I’m now two weeks into my hiatus from starting the Paleo experiment.  In that time I haven’t been eating like total crap, but I have my ups and downs.  My lunches have consisted of a huge hoagie, cheesesteak or otherwise packed sandwich every other day.  I’ve been snacking on pretzels and sweets.  All of this is being washed down with lots of Coke Zero again.  These aren’t the cravings that I speak of though.  Instead what I’ve been craving is something far different.

Tell me if this sounds familiar.  It’s sometime early in the morning and you are roused from your sleep by the alarm blaring at your head.  A quick snooze will give you that extra ten minutes of sleep.  Maybe a few more snoozes before you have to wake up.  Perhaps your body “just wakes up” right before that infernal alarm starts up, so you can proactively hit it.  While you start off dragging ass a quick jolt or two, or ten, of caffeine gets you wired up fine.  Maybe a little sugar high too can be used to push you on your way.  The rest of the day can be fine or an exercise of chasing one caffeine or sugar high to the next.  Sound a bit familiar?

Monday begins the Paleo week off in high fashion.  Actually, it’s going to be starting the Paleo Phase off a day early.  Considering all the gorging on junk food I’ve had (did I mention I ate a Coldstone Creamery Ice Cream for lunch) I figured it’s good to get cleaning out early.  While I won’t have the luxury of being creative with my meal planning for breakfast or lunch, I do plan on spreading my wings at dinner time.

Technically corn is a grain, so I’m being a bit redundant.  Corn however holds a special place in the hearts of Paleo adherents as a grain to be avoided because of how heavily modified corn has gotten in the last century or so.  While all plants that we have domesticated have been radically transformed in order to better serve us, corn has dominated our food system more for the last 75 years than it has at any other time in history.  We have never consumed more corn per capita than we have today.  You don’t recall the last time you ate corn?  That doesn’t matter.  In fact most of the corn you eat isn’t as corn proper.  There will be corn in certain dishes, or cornmeal used in the preparation of some prepared foods.  However it is really in the form of corn starches and corn syrups that most of our corn consumptions come from.  Corn is the “C” in HFC (high fructose corn syrup).  You recognize that evil acronym but won’t be seeing it much longer as the corn lobby has successfully convinced people that “corn sugar” is both more “accurate” and more marketable.