Cuisines around the world carry with them the influences of thousands of years of history, culture, and development, and the unique sets of dishes and customs they encompass can be a wonderful exploration of cultural and culinary anthropology.
The trouble arises if you as an individual are choosing to follow a specific kind of diet yourself. If you’re a pescatarian and adhere to a mediterranean diet, visiting the mediterranean is easy. If you’re a vegetarian, visiting a meat-first country may give you a hard time; conversely, visiting a country with primarily vegetarian roots for cultural or religious reasons may be much easier.
One interesting juxtaposition is the crossover between Brazilian cuisine and the paleo diet. If you’re visiting Brazil (or, more likely, a Brazilian steakhouse like Texas de Brazil), and you follow a paleo diet, what can you enjoy, and what should you leave to the side? We’re here to help, so let’s talk about it.
Table of Contents
What is the Paleo Diet?
If you’re already familiar with the paleo diet, you can skip this section. We just wanted to give a brief overview for those of you who may not know what the ins and outs of the diet include.
The theory behind the paleo diet is that humans didn’t evolve to eat all of the hyper-processed foods, refined sugars, and preservatives we find commonly throughout our diets today. We evolved as hunter-gatherers, and that’s what we consume if we want our bodies to work the best.
Looking at the food environment of paleolithic cultures, they’re very different from what we see today. Some of our modern staple grains or vegetables, for example, didn’t even exist; teosinte wasn’t selectively bred into the corn we know today until 10,000 years ago, a long time after the Paleolithic era.
The core ethos of the paleo diet is an emphasis on whole foods and natural, unprocessed ingredients. Vegetables, fruits, meats, seafoods, nuts, seeds, eggs; all of these are things that would have been available, though in different quantities, to paleolithic humans.
Of course, the modern paleo diet isn’t entirely a copy of what paleolithic humans ate. For one thing, we as a society don’t actually know what humans ate back then. It’s not as though we have written records or recipe books from a thousand centuries ago! The paleo diet today is essentially a way to eschew many modern-developed foods and return to more natural foods.
In broad strokes, the paleo diet promotes eating:
- Whole vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, leafy greens, mushrooms, carrots, cucumbers, beets, squash, onions, pumpkin seeds, and olives.
- Fresh fruits like apples, citrus, berries, bananas, grapes, peaches, melons, and lychee.
- Meats, including chicken, quail, goose, beef, lamb, pork, boar, all kinds of fish, and game meats like deer, duck, and rabbit.
- Nuts like almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, and walnuts.
- Eggs, of course.
- Healthy fats like olive oil, avocados, and tahini.
While many people think of paleo as a meat-focused diet, it’s really more about whole foods and moderation of added ingredients. Thus, some of the things the paleo diet says you should avoid include:
- Pastas
- Breads
- Rice and other grains
- Beans, lentils, and legumes
- Dairy (except butter)
- Refined oils
- Refined sugars
- Corn
- Potatoes
- Artificial sweeteners
- Peanuts
If you’re familiar with Brazilian cuisine, you may be wondering how this works. It’s kind of 50/50, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
Does the paleo diet work? That’s not really our purview to decide. We’re not here to cast judgment on the diet itself, just to offer guidance to adherents of its culinary practices when it comes to the menu in our Brazilian steakhouse.
What Brazilian BBQ Dishes Are Good for the Paleo Diet?
The good news is, the bulk of what you can find at a churrascaria (that is, a Brazilian barbecue restaurant like Texas de Brazil) is great for the paleo diet. Just consider our menu!
Brazilian BBQ Meats
The meat menu at Texas de Brazil is a paleo dream. Pretty much everything on the menu is perfectly in line with paleo expectations. Picanha, beef ribs, filet and petit filet, lamb, flank steak, sirloin, and even chicken drumsticks are all up for grabs.
A couple of the items on our meat menu may not be entirely appropriate for paleo, of course. Parmesan-encrusted pork loins are technically outside of the paleo diet because paleo prohibits most dairy, and cheese is a dairy product; that said, there’s not a ton of cheese on them, so it’s almost more of a spice than a dairy. You also might want to consider the barbecue sauce used on our BBQ pork ribs and beef ribs if you’re into micromanaging ingredients. You can find all of our ingredients and nutritional information here.
The only other questions you might have are about our sausage links and our bacon-wrapped items. Bacon can be part of paleo, but it needs to be the right kind of bacon. Similarly, you might want to look into the ingredients in the sausage, though we think you’ll be pleased with both.
One of the best things about our meats, especially compared to the restaurant meats you find in a lot of other places in the states, is that they’re cooked with virtually no additives. Meat, heat, and salt; that’s all you really need. You don’t have to worry about additives or chemicals, or anything in oil you don’t like.
The Salad Area
Our salad area is also fairly good for paleo enjoyers. Not everything on the table is up for grabs with your restrictions, but it’s still worth a look.
For one thing, we have plenty of vegetables that are approved for paleo diets. Tomatoes, artichoke hearts (marinated in an olive oil-based dressing), peppers, leafy greens, shrimp salad, roasted garlic, cucumber salad, olives, hearts of palm, smoked salmon, salami, and green beans are all great options.
