10 Foods I Couldn’t Live Withoutby
Mark Sisson Recently by Mark Sisson: The Definitive Guide to Walking
If you had to subsist on ten foods for the rest of your life, which ten would you choose? That was essentially the question posed to me by a reader email. In it, Jamie made an elaborate setup: having been chosen to man a mission to Mars in the near future, I have to program my Food Machine for the trip. The Food Machine is a wondrous piece of technology that can create any Earth-based food from scratch, but the catch is that it can only store ten "recipes" and the programming has to take place before we leave. Once I'm up in the shuttle, I can't change my mind. I'll have to live with these foods for ten years (and maybe longer – who knows how things will go down). More than simply survive, I'll have to thrive on these foods. I'll have to get all the essential vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, so I had better get it right. It was hard to choose. Obviously, it's just a thought experiment, but I really tried to balance flavor/pleasure and nutritional completeness. Sticking to Primal foods, this usually takes care of itself, but, well, it's ten years. 1. Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon with Extra Thick SkinTo me, skin-on sockeye salmon gives you two foods in one. The flesh is great stuff, no doubt – flaky, delicate, delicious – but the skin is perfection. Crispy sockeye skin is like bacon of the sea, and yet people avoid it. I don't understand why. I go crazy for the stuff. In fact, I'm never one to eat off of others' plates, except when skin-on salmon is served. People eat around it, they scrape the meat off, they push it aside so it hangs off the plate, forgotten. But not by me. I will eat your salmon skin if you don't appreciate it. So, yeah. Endless amounts of salmon skin bacon? Sure, I'll brave the red planet for that. Salmon takes care of selenium and omega-3s, and it gets me part of the way there for vitamin D. The skin is particularly fatty and nutrient-rich. 2. Bone-In Grass-Fed Cowboy RibeyeNothing can replace the basic human urge to eat the occasional massive slab of animal except actually eating a big massive slab of animal, and the bone handle that comes attached to the cowboy ribeye is perfect for low-gravity situations.
It's a great source of quality animal fat (including a modest amount of omega-3s), protein, B-vitamins, and – because the "grass" the cow "fed" on "grew" in nutrient-dense soil – minerals. 3. Grass-Fed ButterThe rich golden goodness of butter is tough to beat, and I can slather it on just about anything. For the fatty acid profile (including CLA), vitamin A, vitamin K2, and omega-3s, grass-fed butter makes the cut. But let's be honest. This is mostly about the taste: the creaminess, the richness and the mouth-feel that satisfies like nothing else. 4. BroccoliI need my cruciferous fix, and broccoli is that fix. The absorbent tops do a decent job of soaking up meat juice, sauce, and butter. 5. BlackberriesA good blackberry is good. I mean, who doesn't like biting into a plump one and feeling all those tiny bulbs explode, releasing their juices into your mouth. Because they're so physically imposing compared to the other berries, I can eat blackberries one at a time and be totally satisfied, whereas with really good blueberries or raspberries I find myself shoveling them in. Blackberries are good sources of soluble fiber (gut flora food), vitamin C, and deliciousness. June 16, 2011 Copyright © 2011 Mark's Daily Apple
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