Recipe: Mustard-Coated Salmon

I'm posting this recipe here because it's basically been saving my life for the past few days.  One of the issues with a Whole 30 diet is that a lot of the spice mixes I use (like lemon pepper or seasoned salt) have ingredients that I can't eat for that duration, even if I normally think they aren't a big deal... many of them have sugar, a lot have MSG, etc.

I don't remember when I started putting mustard on salmon.  I know I did it a lot a year and a half or so ago when I was working at a group home, because it was easy and delicious, and I think this comes from that era of my life.  I don't remember if I got the recipe from someone else, either.  I feel like I came up with it on my own due to an obsession with whole-grain and stone-ground mustard.

And this recipe is really easy.  You need:

• Salmon fillets (I usually just make one, because I usually am eating alone anyway)
• About a tablespoon of whole-grain or stone-ground mustard for each fillet.  I often use more.  Make sure you read the ingredients to make sure there aren't any weird ingredients like sugar or soybean oil.

You have two options here.  You can either cook it on a grill (because grilling things makes everything taste better) or you can bake them in an oven on a grill pan (you probably can bake them in any pan, but I use a grill pan).

For grilling, just put the fillets on the grill, cook both sides until it looks cooked (I don't have a time for you, sorry, grills vary a lot and I've never actually timed it), then smother mustard on one side and allow it to cook in for thirty seconds or so.

For baking, you can smother the mustard on before cooking.  Bake it at 375oF for about fifteen or twenty minutes.  If it's too raw for you, or you have a particularly thick fillet, you can of course leave it in longer.

Whole 30: Day 21

This weekend had been pretty intense as far as... uh... not eating properly.  I didn't eat anything un-paleo (not counting aforementioned supplements) but I did pretty much gorge myself on cherries, seeing as they are $1.99/pound until Wednesday.  So the foods are largely fine, but the proportions are very off.

I'm still feeling good, but cherries can cause gastrointestinal upset (a Bing search tells me this is due to the levels of a flavanoid called quercetin) which, well, yeah I got that pretty bad.

Quick interesting tidbit:  I typically have taken melatonin in order to get to sleep due to years upon years of difficulty getting to sleep.  I haven't needed it for several days.  I don't know if it's actually an effect of dietary changes, but it's nice.

I don't have much to report otherwise.  My weight is stabilized right now.  Trying to prepare for a business trip out of state which will involve taking needles on an airplane, navigating trying to stay mostly-paleo on an extended trip, and spending a lot of time with people I'm stealth to; that happens in a few weeks so I'm sure I'll have a lot to talk about then.

Recipe: Pan-Fried Panfish

When I was growing up, we ate a lot of panfish we caught from the lake.  Unfortunately, it was almost always dredged in wheat flower and fried in soybean oil.  When I first started experimenting with paleo and lacto-paleo ways of eating and started eating them without flour, my family looked at me like I was a total fucking weirdo.  Truth be told, I love fish and don't need to flour or fry them, but I was interested to see if I could make a paleo-friendly version of it, especially since I live in Wisconsin, land of the Friday fish fry.  This was the result:

Pan-Fried Panfish
This is a simple recipe that I've been tweaking recently for bluegills or other sunfish.  I say "tweaking" because I've been having a hard time getting a good level of salt (in my case potassium chloride, which is marketed as a "salt substitute" but for the record is still a salt).  This is the best version so far:

1. Fillets of bluegill (I typically get around 15-20 with this recipe)
2. 1/4+ refined coconut oil (you can use unrefined coconut oil if you really like coconut; start with 1/4 cup but keep extra on standby)
3. 1/2 cup arrowroot powder (you could probably use coconut flour... but I hate coconut flour so I don't)
4. 1 tablespoon paprika
5. 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
6. 1/4 teaspoon salt (table salt or any of the fancy salts paleo eaters like, like Himalayan pink salt or sea salt; if you're reducing your sodium like me you can use potassium chloride OR omit)
7. Black pepper to taste (I just dash it on afterward)

Heat a frying pan over medium heat with 1/4 cup coconut oil in it.  Mix all the dry ingredients except the pepper together in a bowl or plastic bag and mix thoroughly.

Once the coconut oil is melted and hot, dredge the fillets a few at a time and lay in the oil.  I typically just put two or three in the plastic bag and shake, but if you don't want the waste just dredge them in the bowl by laying them in the mix on each side.  Let fry for about a minute before flipping and getting the other side.  When both sides are done, I put them on a plate layered with newspaper to catch the extra oil.

Continue until either the dry mix or the fillets are gone.

If you run out of oil:
I keep oil on standby and when it starts getting low I add it a tablespoon at a time.  This recipe is designed to reduce waste as a person who doesn't fry in oil often.  If you regularly deep fry things, you can always just do it that way and strain the oil for later use.

If you run out of dry mix and you only have a couple fillets left:
I usually just add a little arrowroot powder, paprika, and salt to stretch it out.

I eat this plain, but if you want tartar sauce it's ridiculously easy to make a paleo version.  Just make mayonnaise (there are loads of recipes for this online, just replace any generic vegetable or soybean oil with a paleo-friendly oil like light olive oil or avocado oil and get rid of any sugar people sometimes add; AllRecipes has this one that's already friendly) and mix it with dill pickle relish (again, check ingredients for sugary stuff and other odd ingredients).

