Ever since I started my serious attempt to gain weight I had added back in some white jasmine rice as a carb source to try and put on some pounds, especially as my running mileage is increasing. I really hated the thought of eating white rice but jasmine has the lowest fermentation potential and gets absorbed quickly in the upper part of the small intestine. Still, it never sat well with me since I always felt brown rice was much healthier option. There are plusses and minuses on both sides of this and many Paleo followers won’t even go there at all just totally avoiding grains. The argument for white jasmine rice is that it has no anti-nutrients at all since the bran has been stripped away but what you are left with is a pretty high glycemic carb source. The best case for white rice in Paleo I’ve found is at Paleo Leap. They argue for white jasmine rice and against brown rice since it does contain anti-nutrients.
Recently I decided to try brown jasmine rice just to see what would happen. I’ve only made one batch of it so far but no issues from it at all. Now, eating it daily like I used to would probably be bad but eating it occasionally probably won’t cause any problems for me. I’ll probably stick to mostly white jasmine for a while and do the brown every so often. Even with the white rice I eat it only once every week or two, it is definitely not a staple in my diet.
The brown rice experiment led me to try quinoa, another “grain” that has been a bit controversial in the Paleo world. Quinoa is not a grain per se but is a seed or pseudograin and in Paleo seeds are allowed so what is up with quinoa? Again, Paleo Leap has a great post on pseudograins and non-gluten grains as they relate to Paleo. I bought some sprouted quinoa last week, technically a vegetable at this point since it has sprouted, and had it for dinner the other day, so far so good.
I also got an ice cream craving the other day and bought some Coconut Bliss Dark Chocolate. This stuff has guar gum but according to the label it makes up less than 0.35% of the ingredients. Also not too crazy about agave as the sweetener but damn, it is good and didn’t bother me at all. I’m toying with oats next, I kind of miss a bowl of oatmeal. Again, not as a staple but as an occasional food to mix it up, I get a bit tired of eggs and sweet potatoes almost every single morning for breakfast. Also thinking of trying some aged goat cheese just to see what happens, that could open the door for some pizza which would be awesome.
No, I’m not heading back to veganism but sort of adopting my own 80/20 or more like 90/10 Paleo rule now where I’ll stray a bit from strict Paleo once every couple of weeks. Yes, I’ll still eat a lot of sweet potatoes and add in some regular potatoes and yuca too as “safe starches” but a bit of grain here and there obviously won’t kill me. This definitely makes eating out easier and I’m just tired of being overly concerned about everything I put in my mouth.