This is part of a journey and is neither the beginning nor the end. I am a student, not the law. I know a little bit about a little bit, so leave your comments below…

When you click that eating local, seasonal, ethical food, you just get “it”. You feel the difference, know the difference and value the choice. You make the decision to work a little harder to source your food because it’s ethical, clean food. You sacrifice time to source the right farms, the right butcher and possibly, the right wine maker. This is a journey for me. I am attempting to do the following:

1. Order fruit and vegetables from local suppliers.
2. Use seasonal fruit and vegetables only.
3. Choose local suppliers who I trust to get their food from ethical producers.
4. Drink wine & beer from farms and brewers who treat their staff with respect and farm the land with a vision for the future.

I eat meat. Sure, at home we toy with Vegetarian meals as a commitment to explore options and use creativity to spice it up a little. But I love meat.

However, I choose to buy meat from an ethical butcher, whose commitment to finding farmers who are ethical is stellar at a minimum.

I eat less meat than ever before. Coming from the Transvaal, being an ex swimmer, more was more growing up. I realise that eating meat is taxing on my system at times, especially when I eat loads of red meat, so I am careful, but it’s one of those things I truly enjoy, like a great red wine. Where you draw your line in the sand is entirely up to you and I don’t judge. People will make assumptions and get up in your face for eating meat when their choose is to NOT eat meat. I draw the line at less meat, but ethical meat I trust.

Perhaps you follow the Slow Food Movement (click) or something similar. Perhaps Meat Free Mondays are your thing or you only drink Organic Wines as a lifestyle choice. As long as there is some sort of conscious behavior around the fuel you put in your belly…

It’s your source of energy, vitality and recovery.

So take it seriously!

Good food costs a little more, but with careful planning, a bit of compromise and a little less mindless spending, we can all make a plan to feel better, live better and be better.

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One of the things I love most in life is cooking. It is my gardening, my zen out time and generally, also the time to have a glass of wine. It’s a time to try something new, something different and something that might go wrong. Thankfully, there are loads of take away spots around where I live, so if it’s a total flop, I can just get a take-away. In the quest for real food, I would love to inspire more people to try cooking at home.

I have found a resource so simple and easy that you are going to never forget the moment you downloaded it. It’s a free cook book with recipes that are easy to make, require 5 ingredients or less and even makes sense to the toughest booitjie out there. Best part is that it only takes 10 minutes to make each thing, and they look so so YUM! You will find it here so click “Save link as” in Firefox and if you are still using Internet Explorer – sis on you!

Have fun. I am going to have it printed out and leave it in the kitchen.

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Click the image into a new page, you won’t regret it. YUUUM!

So we spoke about real food right, and that I was going to send you a list of where you can buy real food at markets and where to get real meat that hasn’t been force fed with corn & tubes. I asked the honorable Jamie Who? to help me out with this, considering the lengthy discussions we have had about real food. It will generally accompany a RealBeer or a glass of RealWine and possibly a prego at &Union but hey, who are we to judge, right?

Real Food goes beyond buying “Organic”. It’s the approach you take to food. It’s how you buy it, how you cook it and the preparation you take when it comes to being healthy. I compete in a sport more prone to Athlete Anorexia than most. Triathletes are obsessed with their bodies. Gordo wrote a great piece on the Nutrition of Performance here that you should read as well.

Jamie Who and the Ninja wanted to take it above and beyond for you and do some Real Meals as well. Something realistic and easy to make that looks freaking awesome, tastes incredible and doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg either. Also, locally available options for meals is always a concern.

So when approaching food (even at Pick n Pay, Woolies) make sure you do at least some of the following:

1. Make sure you walk slowly getting there. Breathe. Being in a rush is going to make you buy the wrong stuff. I guarantee it.

2. Buy what you can in raw bunches that have to be weighed. No pre-packed already chopped nonsense. Skins are good for you, people!

3. Opt for the organic version where possible. With meat – it’s not even an option. Go with something that you trust from the source.

