30 Day Paleo Diet + Cinnamon Apple Chips and Cashew Butter Recipes

A couple days ago, my husband and I began to eat the Paleo way. We already buy mostly grass fed and organic foods and I make most everything I can from scratch, so what the diet meant for us was that we would have to cut out noodles/rice/grains, legumes, alcohol, dairy and sugar. However my husband does make his own homemade yogurt, which he incubates for 24 hours (so the lactose is no longer an issue) and we are eating that on the diet.

The reason we decided to try the Paleo diet is because my husband suffers from a chronic digestive disease called Ulcerative Colitis.

His doctor’s want him to try intravenous  medications and before that point, I’d like to try clean eating. My hope is that he has a gluten intolerance and cutting it out from his diet will soothe his symptoms. I’m doing the diet with him as his support and as I learn more about why people cut out gluten, it makes a lot of sense to eat this way, or at least eat this way most of the time. Kris wrote a post back last May that speaks more about gluten here. I have read many articles about people that have had success with eating clean and we figured it was worth a try!

Here are a couple things I made over the last couple of days and really enjoyed.

Cinnamon Apple Chips

I sliced up 4 apples about 1/8 of an inch thick and placed them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. I seasoned them with cinnamon and nutmeg and cooked them at 200°F for an hour (my oven runs hot so you could try baking them at 225°F too). Then I flipped them, seasoned them more and cooked them for another hour. After two hours of cooking, I checked them every 5-10 mins until they were done to my liking. Beware, they quickly go from under-cooked to overdone, so set a timer! You can be creative with the seasonings. They make a nice crispy snack… my daughter was so pleased she thought they were “treats”.

Cashew Butter

Yesterday I whipped up a batch of homemade peanut butter for my daughter’s lunch. Then it occurred to me that since peanuts are “not legal” for the paleo diet, perhaps I could make the recipe with cashews instead. I gave it a try and oooohhmmmyyyygggooossshhh I’m in love. My husband likes it but not to the extent I do. I think the flavor is so creamy and delicious, it almost reminds me of cookie dough. Maybe I’m crazy, but give it a try. Just follow my homemade peanut butter recipe in the hyperlink above and sub cashews for the peanuts. MMMmMmmm!

Every weekend for the next four weeks, I will be posting a recap of things we cooked and liked, with recipes included as well as a little summary of how things are going with our bodies.

If you have any great paleo recipes, tips or tricks that you LOVE, please share them in the comments.

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