About “Gourmet B.C.”
Gourmet B.C. was born in March, 2014 as an experiment for a blogging class. The blog is inspired by the writer’s passion for the paleo approach to food and living. Though the title alludes to food, Gourmet B.C. is all about living a healthy life by incorporating science into its choices. Paleolithic nutrition simply means eating like the Paleolithic peoples. This is an encompassing term for a diet that is grain-free, legume-free, and dairy-free, and focuses on eating whole, nutritious foods. A “whole” food can be seen as a food that is 1 ingredient; so, while a banana is a whole food, Oreos are not.
About the blogger
I began researching paleolithic nutrition a little over a year ago. I found it, on a whim, when searching for a way to solve my never-ending fatigue. I was frustrated and up to my limit. Coupled with digestive issues, I began posting on forums seeking answers. One day, a woman wrote back to me: “Brittany, look into paleo. helped me solve my fatigue and I feel like a new person” (exact quote). The woman, Emily, was a young college student like me. Immediately, I opened a new tab and typed into the Google search box “paleo.” I was fascinated but daunted at the same time. Give up grains? That’s like, everything. That’s my favorite foods: donuts, pasta, oh my! What would I do? I didn’t even know how to start. What would I cook? What would I eat? This diet seemed to take everything out of the equation that I ate. I had no idea how to live. How could I eat if it didn’t come from a box? Processed food was all I knew.
After pulling my big girl panties up, I began researching more. And more. And more. I needed to know what I couldn’t eat and why. I needed the science behind it. I’m a science person. Present me with science and we will talk. But, I had to understand what everything is: what’s a legume or a grain? I wanted to look at a nutrition label and identify everything in it. And so, that day, on my dry erase board, I began making columns. I labeled it “grains,” “dairy,” “legumes,” and wrote under each what I couldn’t have. Dairy was easy: no milk, no cheese. Legumes were a bit trickier: no peanuts (!), no peas, no beans. Grains were a challenge: no oats, no wheat, no corn. Most importantly: no processed sugar. No high fructose corn syrup, and no white sugar.
It looked daunting, I will admit. It took me many months to learn to cook for myself. Sure, before I could heat up some hamburger or cook a steak. Now, I have to prep veggies, make my own marinades, and cook offal without overcooking it. I began losing weight instantly. 10 pounds melted off without me even trying. Of course, the problem was I would still cheat. It was too hard not to. Yet, even when I committed myself to eating no processed foods, I was still fatigued. It continued to get worse. I started losing my hair at an alarming rate. It’s normal to lose ~100 strands of hair a day. I was pulling out hair in the shower by handfuls.
In order to solve this problem, I sent away for a hair DNA test, which tests for all the vitamin, mineral, and toxic elements in the body. It was incredibly helpful. You can listen to my update in a vlog here.
Gourmet B.C. 