Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week: Get Everything You Need to Go Paleo in ‘Paleo Perfected’

Following a paleo diet isn’t easy. Our modern approach to eating, heavy on processed foods and refined sugars, is pretty much the antithesis of paleo, which emphasizes minimally processed, whole foods and plenty of meat and vegetables, but no dairy, grains, refined sugars, alcohol, or other foods that were introduced to the human diet after the Paleolithic period.

For some, it’s worth the effort. […] But reconciling the rules of paleo with our taste for classics like spaghetti and meatballs, fried chicken, and pancakes seems near impossible. But America’s Test Kitchen, the 2,500 square-foot-kitchen that’s home to Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country and boasts a team of more than four dozen test cooks, editors, food scientists, tasters, and cookware specialists, was up for the challenge.

[… ] Every dish comes with a “why this recipe works” explanation, which details the ups and downs of the testing process. You could easily skip these introductions, but if read carefully, they offer handy lessons in how to develop your own paleo recipes. Test kitchen tips, such as how to devein shrimp or peel ginger, are sprinkled throughout the book and are useful regardless of whether or not you follow a paleo diet.

It’s easy to focus on all the foods that are paleo no-no’s, but America’s Test Kitchen presents paleo less as a diet and more as a common sense approach to healthy eating. There are a few charts and some information on ingredient substitutions, but rather than focusing too heavily on what you can and cannot eat, they emphasize the fact that paleo eating is really about eating fresh, minimally processed foods. In other words, it’s “the type of foods that sensible healthy folks would want to cook for their family and friends.”

— Lauren Salkeld for Yahoo Food, January 4, 2016