Mapping the paleo/primal treasures of Chiang Mai

We've started building a map of restaurants, grocery stores, special open-air markets, health food stores, and other treasures of Chiang Mai. Here's our work in progress. What should we add?

 

Kimchi

More on fermented foods.

Fermented vegetables are the answer to the question: How can I stock up on cheap, healthy raw vegetables that keep for weeks in the fridge, go well with anything, and don't require any preparation?

Kimchi is a good place to start. You can find small containers at grocery stores, but if you're serious, find a Korean restaurant and buy it in bulk.

At Full House Korean Restaurant near Nimmanhaemin (see the map in the next post), you can buy whole heads of kimchi cabbage for 100B/kg. They might even chop it up if you asked.

Here's what a kilo looks like.

I mostly eat kimchi as a side dish. But I also put it with beef in a bowl with hot water and call it soup. Or scramble it with eggs. Easy, healthy, delicious.

Probiotics galore!

If you've been paying attention, more and more emphasis is being put on the need for regular consumption of fermented foods -- foods rich in probiotics.

There is ample evidence that ancestral diets from many different regions included fermented foods, from hunter-gatherers eating the stomach contents of large herbivores, to contemporary diets that still include ancestral traditions -- from sauerkraut to kimchee.

Southeast Asia is one of the fortunate places that still has fermented foods -- Thai, Burmese, most hill tribe cultures, Chinese and others all have a place for fermented foods.  In Thai, this is food that is "ดอง" or "dtong" -- cabbage, paak kanat, etc.

You can get it in most markets, as that is your best bet for really good stuff.

Or you can go to the Friday morning market on Soi Islam, in the night bazaar.  You turn down the soi with the large mosque on it, and it will be on your right.  The market is huge, lots of Burmese and tribal folks selling all sorts of highland and exotic vegetables.

And while you can get ดอง food in a number of places, one vendor stands out for her variety and quantity.  I'll be going back for a taste test of EVERYTHING she sells.

More adventures in reading labels...

You'd think that something like almonds or cashews would be an easy paleo snack.

And they are.

IF you buy the right brand.

One brand gets it right, one doesn't.

Roasted cashews.  Pretty hard to screw that up, right?

Wrong.

So while it is obvious to avoid the cashews encrusted with brown sugar and sesame, even the Camel brand roasted cashews have WHEAT and SUGAR in them.  So do their almonds.

However, Tong Garden gets it right:

No wheat.  Just almonds.  Their cashews also don't have wheat, and while they use palm oil, that is generally okay for most folks.

Good nuts...

So always check your labels when buying something that seems to be as easy as almonds or cashews for a palo snack.  Wheat in Thai is ข้าวสาลี, so while most labels are in English, be sure to check (sometimes it will be in the ingredients list as just สาลี or แป้งสาลี).

More adventures in packaged coconut water...

We've seen this around for awhile, and while more expensive than an actual young coconut, it seemed pretty good:

• 100% coconut water
• No need to carry a big knife with you to open it.

The website seems legit, and talked about organic and sustainability, and the packaging was even listed as biodegradable, made out of compressed cassava!

No sugar in it (we checked the label), and easy to open -- you just pull a string on the top and put the straw in the hole.

We tried it, and decided it didn't taste that good.  So thumbs down on that.  But then I decided to tear apart the packaging to figure out how they were keeping the coconut water fresh, and from keeping the compressed cassava from getting soggy.

So after peeling the thin plastic off, the "biodegradable" packaging came apart and inside is a can.

With a string tied to the pull tab.

While you have to give them props for innovative and eye catching packaging, this is greenwashing at its finest.  While the can IS something you can recycle, the excess packaging fails the green test in two ways:

1. If you just peel off the plastic and toss it in the compost, it won't work, since it hides an aluminum can.
2. If you are concerned about sustainability, and being green (as they seem to want to be), you don't add excess and unnecessary packaging -- a fake "coconut" looking cover adds weight and space -- meaning you burn more fuel and can transport less product in the same space.  That's not only making your carbon footprint go up, it's bad business since it adds to your expense.

So, another failure to find decent pre-packaged coconut water in Thailand outside of an actual young coconut.  Lousy packaging, and it didn't even taste very good.

Still need to carry a big knife for coconut water on the go...

Read your labels!

It is easy to get excited about finding new things in the supermarket in Chiang Mai.  We're going to highlight a few things we've found that look great at first, and then turn out to not really be what they seem.

While we all know that getting fresh coconut water is pretty easy (go to Kat Muang Mai, buy a bunch of fresh coconuts, and get handy with a machete), it would be nice if there were some easier ways to do it on the go.

So were were excited to see this in the cold drinks section of the supermarket in Chiang Mai, since we've seen this sort of product in the US at Whole Foods, but from other companies.

Our excitement didn't last long, however, as soon as we read the label.

2% sugar isn't a huge amount, but still it is there -- and isn't necessary to make it sweet .  And, if you can do math, you can figure out there is 28% missing in the ingredients list -- we assume that's just water to dilute the coconut water.

But, it isn't just in coconut water in bottles.  If you're buying it on the street, and not getting it from a fresh young coconut, be sure to ask, as sugar (น้ำตาล ) is almost always added to it to make it extra sweet!

Paleo meals...

...not in Chiang Mai actually, but we're in the States for a few weeks and I'm reminded about how much easier it is to eat out and keep to a paleo diet in Thailand.

In Thailand, you've always got options that are grilled, use no wheat, little if any sugar, and are always made with fresh ingredients.  Even the worst Thai restaurant in Thailand won't use canned veggies!

Eating out in America is awful.  I'm remembering now why there are so many guides to "eating clean while eating out" and so on. Everything has flour in it, and breaded and fried seems to be the way to do everything.  We've forgotten to ask about how food is prepared, and get surprised at least half the time.

One thing we love in the US -- black berries and blue berries...

And it is amazing how easy it is to tell when vegetables aren't fresh after eating nothing but for so long.

That said, we've been feasting on berries and grass fed beef where we can, and cooking with family who are also paleo (and have pastured bacon!).  That has been great.

Grass fed beef, and organic veggies from a local CSA in the US.