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Debunking the Paleo Diet : The Real Archaeological Data


lperry

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If you really want to hear something, there is someone out there who will take your money in exchange for saying it. If you really want to know what humans or our ancestors ate at any given time or place in our evolutionary history, I'll point you to the salient literature for free.

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I use Paleo as shorthand for saying "I want to eat food that is solar powered." Not made in factories, not from CAFO feedlots.

I don't eat wheat, it makes me sick, and very low carb is part of the way I keep my diabetes under control, but when you study the history of food it is amazing how people thrive all over the world on different diets.

I was interested to learn, recently, that Owsley "the Bear" Stanley, of Grateful Dead and LSD fame, ate a zero carb diet beginning when he was 23. He would not have been considered Paleo because he ate cheese and drank cream, as well as meat, but he did not drink milk, too many carbs. No alcohol, either, although he did have other recreational drugs. Of course there is no such thing as zero carb, but he never ate any plant food except herbs and spices and some oils (macadamia, coconut, palm) for 43 years. Lived to 76, when he died in a car accident.

His theory, that early man had no problems with insulin because they never had enough dietary carbs to stimulate excess insulin production, makes sense to me, although, I admit, I am not a biologist, and don't really understand the fine points of insulin production. At any rate, I doubt early man had diabetes, or caries.

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...I was interested to learn, recently, that Owsley "the Bear" Stanley, of Grateful Dead and LSD fame, ate a zero carb diet beginning when he was 23. He would not have been considered Paleo because he ate cheese and drank cream, as well as meat, but he did not drink milk, too many carbs. No alcohol, either, although he did have other recreational drugs. Of course there is no such thing as zero carb, but he never ate any plant food except herbs and spices and some oils (macadamia, coconut, palm) for 43 years. Lived to 76, when he died in a car accident.

His theory, that early man had no problems with insulin because they never had enough dietary carbs to stimulate excess insulin production, makes sense to me, although, I admit, I am not a biologist, and don't really understand the fine points of insulin production. At any rate, I doubt early man had diabetes, or caries.

Caries show up first in a Kabwe / Broken Hill specimen of Homo heidelbergensis (apologies to those who classify it otherwise) from the mid-Pleistocene, about 110,000 years ago, at least that was the date the last time I taught Physical Anthropology. I think this general point is where a lot of people get confused. Diabetes, dental caries, or living to 76 is irrelevant to evolutionary fitness, and this issue is one that is confused and conflated throughout pop culture diet books who purport to give you physical fitness based on evolutionary trends.

All evolution cares about is whether or not you live long enough to have a child and pass on your genes. You can be sick as a dog, obese, unable to walk, in horrific pain, and evolution cares not a whit. If you have all these problems, then have a kid and die in childbirth, you are still fit by evolutionary standards because your genes got transferred to the next generation. Evolution has much to teach us, but it is driven by who has babies, not by who is thin, healthy, and long lived. Feeling good, long term health, and physical fitness are completely different issues.

Edited to add an example illustrating my point. Here's a link to an abstract of a paper on one of the individuals from Atapuerca (ca. 1.3 million years BP.) Lots of nastiness going on in the mouth, horrific by modern standards, but the bottom line is - "it was unlikely to influence the survival of this individual." And survival and reproduction were all that mattered.

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Lperry, it sounds like you've made serious study of anthropology, is that correct? i've had a question that i've been wanting to ask someone with a scientific background in this stuff--colleagues of mine, who are admittedly devoted paleo eaters--have repeatedly asserted that paleo man was much taller than even modern man, and that they lived longer. google seems to support their claim that paleo man was taller than neolithic man, but most of the sites saying this seem to be paleo fans, so i'm not sure how unbiased they are. do you know if these assertions are true? (this is just pure curiosity on my part. between being unwilling to spend more than 10 min making dinner most days and being vegetarian, paleo is not really a good option for me).

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^ There's no real good answer for that because there is no single "paleo man." We are talking about some five million years of evolutionary history over six continents with several extinct genera and species and an unparalleled diversity of body types and dietary choices. I can say that some specimens of Homo erectus were taller than Homo sapiens, but others were much smaller, and many species were quite short. I also know that several indigenous populations in the Americas were taller than the Europeans who crashed the party, and then they got much shorter after contact, but these were agricultural groups, so out of the purvey of "paleo" I suppose. Just as another semantic point, anthropologists also use language more carefully than authors of diet books and websites as "man" indicates a fraternity. Although this point couid explain quite a bit. ;)

I'm afraid that people are not understanding the point my colleagues and I are trying to make, and we get asked about this diet with increasing frequency. Anthropologists and archaeologists don't have issues with people choosing specific diets. If it works for you, great. Have at it and enjoy life to the fullest.

