Hi, I’m Robbie, the co-founder of Paleo Robbie.

I’m proud of what Paleo Robbie has become and honestly I’m surprised about how many people living in Bangkok have joined us in the fight against processed food, and embraced eating just real food.

In 2012 I made a dramatic lifestyle change that opened my eyes. In my early twenties I was having serious health issues, and I went to see many doctors and nutritionists.

Act I: It couldn’t be that simple
 

I was puzzled why following their advice for 3 years didn’t make my health issues go away, while my genetically very close and much older brother Erik was able to compete in triathlons while in a demanding corporate job.

Since 2009 he was telling me to follow a paleo diet which is basically just eating whole foods and avoiding processed foods.

I dismissed him out of hand as he has no medical nor nutrition training and it couldn’t be that simple.

I starting reading several popular books on health and tried every diet from being a vegetarian, low carb, low fat, juice only and nothing worked long-term.

In 2012 I was fed up. At dinner with my brother, he told me that I should stop going on these fad diets and stop listening to diet advice given by the majority of doctors who may not be so well informed in fields that are not their expertise.

The simple premise was this. I should just eat real foods especially plants and wild animals (not factory farmed meat), avoid all refined carbohydrates, get some sun every day, and sleep 8 hours every day with a little bit of exercise every day.

I tried everything else and it didn’t work, so I thought what do I have to lose?

Act II: Eyes wide open

I went on a reading rampage (I studied history so I like to get my facts straight) and by just googling ‘paleo diet’ I got to read hundreds of articles and dozens of books written by independent researchers and investigative science journalists.

In that time I also completed the Dutch national nutritionist certification course, and learned that there was as much art as science in nutritional studies, and that government guidelines were based mostly on research from the 60ies without much peer reviews, and more alarmingly has been overwhelmingly disproven in the last 10 years (especially the myths of cholesterol and red meat).

The current body of scientific evidence was solid and convincing. The reasons for governments and doctors in general still today to give out sub optimal nutrition advice was credible. I quit my job in Gibraltar, and moved to Phuket with 3 friends, and we did a 3 months paleo lifestyle experiment.

Still today, it blows my mind. It took about 2 months for the message to really hit home.

You know those movies where in the end, multiple storylines all just come together in awe-inspiring moment and it all just clicks? That feeling times 10.

I was grateful, energetic and exhilarated that I had no more asthma attacks, no more cluster migraine headaches, and best of all I just felt a 100x better. This was for the first time in my life, I found out that feeling healthy doesn’t mean ‘not being sick’… feeling healthy means feeling great!

Tens of thousands of people around the world in the last 10 years or so have had this eye-opening experience, and I also decided to join this global tribe.

Act III: Accelerating the advent of sustainable health by bringing compelling mass market real foods to market

I started throwing dinner parties in Bangkok in 2013, where I cooked meals using real food for my friends and family, and I just wanted everyone to eat healthy again like our ancestors did (but they didn’t live that much longer than us as they didn’t have things like antibiotics, and other miracles of modern medicine).

Soon we had dozens of friends, and their friends who all wanted to eat real food every day, and who didn’t have the time to cook, or just preferred the convenience of having someone else to the food fact checking, shopping, and cooking.

Dozens become hundreds, and I asked my brother to help set up a company in Thailand in which I had no experience at all. Hundreds became thousands, and dozens of ‘healthy food’ companies have sprung up in recent years.

The paleo meal plan was designed using the ‘paleo’ principles, which means:

* All meats are exclusively pasture-raised, and all fish are wild-caught. Strong and healthy animals have a superior nutrition profile and are absent of unnatural chemicals.

* All vegetables are sourced from local small farmers that do not use pesticides. We especially love nutrient-dense leaves like kale, and super foods like garlic and avocados.

* All meals are both gluten and lactose free. We don’t use any grains or empty calories, and design our meals around the most nutrient-dense ingredients.

* We don’t use vegetable oils to cook, but instead we use stable cooking oils like ghee, coconut oil, lard and tallow.

My brother has been running and growing the company, while as the product curator for Paleo Robbie I make sure all our ingredients are tested, and we source from only safe and reliable sources. I’m very picky about what I feed my son Odin, and often it’s my golden rule for deciding if I should add it to our Primal Grocery.

Today Paleo Robbie isn’t just a food delivery service, we are part of a global tribe of people who just want to eat real food.

I highly encourage people to explore what’s really healthy and what isn’t and the amount of content that’s available online these days is fantastic from people such as Mark Mission, Rob Wolff and Gary Taubes.

Thanks for reading my story, and I wish you the best health,

Just eat real food.

Robbie