything, for the most part, the recipes in the book are made that way, family style, so you can put the platter down on the table, and everybody takes from the same thing. It’s not just, I’m eating my thing here, you’re eating your thing there. We’re all maybe taking little bits here and there, and enjoying it that way.

Caitlin Weeks: That’s kind of what we wanted to emulate, because Nabil’s got 8 brothers and sisters, so everything for him is a big family style celebration. We just wanted to bring that warmth into the book.

Nabil Boumrar: My family we’re so many, I mean, not too many, so many, but what mom does, when she cooks, she cooks one pot for everybody. To please 9 people at the same time,

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Nabil Boumrar: It’s pretty tough. So one of us might not like the dish as the other 8. But still, she will put the whole pot in the middle, then all will eat. If you eat two bowls, you’re fine. If you eat half of it, you’re fine too. But the day after, she will make another dish which, you know, it doesn’t have to be perfect for everybody. You might like it, you might now. Twist it the way you want.

Diane Sanfilippo: So I just want to wrap us up here, just mentioning a few other highlights of the book and features you guys will find. There’s two meal plans in the book, there are two 30-day meal plans, and one is just kind of a general Mediterranean paleo plan, then we have an autoimmune friendly plan. Caitlin, you have listed out, just even in the front of the book, even talking about the modifications, a bunch of swaps, so that if people, like Nabil was saying, go ahead and make swaps on your own too if you need to. This is where it’s also teaching you a little bit about, if you need to follow different modifications, different things that you can swap out in the recipes, and I think that will really help you guys out, as well, in kind of navigating, and just figuring out what works for you.

The last thing I wanted to mention is, in the back of the book, which I personally love this part, especially again for folks who want to make some swaps or just make sure that the recipes are going to follow along with the type of nutritional needs they have is the recipe allergen index. So, you guys will see when you flip to the back of the book, there are these charts, and they’re filled in with little colored squares, or it’s white, or it’s colored and has an M. If it’s colored, it means it’s totally safe for that way of eating, if it’s got a little M that just means there’s a modification listed. If it’s a blank white square, or rectangle, that means that the recipe can’t really be followed for that way of eating. Which, you’ll find that there’s a handful of breakfast, obviously, that will have some eggs. And for egg-free, they’re not going to work. But the vast majority of recipes in the book are absolutely great for pretty much any way of eating, and they will have modifications.

And then, obviously, in the desserts, you’ll see some things that have nuts or eggs or things like that that there are some that have modifications and whatnot. I think you’ll find that it’s really easy to find the recipes that will work best for you by using that little index.

Diane Sanfilippo: Well, that’s it. Thanks so much for joining me today before we head out on our first leg of this tour. Let’s see, I think people are going to hear this episode after. {laughs} After today, obviously, so hopefully we’ll see you guys at a future event if we’re coming to a town near you, you can ask all of your questions of Caitlin, and Nabil, and myself when we see you out there.

Caitlin Weeks: Happy cooking adventures!

Nabil Boumrar: Have fun in the kitchen.

Liz’s hair care tip of the week: Henna [47:54]

Diane Sanfilippo: Alright, Liz. Do you have a natural skin care tip for us this week?

Liz Wolfe: Sure I do. This is actually a natural hair care tip, and this just over, and over again, when I tell people that I use henna to dye my hair, and I have been using that for at least two or three years now, people get horrified. It never fails. There’s a really passionate stylist or someone who works in the beauty industry that says henna will absolutely ruin your hair, take it from me as a stylist. Etc. etc. I’m in no way questioning the expertise of professional stylists. Not at all. But, what I want to throw out there, is that most of what professional stylists have witnessed as being disastrous for peoples hair is not henna. It is literally chemically impossible for henna to screw up your hair. You can actually use pure henna, and what henna is it’s a plant with a reddish dye. That is all it is, that is all it can ever be.

So, what it can do is basically stain your hair. So what people are actually having these disastrous results with are brands that use the word henna, because they throw a little bit of henna into the box with a bunch of other chemicals, or they mix the henna with chemical salts and things like that, and all of those additives can absolutely ruin your hair. But pure, unadulterated henna, which is what most of us who are passionate about it use, is completely incapable of causing that kind of reaction. So you just have to be really, really careful about sourcing, and make sure you’re actually getting real henna.

I had someone a while back who actually brought me a gift of a box of henna hair dye, and I though, wow that’s really sweet. But of course, check the ingredients, and it was this really, really long list of all kinds of stuff. A bunch of chemical colorants, and then a little bit of henna. But all henna is is lawsonia inermis. It’s a plant with some red pigment in it. And you can activate that pigment, and cause it to stain the keratin in your hair by mixing it with an acidic liquid. A really great website for that is hennaforhair.com. Katherine Cartwright Jones, I believe her name is, did her dissertation, I think, on henna and how it works. And with real pure henna you can dye over permanent dyes. You won’t be able to use permanent dyes over henna, because those permanent dyes can actually cause damage, but you can use henna in almost any situation.