We’ll get a little more into the things you’d want to avoid in the next section, but rest assured, the list isn’t all that long for you.
Hot Items on the Menu
The hot bar section of our menu is also available, though you’ll be a lot more limited here.
We do offer sauteed mushrooms, though, which are a great addition to round out a paleo dinner at Texas de Brazil.
What Brazilian BBQ Dishes Should Paleo Dieters Avoid?
While a churrascaria may seem like a dream for a paleo dieter, there are some items on our menu that fall outside of your boundaries. That’s fine! They just aren’t for you, but many of our other guests can enjoy them. Most importantly, you’re never forced to take anything you don’t want, so you’re never wasting food.
As mentioned above, on the meat menu, pretty much everything is up for grabs. If you’re hesitant on the bacon or the sausage, or you want to hold off on the parmesan-crusted cuts, that’s perfectly fine. There are still a ton of meats you can enjoy.
The salad area is where you’ll see a lot of things you can’t have. Couscous salad, various kinds of cheese, ciabatta bread, crostini, farofa (the Brazilian fried cassava root), goat cheese, potato salad, and so on are all off-limits if you’re a strict adherent to the paleo diet. If you’re willing to occasionally compromise, or your boundaries aren’t as strict as others on the same diet, the options are there for you.
The thing about the paleo diet is it’s not really prescriptive in the same way as some other diets. You are free to draw your own lines based on what you think works best for you. If that means you’re allowed a little dairy or cheese, or if you don’t mind bacon, that’s fine. No one is going to stop you. It’s all about what you want to get out of your diet.
Our hot bar menu is similarly outside of the scope of the paleo diet.
- Mashed potatoes are potatoes, which aren’t allowed.
- The Brazilian favorite feijoada is a bean stew, and beans aren’t allowed.
- Fried bananas are a fruit, but they usually have added sugar for a delicious caramel, which the paleo diet usually disallows.
- Potatoes au gratin is, similarly, a potato dish you can’t have on the paleo diet.
- Jasmine rice is another Brazilian staple, but being a grain, is something the paleo diet avoids.
- Pao de queijo, the Brazilian cheese bread, is made with cassava instead of wheat flour, but cassava may not be allowable in paleo depending on your opinions on roots.
- French fries, of course, are right out.
Another area where you’re likely up for disappointment – but an expected disappointment if you’ve been on paleo for a long time – is our dessert menu.
The fact of the matter is that virtually everything classified as dessert is something a paleo diet isn’t going to allow. They’re usually baked goods using flour and sugar, and even the items that are primarily fruit-based are still going to have a lot of added sugar and other ingredients that your diet won’t allow. As delicious as they are, things like our carrot cake, key lime pie, papaya cream, mousse cake, or flan are all made with ingredients the paleo diet prohibits. Look, but don’t touch, sorry!
Our drink menu is largely off-limits to paleo dieters as well, especially since wine and beer are both prohibited. A few of our spirits are allowed, though, in moderation. If you’re fond of the occasional bit of booze, you can browse and see what fits.
What We’re Missing From the Paleo Diet
A well-rounded paleo diet is going to want to include some ingredients and foods that aren’t really available at Texas de Brazil and similar Brazilian BBQs.
First and foremost is fish. While we have shrimp and smoked salmon on the menu, this is only scratching the surface of the vast array of delicious fish you can have with the paleo diet. It’s not that we have anything against fish; it’s just that they don’t really fit with the Rodizio-style menu we offer. The few seafood items we offer are still fine for you, but if you’re longing for some trout, herring, or another fish, you’ll be left lacking.
You’ll also be missing out on the freshest of fruits. A lot of the fruit-based items we offer are cooked into desserts and are full of ingredients that the paleo diet doesn’t allow. Sometimes we may have seasonal fruits on offer, but it’s not a key part of our menu, so you’re going to have to pick up those fruits on your own time.
We also don’t offer game meats, but with all of the meats we do offer available, you’re spoiled for choice as it is.
What you might find interesting is that cashews are a staple of Brazilian flavors, but we actually tend to go for the cashew apple more than the nut itself. Either way, the cashew is largely left off of our menu, but you’ll be more likely to find and enjoy it if you visit Brazil yourself.
Another gap is that we don’t really have a lot of eggs on the menu. Eggs are a staple around the world, but they aren’t the purview of a churrascaria, so we leave that to specialists instead.
Come Enjoy a Paleo Feast at Texas de Brazil!
Here at Texas de Brazil, our Brazilian BBQ fits a lot of what you need to enjoy a paleo dinner. Since we’re primarily focused on meat, and since we offer a bunch of sides you can still enjoy, you won’t feel limited or lacking in options.
It’s fascinating, isn’t it, how the Brazilian diet is so close to paleo, and yet so far. Our heavy focus on delicious meats is great, but since we absolutely love our rice and beans – both of which are banned in paleo – there’s a fundamental disconnect. Fortunately, you never need to take anything you can’t eat, even sides, so you’re never wasting food and can always get what you enjoy. We look forward to seeing you!
