The Paleo Diet breakfast is a much discussed topic when considering Paleo Lifestyle Design.  Let’s not discuss what food item is best, but what process is best and apply it to your life this week.

Breakfast,  as a way of life, a direction in foodstuffs, and the first meal of our day, is also one of the most marketed areas of concern for nearly every entity that has lulled you into thinking that breakfast must be made of wheat, be fried or drowned in milk, creamy, and of all things…sweet.  After all, you need that ‘Zing!’ in the morning…every commercial that airs between 5am and 9am says so. Forever.

I stumbled on to The Ultimate Paleo Diet Breakfast quite by accident… 

There was a desperate need to thaw out some meat, hit the grocery store, and restock our supplies.  The ‘frig was bare.  All that was available, other than things like condiments, pickles, and a half stalk of Romain, was a semi-thawed piece of salmon, something in a sealed gold can with no label, and a can of coconut milk.  Not what you’d call breakfast makins’.

Or was it?

I eyed that salmon like a dog protecting a bone, then decided to fire up my Traeger Grill.   Many moons ago, when Traeger first opened its doors in central Oregon, I was one of their first customers.  An auger-driven wood pellet BBQ that cooks via controllable speeds and temperatures and uses convection smoke, as well as wood-specific pellets like Apple, Maple, Mesquite, to honestly present the perfect cooking conditions using natural elements of smoke and fire.  The fire never touches the foodstuff.

Well I took that salmon fillet and draped it over a 10,000 year-old Himalayan Salt Slab I purchased from Amazon with the specific desire to cook on salt in my Traeger.  The super-heated slab was at 500 degrees when that Wild Alaskan Salmon first touched it and sizzled with delight.  It was 7:10am and there was a fresh inch of snow on the ground.

I went inside, halved an apricot I found behind a jar on the bottom row of the ‘frig, and placed the halves on a plate.  Going back outside, I flipped the salmon, peeled the skin back and gave it to ‘Mississippi’, a mouser cat that lives somewhere on my farm and knows that Traeger smoke is a sure-fire handout opportunity.  I placed the virgin side on the salt slab, and poured a little apricot juice over that to add moisture to the stone, and thus more infused 10,000 year old salt into that sizzling piece of fish.

This Morning’s Breakfast:  One 6 ounce grilled/smoked salmon steak.  One apricot.

The Ultimate Paleo Diet Breakfast:  Grilled.

It wasn’t the salmon or apricot that ‘made’ the breakfast…it was the grilling for breakfast.  I could have used a sweet potato and half a zucchini as an example.  Both amazingly great grilled.  But I’m not talking food, I’m talking about the manner and timing in which it’s prepared.

Without sounding too caveman here, I just have to think that Grok didn’t wake up in the morning, grab a handful of wheat, put it in a bowl, and then go grab a cow and squeeze it until the juice drowned the wheat.

Maybe…just maybe, he was chillin’ by the fire the night before because that day him and Drog had a mighty day fishing and managed to snag a couple salmon for the clan.  Well, things got irey and most the folks crashed right there in Grok’s cave.  A few cats even stoked the fire throughout the night because nobody wanted to do the friction fire start thing…hard on the hands.  Grok wakes up and grills some fish for breakfast.  A few folks join in.  Grilling for breakfast was a happening scene….

Like most things Paleo, you have to cook or prepare what you eat and it does take time.  But if that’s your bitch, you ain’t Paleo friend.  We don’t do this every morning because, like you, eggs factor high on morning meals as do Protein & Fruit Shakes, Paleo Pancakes, and fasting.  But notice I called this post, “The Ultimate Paleo Diet Breakfast”.  Use it as such.  Everything should be made simple, not simpler.

The Ultimate Paleo Diet Breakfast is a process, and not a foodstuff. 

Sure, the later supports the former, but the former is what makes the breakfast ultimate.  Grilling is heat, and smoke, and warmth, and eases the senses in the morning.  You like a campfire when you’re camping right?  You just sit there like a zombie staring into the chaos that fire hypnotizes by, and you later reflect on these moments as highlights of your lifetime.  I’m just saying breakfast can be a great time to add a few more of these highlights into your every day.

This process of grilling breakfast is a simple paradigm to accomplish.  The rewards of the process go far past diet.  This is Paleo Lifestyle Design.