Mark's Daily Apple

Midpoint Check-In: The Power of Community (Plus a Simple Comment Contest)

With all the action around here, it’s amazing to me we’re already at the midpoint of the 21-Day Challenge! The flood of feedback, comments and contest participation has been awesome, and it’s all a reminder of how great a community this is. It never ceases to amaze me actually just how positive a group we have. Seriously, in all the blogosphere, I’ve never stumbled upon anything like it, and I have people tell me as much all the time. Sure, the growth and engagement that all the web number crunchers measure are stellar, but I’m talking deeper than that. I mean the genuine support that is shared here.

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Posted By: Mark Sisson

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The 10 Habits of Highly Successful Hunter-Gatherers

While the Challenge centers on those critical basics of good Primal health – food, exercise, sun, sleep, and play – there’s more to Primal life than just what I’d call the essentials (yes, play is an essential). The essentials offer us the optimum chance at health and general contentment. In looking (and living) beyond these basics, however, I think we find something critical. It’s the key to the questions about how to further apply Primal principles in a world that is anything but. We think we have it all down. It’s easy. Got it! Then the rest of our surrounding civilization has its say, disturbs our Primal peace, intrudes upon our confidence, throws its chaos in our well-intentioned plans. The answer isn’t to scrap the whole project but to deepen the lesson.

Let me expand a bit by talking about a topic that might be familiar to many of you – the “habits of successful hunter-gatherers.” They’re the cornerstones of a larger vision for ancestrally inspired living, The Primal Connection. If we can learn from our forebears’ diets and activities, what wisdom can we garner or extrapolate from other elements of their living conditions – for example, their social structures and cultural patterns. Here are all ten habits – presented for the first time on MDA and repurposed for the Challenge.

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Posted By: Mark Sisson

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Contest: Subscribe for New eBook and Chance to Win

The Prize:

Have you noticed that the number of companies selling Primal-friendly products online has drastically increased in recent years? I take that to be a good thing. While a constant refrain on Mark’s Daily Apple is to eat local, eat fresh, and shop at farmers markets, and while I maintain that this is the most reliable way to get the best, most nutritious food, it’s not in the cards for everyone, nor are “local” options always enough. After all, what’s a person to do in the dead of a Minnesota winter for local grass-fed beef? How am I supposed to get local coconut oil, living in Los Angeles, when coconuts don’t grow here? Just because a food isn’t local doesn’t preclude its importance – or even necessity – in a Primal lifestyle, so thank goodness these online retailers exist. But I’ve found myself feeling a little overwhelmed with all the options. Who should I trust as my source of Primal foods that I can’t get locally? Who is the preferred online vendor of grass-fed beef jerky or organic coconut oil? I found myself wishing there was a reliable guide to online retailers selling Primal-friendly products. Since one didn’t exist, I took it upon myself to create it, and today I’m giving it away to all Mark’s Daily Apple newsletter subscribers for free.

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Posted By: Mark Sisson

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Cavemen Ate $12 Burgers: A Historical Perspective on Food Prices

While I maintain that eating according to the Primal Blueprint doesn’t have to be expensive, it is generally true that with food – as with most other things in life – you get what you pay for. We’re one week into the 21-Day Challenge, and I imagine the cost of healthy food may be on some of your minds. So when our friend David Maren of Tendergrass Farms offered this guest article, I took him up on it.

As a percentage of your income, how does your grocery bill compare to the grocery bills of people in different countries and eras? Are ever-lowering food costs always a good thing, or do they tend to come with trade-offs? Enter David…

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Posted By: Guest

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Contest: Grocery Time

The Prize:

A Kangaroo - Not a living, jumping, boxing, marsupial. This kangaroo is the solution for people who want to stand at work. Made by Ergo Desktop, the Kangaroo Pro is an adjustable height desk unit that sits atop your boring sit-down desk. There’s really nothing else on the market like it. These are handmade in Ohio and shipped entirely assembled. Ergo Desktop has various models and finishes to match your office and the size of your computer. Perfect for folks who work eight hours a day and don’t want to sit themselves into back problems later in life. These are also a good option if your workplace is permanently affixed with desks of the sitting variety. You know I’m a big proponent of standing at work. This is your chance to win a standing workstation. Retail value: $499.

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Posted By: Mark Sisson

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