What is happening, however, is something akin to someone reading a John Grisham novel, writing a book on litigation, then pooh poohing a senior partner at a sucessful law firm for suggesting that the author may not have the facts right. The diet gurus get around this issue by citing one another in a circular fashion, thus lending the aura of scientific relevance to their claims despite the fact that they are not engaging the real paleo dietary literature. People's trust in science is being exploited, and at the same time, nobody wants to hear they have been had by a snake oil salesman, so they cling to the claims. It's a fascinating situation from an Anthropological point of view, and it should also be noted that the anti-grain diet is the next logical pop-culture evolutionary step after Atkins, so it was not completely unexpected. All I want is for the public to understand that they are not really learning anything about ancient diet.

Edited to add: Nobody has yet been able to explain to me the paradox of the claim that the ancestors of modern humans were so much fitter than we are. They are, after all is said and done, extinct.

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With respect to survival of the genes, someone has to live long enough to take care of the baby until it can fend for itself. Doesn't need to be the parents, true, but most of the time, a close family member, so survival of the genes requires some longevity in the rearers.

With respect to caries, what I meant was the acid etching of the teech caused by bacteria which live on carbohydrates. Blunt trauma and wearing away tooth enamel by chewing rough matter is not the same thing.

Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who did not eat grain did not get plaque, periodontal disease, or cavities.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/02/18/3691558.htm

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Point four. Did I mention confirmation bias?

Edited to say, I'm an academic, so I know sometimes I can come across as being harsh while arguing my point. That's really not my intention. I study ancient diet, and I find it frustrating that the public would rather believe a pop-culture diet book than the actual scientific data. Maybe I can start a support group with the climate scientists.

This is a subject that can be approached on many levels. Pop-culture is certainly what it is, popular culture, Dr. Oz or a supermarket magazine you can pick up at the check-out stand in your grocery store.

There are specialized scientists who analyze fossiled feces and pollen and bones. Some of them blog.

Many layers of comprehension between the two.

One of these days I will wander back across the blog of an archeologist (Israeli, maybe?) who studies coprolites (fossilized feces) to determine the diet of early man -- but this topic is too political to find on a quick Google search -- the vegan vs. carnivore wars muddy the waters too much. At any rate, he said, early man ate mostly animals. My thought is that early man ate anything he could get his hands on that would not kill him. But of course any grains would have been wild.

But I think we are digressing, maybe? The point of "Debunking the Paleo diet" is not "what did early man eat?", but, "we don't have to eat what early man ate because we have evolved beyond that"? Example being, humans recently evolved a gene to remain lactose tolerant in adulthood, which many Westerners carry.


Which is, of course, a digression on its own. The point isn't what our ancestors ate, really, the point is what diet works best for us. Which may well (probably does) (almost surely does) vary from person to person.

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Yes, I did. And found it excruciating, sorry. No actual "debunking" of what I consider to be "the Paleo diet". Very nice woman, very sincere, very enthusiastic.

No idea which "Paleo diet" she is debunking.

Eat fresh, whole foods, check. Eat marrow and organ meats, check. Vegetables are good for you, check.

How does that debunk "the Paleo diet"?

Don't get it, sorry.

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i just wanted to say that i've learned a lot from this thread, and commend both llaine and lperry for their passion and knowledge. if anyone wants to do a similar thread on the reputed problems with gmo food, (another topic i'm interested in) i'd be thrilled!

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I'm confused. If you agree with what is said in the video, and the only issue you have is with the title, what points are you trying to make?

I am not sure why you think I "agree with what is said in the video." She set up a straw man, and knocked it down.

The facts she stated in knocking down her straw man were correct, but the straw man she was demolishing was one of her own creation, perhaps based on reading, as you put it, pop-culture.

No serious scholar or layperson interested in the issues stops with pop-culture.

So, I will be kind and say it was a pop-culture debunking of a pop-culture stereotype of what we think about when we think about Paleo diets.