It just depends on what you actually want the color of your hair to be. Because for the most part, you can use henna and varying levels of indigo, which is another plant dye, to change the color of your hair a little bit. If anyone has seen me before, they know my hair is kind of mostly brown, but with a little hint of red to it, and I achieve that by blending pure henna with a little bit of indigo and using that to dye my hair.

I just want people to know that these people that are vehemently against henna, they’re not wrong, they just haven’t actually been exposed to real, true, pure henna. I sympathize with that, because people have had really horrible disasters with these fake henna products. But, it’s not the fault of the henna, it’s all the crap that they throw in with it. So, if you’ve been thinking about doing henna, go over to hennaforhair.com. It’s a fantastic website with tons of science on it. And don’t be scared.

Diane Sanfilippo: Our good friend, Hayley Mason, did a little henna tutorial video, and I’m just picturing it and laughing. It’s hilarious. She has a whole video of outtakes. We’ll see if we can link to that in our show notes.

Liz Wolfe: And I think she used, what, the Morocco Method.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think she used Morocco Method, yeah.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah. I order mine through Henna for Hair. Morocco Method is good. I think Henna Hut, I’ve heard some good things about that.

Diane Sanfilippo: Do you know about the Lush one? Is that one ok, or?

Liz Wolfe: Oh, yeah. I think Hayley at one point used that. I think the Lush one is fine. I think it’s a little more annoying to use than some of the powdered hennas.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh yeah, it’s a block.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, it’s basically a block that you have to break down, and I talk a little bit about henna and different brands that are good to go in the Skintervention Guide, and natural hair care, and all that stuff. Also, if you’re not up for the henna thing, I also talk a little bit in Skintervention about alternatives, like kind of more safe hair dyes. But you really do, if you’re going to switch, please patch test. Get some hair from the back of the nape of your neck, and patch test it. Even though I completely have faith in henna, I patch tested it, because you just, man. This is America, you never know. Right?

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} I, for those wondering, I don’t henna. I did it once and I just can’t. I’m just not, I don’t know, if it’s just not the colors I can work with in my hair, or I’m just not that much …

Liz Wolfe: You just like having more, you’re just more fancy.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: You’re not really kind of a one shade type of gal. You do highlights, and lowlights.

Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know what color my hair is now, but I’m pretty sure henna won’t get me here, so.

Liz Wolfe: I don’t think so.

Diane Sanfilippo: So, you know, I pick and chose my battles.

Liz Wolfe: I would love to see you with fiery red hair, though.

Diane Sanfilippo: I’ve had every color hair you could imagine, I have had.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: And they did not look good, and so I am here at 36, I know which colors look good.

Liz Wolfe: You so don’t look 36 by the way.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} It’s because I eat paleo.

Liz Wolfe: So you agree, you think you’re really pretty.

Diane Sanfilippo: So you agree. It’s because I slather fish butt cream on my face every night.

Liz Wolfe: Exactly.

Diane’s Kitchen tip: blender versus food processor [53:32]

Liz Wolfe: Ok, it’s time for Diane’s Kitchen tip. I wonder what you’re going to talk about today, Diane. {laughs} So the question for you is, if you could only buy one, would it be a blender or a food processor. Which one would be most helpful, do you think, in a paleo kitchen? This is, when I saw this question, I was like, this is a dumb question. But it’s not a dumb question.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s mean, Liz. That’s really mean.

Liz Wolfe: No, but I was like, but it’s a good question because these things are not cheap. You know. I didn’t have a blender until really recently, and it probably would have been good for me to know the answer.

Diane Sanfilippo: Well, I’m going to tell you the answer. And I’m going to give you my answer, and then I’m going to give you my real answer.

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, so my answer is, between the two, if you could only pick one, I’d go with the food processor. That’s because the blender is really only intended for handling liquids, whereas the food processor, while it’s really intended for handling more solids, so it does really well with things like chopping onions, or making hummus, or making your cauliflower puree, you can actually put liquids in it. You may have a little bit of spillage going on with food processor and liquids, but you can put liquids in there. It’s not probably going to give you the super smooth texture to some of your soups and things like that, so not super ideal.

But if you’re going to do one, I like the Cuisinart. Something that’s larger, so maybe somewhere between 8 and 12 cups. I’ve had a Cuisinart for a long time. They last a long time, and it’s just what I like. I think you can easily get away with having a nice food processor, and then having a less expensive blender. So, most of the blenders that people are kind of looking for these days are these high speed, high power blenders like a Blendtec or a Vitamix, and I have a Vitamix here. It has one of those stick things in it, and you can stick it in there. You could make something like hummus, and you could take solids and sort of puree them with that really strong blender, but you don’t need to if you have a food processor.

