Kippin’ It Paleo

I met Kerry and Joey of Kippin’ It Paleo a few weeks ago at my Whole Foods book event. We got acquainted while chit-chatting about the annoyance of elimination diets and the joy of cooking paleo food that blots out all thoughts of deprivation. In addition to be being cooks, CrossFitters, and generally nice people, Kerry and Joey are also go-getters.

I love go-getters!

Their goal is to launch a paleo meal delivery service in Austin and – my favorite part – they’re committed to cooking in a completely gluten free commercial kitchen and using local, high-quality ingredients, including organic produce from Johnson’s Backyard Garden, grass-fed beef from Bastrop Cattle Company, pastured chicken and pork from Richardson Farms, and even  environmentally-friendly packaging from Go Green. Good food tastes even better when it’s served with a generous dash of integrity.

To get Kippin’ It Paleo off the ground, Kerry and Joey have launched a Kickstarter campaign. They only need $4000 to launch, and every little bit helps. I encourage you to support them, if you can — and to help make saying “yes” a little bit easier, here’s a Q&A so you can learn more about the people behind the business.

What’s your experience with eating paleo?
Joey: We’ve been cooking Paleo for over a year now, and it all started thanks to Kerry’s research. She has some autoimmune diseases and found that a gluten-free diet can help. Paleo alleviated a lot of her symptoms, so we’ve stuck with it.

Kerry: We found out we both have intolerances to gluten, dairy, legumes — everything Paleo omits. It just made sense at that point to stick to the foods that help our bodies. We stumbled onto CrossFit soon after and found ourselves immersed in a community that really embraces and supports eating clean.

What inspired you to start Kippin’ It Paleo?
Kerry: A few things, really. Cooking 100% Paleo meals after work and CrossFit was taking up too much time. We didn’t want to have to sacrifice our weekend to shopping and cooking in order to save time during the week, and we didn’t want to cook after a workout if we decided to go easy over the weekend. Kippin’ It Paleo will allow us to cook our meals at the same time we cook our customers’! It helps that we love these meals and eat them regularly now.

Joey: The other reason is this: For as healthy a city as Austin is, it was hard for us to find readily available, quick, 100% Paleo options. There are a few places, and some that you can make Paleo by picking and choosing, but we want to take out the guesswork and make eating Paleo so much more convenient by delivering the meals to CrossFits around Austin. At least at first. We want to expand our delivery options once we’re really rolling.

So you’re doing the cooking yourselves!
Kerry: We are, and it’ll be out of Better Bites Bakery’s shared kitchen! They’re certified gluten-free, which was one of the main reasons we opted for their space. We’ll be the ones to prepare the meals and deliver them. Joey’s been working in and out of kitchens since high school, but only really fell for cooking when he started eating Paleo.

Joey: Kerry’s always had a knack for creating delicious dishes. Once we found Paleo, we started converting Kerry’s non-Paleo recipes to Paleo and we’ve been adding and tweaking since!

How did you select your vendors?
Joey: Selecting vendors was one of the easiest parts of all this. We started our search at the Barton Creek Farmer’s Market. We looked for ranchers and farmers with grass-fed beef, pasture-raised chicken and pork, and organic produce. We bought different cuts and a variety of vegetables and made our meals. We spoke with some of the owners, too — Jim at Richardson Farms, Pati at Bastrop Cattle Company — and learned more about why they raise their animals more naturally and how they manage to do it.

What’s your favorite item on the menu?
Joey: Definitely our Ropa Vieja with steamed broccoli and spinach. The broccoli gets to absorb the juices and spices from the beef and provides the perfect, crunchy counterpoint to the beef’s tender texture.

Kerry: Chicken & Veg — we’re still in the process of naming them! — because of the way the veggies bask in the chicken’s own juices. With our blend of spices it’s a savory meal you need to try.

Try Their Food

You can meet Kerry and Joey in person — and try their food! — at fun, FREE event on Saturday, December 7 at CrossFit Oak Hill. You can learn more and RSVP on this Facebook page, but the basics are this: show up around 9:15 a.m., sign a waiver, do a workout, eat some paleo food. Sounds like a good Saturday morning to me!

Support the Kickstarter Campaign

You can learn more about Kippin’ It Paleo, watch a video of Kerry and Joey in action, and see the lovely rewards they’re offering supporters on the Kippin’ It Paleo Kickstarter page.

Connect

You can also stay on top of what these two are up to on Twitter, Facebook, and their web site.