The Paleo Diet Beginner’s Guide

If you’re ready to go Paleo, you’ve probably realized you need to rethink your trips to the grocery store. To avoid wheat and refined sugars, you’ll have to forgo most of the packaged and prepared foods so many of us rely on for convenience. This doesn't just mean shunning the obvious, like sliced breads and preservative-packed frozen dinners, but you'll also be checking ingredients lists on soups, sauces, condiments, and even Paleo-friendly foods like nut butters for things like added sweeteners (which often go by sneaky names like dextrose, maltose and crystalline fructose), excess sodium, and wheat-based ingredients. Shopping the perimeter of your grocery store, where the whole foods like produce and meat are located, or buying directly from farmers and butchers are good rules of thumb—and you’ll almost certainly be doing a lot more cooking. Luckily, Paleo cookbooks and recipe Web sites abound to help you ease into cooking and learn to use some of the less-familiar Paleo ingredients to their best advantage. Check out paleoplan.com, everydaypaleo.com, and civilizedcavemancooking.com for ideas.