I'm in Minnesota outside the twin cities. Just between suburbia and the No man's land. Thanks for the website. That's part of my first step to do things more paleo, finding out how to find real quality foods.

I saw a place on the website in Edina that sounds like the type of shop I've been looking for.

Hello and stuff. I've been reading through the stuff in the newbie section of this forum, and I wanted to make an account because I may do some posting later.

For the past 9 years, but especially this year, I've been on a journey of what I like for food. Until I was 20 years old I'd never prepared my own food. My mother never attempted to include me with food, cooking, or even cleaning up the dishes. My mom was a homemaker, so she primarily cooked. My dad cooked sometimes, he let me watch but I couldn't touch. I was fine (as in felt ok/healthy) growing up until I entered college and found I lacked the confidence and competence to prepare any food/meals for myself. I ending up adopting a diet of soda, fast food, and packaged food from when I was 18 to 20 and I nearly doubled my weight in those two years.

So when I was age 20 was the first time in my life I decided to prepare my own food. I watched TV cooking shows to learn how to prepare meals. Alton Brown ended up being my favorite role model for food, if you've never seen his show he always encourages the viewer to not just copy a recipe but change it, try new things, even if you fail it's ok. That's how I learned my favorite foods are red meats, dark greens, vegetables, nuts (cashews & hazelnuts), and dried fruit. This year I've been journaling what I eat and how I feel. I've never had a set menu of food/plan of action. There is still health improvement I want to make and I know food really affects how well I feel from my journals.

Anyway, I've found the foods I like to eat match up with a Paleo diet. I only heard about the Paleo movement recently. Largely I only eat vegies raw, usually with a vinegrette dressing. For meat I've gone from only eating chicken growing up, to only well cooked red meats, now to medium cooked cuts of red meat. I still eat white meats, but the medium cooked red meats taste better, reduce my learned craving for sugar & bread, and I have more energy from red meat. I've also learned I freaking love sushi! I haven't had confidence to prepare my own sushi yet, but I want to.

I could go on and on about how I tried following the food pyramid/my plate from the government. I also tried making meals according to Harvard's healthy eating plate. My lifelong GERD (gastrointestinal esophageal reflux disease) and insomnia  have shown improvement when I eat things in a paleo way... But then it flare right back up eating a non-paleo way with breads and overally cooked foods. So I've decided to push my comfort zone and make a dedicated plan for a largely raw paleo diet... Omnivorous because I do like my vegies, but I'm working on having red meat twice a day. I also have noticed a natural inclination to intermittent fasting in my journals when I eat what I want.  Learning how to shop for quality foods is the first thing on my list. And there are some non-paleo foods I'm going to experiment if I need them or not. Greek prebiotic yogurt and metamucil (I don't think metamucil is paleo, made from grain husk) both have improved my digestion, but I'm not problem free with digestion so I want better. Really, I just want to feel good after I eat. Even though I felt ok growing up, I thought it was normal to always have acid reflux after a meal. I thought it was normal to spend only half the time I'm in bed trying to sleep, actually sleeping. It amazes me that I can go for weeks at a time now w/o acid reflux and even sleep 6 hours straight. I'm 29 years old, female, but I'm still only a beginner for what the heck real human food is.