I think that getting a less expensive blender with a food processor, or you could do a stick or immersion blender and the food processor. That’s kind of a good combination. If you’re going to get a blender, I do like a high speed blender. I think they work really well, but they’re just really expensive. I think they can start at like $200, and go up to $400. So, it’s definitely not necessary. If I’m picking one, It’s a food processor.

Liz Wolfe: Must agree. I like having my blender, but when I had kind of a cheaper blender, I hated it.

Diane Sanfilippo: Mmm.

Liz Wolfe: So when I finally upgraded to the good blender, I like having it. But, it was an investment, and I don’t use it nearly as much.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s right. And the food processor also has a slicing blade usually. This is the other part, the one that I do like, that Cuisinart, it has a slicing blade and it has a shredding blade. I think those are, I mean, if you’re trying to shred carrots or zucchini or any of this stuff, I feel like that’s indispensible. I probably use the shredding attachment as much as I just use the regular blade, so I think that’s probably one of the real upsides of a food processor.

This week’s hashtag details: #BBRealitySelfie [56:52]

Diane Sanfilippo: Alright, so our listener feedback interactive hashtag, I’m doing the little hashtag thing with my fingers, did you hear it?

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Little Timberlake

Diane Sanfilippo: Hashtag. So, last week, well two weeks ago was #paleocollection. And we got some really awesome pictures of people’s collections of paleo books, and I selected two winners of the entire pool. The first one I have here is from Dana Cush, Dana Cushing is her name, and she had a lovely stack of multiple copies of lots of different books. She had 3 copies of Practical Paleo, which appears to be a little bit of a lending library {laughs} so I appreciate that. And her copy of Eat the Yolks proudly displayed amongst a whole bunch of others, so that was one of my favorites. I love seeing when people have little lending copies there of their Practical Paleo. Of course, I’m super proud when folks are pretty hardcore.

And then, my other favorite, Liz, you and I loved this one, actually.

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: This one was from @_mindbodyfit, and she has a great little library that’s book ended by her DVD of Mean Girls. {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: And so, we couldn’t help but select this one, so we just wanted to shout you guys out and say thanks for playing our little game. Do we have a new hashtag for?

Liz Wolfe: Wait, but what about the guy and the paleo collection hashtag that is literally standing there with a mastodon skull? Clearly has nothing to do with paleo. He’s probably so mad. He’s like, this stupid diet has completely ruined my {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: My anthropological studies.

Liz Wolfe: My pursuit of paleontology. Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. There were like 8 legitimate something to do with paleontology and the Paleolithic {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: And it is actually mostly one dude, sorry dude, with your. I feel like there’s a picture of a dinosaur in this one. And isn’t that like totally off from the Paleolithic?

Liz Wolfe: Apparently it’s not.

Diane Sanfilippo: So, I think his hashtag is wrong. I’ve decided.

Liz Wolfe: We don’t know though, we don’t know.

Diane Sanfilippo: We don’t know.

Liz Wolfe: Maybe it should be Pleistocene collection. I don’t know.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} What’s the new one.

Liz Wolfe: Ok, so the new interactive hashtag is going to be #BBRealitySelfie. So a while back, I started taking real pictures of myself not dressed up, not posed, not pretty.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} like the antithesis of the selfie.

Liz Wolfe: Yes. Total selfie antithesis. And it kind of caught on for a minute there. But of course, there are already other folks…

Diane Sanfilippo: Who felt way too gross, and they were like, I can’t do this anymore.

Liz Wolfe: I can’t do it. But be brave, we’re going to bring back the reality selfie. We’re going to call this BB Reality Selfie, because we don’t, there are some other funny reality selfies, and we don’t want to get it all confused. So #BBRealitySelfie, snap a selfie of yourself the way you actually look, no posing, no apologizing, no saying, I don’t have any makeup on, oh, looking kind of gross. No, no, no. Reality selfie. That’s it. Boom. I will lead the charge.

Diane Sanfilippo: Are they not allowed to filter it?

Liz Wolfe: No. No.

Diane Sanfilippo: No filter. It’s got to be no filter.

Liz Wolfe: You can zoom in on it.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s not a filter.

Liz Wolfe: Well, it’s editing.

Diane Sanfilippo: Liz, do I need to show you about Instagram again? {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Do I need to show you about Instagram. No.

Diane Sanfilippo: Can I just show you the Instagram? {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Maybe.

Diane Sanfilippo: My mom’s like, I’m on the Facebook. {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: {laughing} For the longest time, I would type in “The Facebook” to the search bar thingamajig.

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh.

Liz Wolfe: It doesn’t matter. #BBRealitySelfie. Do it.

Liz Wolfe: That’s it for this week, friends. You can find Diane at http://dianesanfilippo.com, and join me, Liz, at http://realfoodliz.com/. Join our email lists! If you’re not on the list, you’re probably missing something. And, if you’re loving the new format, please let us know in your iTunes review. And of course, if you don’t like it, just don’t say anything. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all. Unless it’s constructive criticism. Ok, bye!

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}