4. Avoid plastic wrapping and long lists of stuff you can’t pronounce in the ingredients list.

5. Avoid concentrates.

6. Try something different while you are at it. You never know what you may discover out there.

I realise you are expecting a list of places to shop, eat, browse etc. There are various lists up. To start, why don’t you try this one. It’s quite comprehensive.

Give it a go, won’t you. Try it for a while.

Jamie Who and myself are going to do a series of recipes & suggestions on how to cook and what to avoid using when cooking, all those things. In essence, he is my first contributor to the site on a more formal basis and I am quite excited about taking the food thing more seriously going forwards.

Keep it real out there.

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We all know I am a little obsessive about health and fitness. I get asked more about weight, diet and optimal performance than I do about my happiness and what makes me smile, and I came across some amazing information today. I wanted to share, as I always do.

Human health and physical fitness are important, crucial things to consider, and millions find them fascinating subjects to discuss, analyze, and optimize. I’m one of them. Millions more overanalyze; they make things harder than they need to be, and they generally get poorer results in the long run. Or, they may get objectively good results, but their lives are consumed by the minutiae of calories, miles, reps, and nutrient counting. I’d say there’s got to be an easier way to do things. There has to be a path that utilizes our big brains without them getting in the way. There’s got to be a balanced, rational method to obtain optimal health and fitness that successfully marries our tendency to think with our animal instincts. Getting fit and being healthy should be simplistic, intuitive, and, most importantly, enjoyable.

Does wildlife obsess over calories eaten or reps performed? How do deer maintain their trim figures and impressive athleticism without a dietitian and weekly personal training sessions? Conversely, why does the house cat grow obese and lethargic, while a bobcat with nearly identical genes stays fit? It isn’t just the simplistic calories in/calories out model. It couldn’t be. Wild animals don’t count calories. They don’t worry about eating before bed, or getting enough exercise to burn off that squirrel they had for breakfast. They just are. They simply exist in an ecosystem hundreds of thousands of years in the making. Evolution has made sure, by its impartial, unconscious hand, that the flora and fauna live in harmony with each other and internally. The bobcat thrives on rodents and small birds because its digestive system and metabolism evolved eating these things; the house cat gets fat because its digestive system and metabolism aren’t suited for grain-based kibble. If the balance is upset in a given environment, organisms die out or move on, but things always reset. This is simply how nature works. When thinking about how to optimize our health and physical fitness, perhaps we should consider how animals do it – and how our ancestors did it.

We’re animals – no one disputes that. We are subject to evolution and natural selection – that one’s a bit more controversial, but it’s true nonetheless. If you keep those two facts in mind while noting the lesson of the fit, lean bobcat, a thread begins to emerge. Shouldn’t the same concept hold true for us? Isn’t there an evolutionarily suitable, effortless lifestyle for us humans, too?

There is, and I call it the Primal Blueprint. It eschews complicated workout regimens, tedious calorie counting, and weight loss gimmicks. My Primal laws are based on a rock solid foundation: evolutionary biology and anthropology mixed with modern human ingenuity. I take what worked for tens of thousands of years throughout human prehistory and incorporate contemporary science to confirm its veracity. When you go back and look at the fossil records of our hunter-gatherer, pre-agricultural ancestors, you find that they were healthy, strong, and largely free of degenerative diseases – especially compared to the health of post-agricultural and even modern humans.

The result is an incredibly simple, incredibly effective way to live, move, and eat: eat the things our ancestors ate, get the amount of sleep our ancestors used to get, and make the same movements our ancestors used to make before agriculture.

Take Action

If you take anything from this post remember these two action items:

1. The ideal human diet should consist of only whole, unprocessed foods – meat, fish, fowl, plants, fruits, and nuts. Whatever you can kill, pick, or dig up and eat on the spot. This is what your ancestors ate and what your body is meant to consume.

2. By the same token, the best exercise consists of natural, full-body movements – lifting heavy things, sprinting, walking, swimming, hiking, climbing, crawling. This is how your ancestors moved and how your body is meant to function.

