Sometimes titles are awfully important to people.  They like a designation.  A way to pigeon-hole you.  To identify what or who you are.  But sometimes there just isn’t an easy answer and we wind up with a long bunch of loosely associated words strung together with a greater meaning.  In Portland there seems to be no greater way to identify oneself than by your dietary choices and restrictions.

I started on a path having a dietary association years ago when one of my routine blood tests showed my blood sugar was off and my doctor asked me to do something seemingly simple.  Cut out simple carbs.  It’s a simple sentence.  Four words.  One instruction.  I lasted a month or so being strict about it.  A year after I was back to my old ways.

Years later I settled on a way of eating that kept with my doctor’s wishes and fit with my sensibilities.  I started eating Paleo.  Well, Paleo-ish I liked to call it.

Leave it to a child to simplify things.  Noticing the change in my eating habits she spent the next couple of months making specific inquiries and asking broad questions.  Not just to learn more about the way her mother eats, but to learn more about the way an entire group of people eat.

She already knew vegetarians, pescetarians, vegans, celiacs, tons of people with nut allergies, weird uncles who don’t eat vegetables, people who have religious dietary restrictions, and kids who won’t eat anything except junk food.  This Paleo thing though, it was new to her.  To complicate matters I’ve steadfastly refused to give up dairy.  I’ve never been a dairy glutton, but I do like my cheese and since it doesn’t seem to have a negative impact on me the only reason I would have to give it up is to lose more weight.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to shed a few more pounds and tighten my body up, but a more reasonable way to do that would be to get some exercise.

So after a series of in depth conversations on the subject of diet in general and my diet in specific my girl declared that I am not Paleo-ish, I’m Lacto-Paleo.  She was quite certain.  Very sure.  Guess what?  She’s right.  Lacto-Paleo is totally a thing.

The power of being right is going to go to her head.