A few people have asked for a sample meal plan for what the kids eat. If you like printables, here’s a good one for meal planning. To be honest, I’ve been kinda winging it lately. It doesn’t go as well when I do that, though, so I made a proper plan this time, just for you. Here’s our likely week this week. Looks like I’ll run out of food before I run out of week:

Gosh, that’s a lot of scrambled eggs, isn’t it? It’s the fastest way to feed a crowd, and nobody seems to mind, so it’s what I do.

You’ll probably notice that that’s not “paleo”, as it contains beans, legumes, and seeds. I’m not totally anti-seed, like many paleo people. (I don’t even believe in cavemen; I’m a creationist, as a Christian ought to be.) I do try to keep seeds down to a couple of times a week, and only those kinds that I think all the tummies handle well. As a rule, there are no grains in our diet, but if we’re out somewhere and someone hands them a corn chip or a rice cake, that’s ok by me. (Update 7/18/24: This has changed somewhat, as we’ve discovered better ways of eating.)

For the strict carnivores:

My own plan amounts to “procure, cook, then eat meat and/or eggs”, so there’s not much planning to do. I’m currently taking a high-fat approach to eating, so breakfast is a medium-rare steak of some kind and one whole egg plus 4 yolks cooked sunny side up. My second meal is usually 4-6 quarter-pound burger patties, with the rendered fat poured back on. If I’m still hungry at supper-time, I will have a bite of whatever meat the kids have, or an egg cooked in butter, or more hamburger patties. This is a maintenance amount of calories for me on a normal day with a workout and walking. I have a little bit less on a low-activity day.

It sounds a little bit monotonous, doesn’t it? But I’ve found that when I’m actually hungry, I’m never sorry that I have to eat just meat. If I don’t want to want to eat it because it sounds boring, that’s a clue that I’m not truly hungry, but bored or just seeking food out of habit.

Jesse eats the same breakfast as the kids, minus the fruit or veg. His lunch is either sandwich meats (mostly roast beef) or hamburger patties, plus boiled eggs and homemade coconut oil mayonnaise or herbed butter. (Mayo recipe follows shortly, if I ever get the pictures taken.) His dinner will be steak and fish, or hamburger patties, or whatever meat the rest of the family is having.

Honestly, there was a time I’d have laughed at anyone who thought there was something wrong with grains, seed oils, or any other food our culture sees as normal. Just give them all the things! Food can’t hurt anybody! Eat the rainbow!

You can see that there is a fair amount of repetition in the children’s diets, too. Some of them reject the vegetables entirely, so it’s even less varied for them. I’m good with that.

Until fairly recently, historically speaking, the insane variety in food choice we take for granted was something even kings couldn’t take for granted the way we do. The human race did just fine–nay, thrived–on just meat and local, seasonal produce, so that’s how I try to feed my kids. I admit, we eat more like the kings than the peasantry, and I’m tickled that we’ve been able to do so thus far. I thank God for that, and I pray that our food system can adapt to handle everyone’s need for more meat. Most people really aren’t eating enough protein to thrive.

Variety tends to be more seasonal than daily, but we do change things up from time to time. There will be more salads and berries in the spring, cucumbers and melons in the summer, and squash and grapes in the fall. Hopefully, I’ll be a somewhat better gardener this year than last, so some of that will even come from our own land!