Amazing Results

The results of following these simple rules are numerous and almost immediate:

• The weight melts off, if you have some to lose, or added muscle appears, if you could stand to gain a few pounds.
• You reset your taste buds. Sugar becomes cloying; processed industrial vegetable oil tastes unnatural.
• You realize you don’t need grains, beans, and potatoes to feel full.
• You crave real food, and you realize that real food tastes good – better than anything you could find on a convenience store shelf and more satisfying than anything in a fast food restaurant. Hunger no longer dictates that you eat every few hours.
• You get stronger and faster, sure, but you learn to move again. You regain lost mobility.
• You get sick less often as your immune system begins to function more effectively.
• You take pleasure in real movement and become more confident in your own skin.
• Eating and moving becomes intuitive, easy and fun.
• The world becomes your gym. Can’t make it to the weight room? Pick up a rock, toss it a couple times, pull your own body weight, then go running in the park. As long as you can manipulate your own body weight, you’re strong enough.

Man is an opportunist above anything else. We love the easy way out, but we tend to make fitness and nutrition so incredibly complicated. Just cut out the foods we’ve only been eating for a few hundred generations (and do eat the things we’ve been eating for thousands of generations), drop the ridiculous fitness contraptions to focus on natural movements, and streamline your health. And don’t be afraid to turn off that big brain every once in awhile.

I am currently in over my head with endurance sports, but something I wanted to try for this winter is to do some really PRIMAL things. I want to forgo cooked meat for a while, not cook my veggies, put a lock on my microwave, go rock climbing and climb in trees. I have been going forward on a bicycle or running down the road for so long lately that I may have forgotten how to go sideways, how to climb and most importantly, how to rebuild normal strength after getting all leaned out for what I have embarked on. I am not saying I am going to go all in like this, but I am going to try and get close.

So many people do not know how to get healthy and fit. The gym will never give you what the outdoors can, and Woolies pre-made meals will never help you gain optimal movement or weight. Its just that simple.

Go on… be great. Be primal. Be what you are supposed to be, you animal!

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I have the privilege of working with some amazingly smart people. I have to listen as much as I talk, hopefully a little more in the future, and I want to share some of the best tips for quick improvements in your day with you today. I believe if you can do just a few of these things, that your overall day will improve in a huge way, and that life will appear to be better.

Just not as bad as that Kellogg’s advert on the radio at the moment where the girl greets the trees, the birds, and the postman, because she is now “regular”.

Thats quite the vibe there Kellogg’s. Anyway. Here are some simple tips you might not have thought about…

1. Always eat a healthy breakfast. Coffee & other stimulants do not count. A healthy breakfast would consist of a cup of real food like Muesli or Oats, with limited sugar, and a cup of black Rooibos tea with a bit of apple juice to sweeten it up.

2. Pack your bags for the day, the night before, so you don’t have to rush in the morning.

3. If you work at a desk, get up and walk around once an hour, for 5 minutes. Flex your toes and stretch yourself out a bit. Blood flow is your friend.

4. Eat 5 meals a day. Snacking at 11am and 3pm means smaller main meals, but a steadier metabolism.

5. Get regular sleep. Nothing beats consistency when it comes to sleep i.e. Getting to bed at the same time every day as far as possible.

6. Get some sunshine! During your lunch break, make sure you sit in the sun for 10min. It will brighten up your day.

7. Skip the late night sugar. I used to have pudding 5 nights a week until about 8 weeks ago. I can’t explain to you how much better you sleep when you cut out that sugar rush before bedtime.

8. A glass of wine will sooth the day. But make sure its with dinner, and that it’s a bottle worth opening, every single time. Good wine, good coffee, and good chocolate are all substitutes worth having in your life.

9. Speaking of coffee, I am a big fan of the stuff, but in moderation. Great coffee requires no sugar, and hardly any milk. Its not bitter at all, but costs a little more. Its worth the investment.

10. Take 2 cups of HTFU and chill the hell out. Stop fretting the little things, they are going to kill you.

Now go out there, and be great.

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