Whole 30 - Day 19

Well, time for my first real post here.  And as it stands, today is day 19 of a Whole 30, which is 30 days of almost-strict-paleo (the detailed rules can be found on the Whole 9 website but the gist of it is no dairy except ghee, no legumes except fresh green ones like snap peas, no grains, no sulphites, no processed foods, no alcohol, no white potatoes, no sweeteners except a little fruit juice, and no trying to paleo-ify things like desserts).

OK, I'm not actually doing a genuine Whole 30.  Almost all the dietary stuff I am doing, but due to medical tracking purposes demanded by medical professionals I am weighing myself.  I'm also taking the "big three" dietary supplements recommended by most paleo eaters who believe in supplements, including fish oil (mine has no forbidden ingredients), vitamin D3 (mine has some soy, sorry) and probiotics (lactobacilli + bifidobacteria, also regrettably has some soy).  I track my food intake on most days using a site called PaleoTrack, which gives not only things like caloric and nutrient intake but also gives helpful messages about the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids and the ratio of potassium to sodium.  For instance, this was the run-down I got on Wednesday:

I clearly kicked ass on Wednesday.

I don't actually pay much attention to calories or carbs, but I do pay attention to the omega 6/3 and potassium/sodium levels.  Since I do weigh myself, I can also mention that when I started I weighed 252 pounds.  Today I weighed 237 pounds and my shorts are pretty much hanging off my ass.

Generally speaking, I feel really good as well.  The last time I attempted a Whole 30 by this time I was going pretty batshit wanting sugary food.  I was hoping to be able to do the textbook gradual reintroduction of ingredients I don't want to avoid forever, but as it turns out I'm probably going to be going on a business trip in a few weeks so that's just not going to work (although I'll be trying to do at least approximate paleo while I'm there).

As far as foods go, I've been eating a lot of fish, a lot of ground beef, a lot of eggs, and drinking a lot of coconut water (it's great for that potassium/sodium ratio).  I've also been eating way too many cherries, because they're ridiculously cheap right now and... well, they're cherries.

I'm not sure how my blood pressure is doing because I know my sphygmomanometer is inaccurate and I don't really trust the one at Pick 'N Save either.  It might be improving, but we'll have to see when I go to my next doctor's appointment on I believe the 11th.

Welcome to PaleoTrans!

Hello, my name is Jackson--or Jax--and this is PaleoTrans; my health, diet, and wellness blog.  I decided to create it during my 2014 Whole 30 because I'm uncomfortable with my other blog (Reclaiming Warlock) getting bogged down with a bunch of diet and health posts, especially considering a high proportion of that blog's readers are fat acceptance activists or otherwise (rightly) irritated by persistent dieting posts.  I wanted somewhere to talk about things like food addiction, dietary body modification to alleviate gender dysphoria and mitigating the health problems I have where I don't necessarily need to worry about people being blindsided and feeling preached at over their bodies or their eating habits.

That said, for my first post (which will likely be stuck to the top of the page as an introduction) I'd like to affirm some ground rules and important information.

1. First off, a little about me.
   Like I said, my name's Jackson.  I'm in my late twenties or early thirties depending on when you get to this and if I actually update it on my birthday.  I am a medically transitioning transsexual man, having been out as trans since late 2003 and on testosterone injections since December of 2011.  My gender pronouns are he/him/his and you do not have any other options than that.  I am queer (you could call me bi or pansexual but I don't really use either of those often).  I have been a Pagan since 1997, which is important because that'll probably come up.  I am a kinky, polyamorous, childfree, marriagefree semi-radical queer, which likely won't come up, but hell, why not mention it?
2. Since I am a trans man, I don't typically write outside that lens of experience.
   I don't really write about trans women or any of the hundreds of non-binary genders out there unless something comes up (for instance, if a prominent paleo personality turns out to be a total bigot, which is unfortunately not uncommon).  This is because I really am not confident that I could write about health issues in these categories while doing them justice.
3. My main goals are body transformation and mitigation of health problems.
   My weight loss goal is 175 pounds (with a start weight of 252).  In addition I have pre-diabetes, asthma, hypertension, back pain, and a wheat allergy.  I am actively trying to sort out my blood sugar issues and hypertension with diet and exercise, with a hope that it'll help mitigate the asthma and back pain.  And wheat allergies usually require not eating wheat, so...
4. This is not a moralizing, body shaming, or diet shaming site, it's a personal journey.
   I get excited over my body's changes when they go the way I plan.  I love writing about them.  I love sharing them with people who are excited for me, especially those on similar journeys.  But our needs, difficulties, abilities, desires, and aesthetics are all different.  For instance, I am actively trying to lower my blood pressure without medication, but that doesn't mean it's immoral to go the pharmaceutical route.
5. I don't allow comments... because they suck.
   People are really used to being able to put whatever fucked-up opinion they might have anywhere they want on the Internet.  And, well, no.  This is not your space.  I have run several blogs, including some reasonably popular ones, and I grew sick and tired of the spam and harassment.  I do get feedback, but it's primarily through link tracking.
6. Speaking of which, what do I use my analytics for?
   I use Google Analytics on this site.  Mostly it's just because they're interesting, but I also use them to gauge what people are looking for coming to this blog so I can create content accordingly.  So for instance, if somebody's looking for pornography I might just laugh a bit, but if somebody is looking for a specific answer to something I am experienced in I might just answer it.
7. Finally, on monetization.
   I don't really like it, but when I have the opportunity I do things like monetize links.  I am a low-income entry-level worker, so until I get a more stable level of income that's just how it's going to be.