Please take a look at the Ancestral Health Foundation list of presenters at their next symposium. A nice mix of experts and laypersons.

http://www.ancestryfoundation.org/program.html

Their Facebook page has nice links to good research from all over the world. Today,

Earliest Archaeological Evidence of Persistent Hominin Carnivory

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0062174

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Please take a look at the Ancestral Health Foundation list of presenters at their next symposium. A nice mix of experts and laypersons.

http://www.ancestryfoundation.org/program.html

I actually just looked to see if Linda was one of the presenters - she isn't, but she's the only Food Anthropologist I've ever known.

(You can't say the members of this website aren't interesting people!)

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I think this is a very amusing thread as a nearly identical one has been taking place on a listserv for dietitians that I am on. But that thread doesn't include the insight of a culinary paleontologist. It would be much better if it did.

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I find this discussion to be very informative, passionate, and fair; something substantive that you don't find on many (any?) other web food forums. Yet another reason this website is so amazing.

But I have to ask: when I feed my children Dinosaur Chicken Nuggets - paleo? Not paleo?

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... But I have to ask: when I feed my children Dinosaur Chicken Nuggets - paleo? Not paleo?

It's my understanding that Dinosaur Chickens are very recent domesticates, more recent than the Spam animal, even, so not paleo.

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Ilaine, you are clearly very invested in believing the Paleo diet is scientifically valid, so we will just have to agree to disagree.

Hi Linda, we can agree to disagree, but let me say this:

I am NOT invested in believing that "the Paleo diet" is "scientifically valid".

What Paleo humans ate is not a belief system for me, it's interesting to learn about, and it's readily apparent that little is known.

We do know that what was eaten varied from place to place, from season to season, and along the process of evolution, and invention, so, no, there is no "Paleo diet" -- it's short hand for some concepts.

Because we know so little and because what we do know has so many variables, what could be meant by "scientific validity"?

To me, eating food that is "solar powered," plants and animals, not made by machines in a factory, is empirically superior. Eating what people ate 10,000 years ago, eating the way hunter-gatherers ate until they adapted modern culture, was probably healthier for them. I doubt that you disagree.

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I think we can agree that neither of us understands what the other is trying to say.

As an example, I'll try to explain how I read your last post. You mention variation, which I talked about a bit in post #7, but then you coalesce everyone into "people" and "hunter-gatherers" at the end as if they were one global group. The same tendency occurs throughout several of your posts, and I honestly can't follow your logic from the specific to the general back to the specific. It is the global paradigm of a single paleo diet that is not scientifically valid. I *think* you are trying to say this, but then your language moves back to global paradigms, so I'm not sure.

I also don't understand what you mean by "empirically superior" or what you mean by a diet was "healthier for them." By 10,000 years ago, full-scale agriculture was happening in several regions, so are you referring to hg groups living at the same time but geographically outside of ag groups? Are you getting the dates wrong? Or have you lumped everyone together again? Also, there are modern hg groups, so "adapted modern culture" could be construed as a value judgment.

I simply can't connect the dots. And, as a scientist who takes public outreach seriously, I am genuinely trying to do so.

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OK, sorry, I may be conflating "people" pre-something or other, maybe 10,000 years ago, with hunter-gatherers. Not sure how, perhaps you can make this transparent. As I understand it, hunter-gatherers exist even as we speak, and are precious resources for research. No?

My understanding, which may be faulty, is that the consensus is that the Paleolithic ended about 10,000 years ago, and then, we had the mesolithic, and then, the neolithic.

If that's wrong, sorry, my bad.

Whichever dates are the correct dates, please substitute the correct dates, if you are able to do so.

As for "empirically superior" or "healthier" -- if that does nor work for you, then so be it.

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As a fascinated observer, I guess I'm not sure what you two are disagreeing about, or, for that matter, whether you're disagreeing about anything at all. Can you seek common ground, or if not, can you delineate your disagreements for us?

He says, munching on popcorn.

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But the video still sucks. A mighty one.

The woman has zero comprehension of what is actually meant by eating like a Paleolithic human. I think she wants to sell books, which isn't anything to be ashamed of, but nothing to be proud of, and, in my opinion, in her case, nothing to laud.

The woman in the video is Dr. Christina Warriner, she has a doctorate in Anthropology from Harvard, and she's not selling anything.

You know, Don, Paris Hilton is so a decade ago. Have you considered Megan Fox?

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And I'm channeling Sheldon Cooper. :blink:

Yeah, you kinda' are. ;)

Look (and let me give the disclaimer that I have not actually watched the TED talk, but I get the gist based on the various comments I've read here and elsewhere and via the brief look I took at Robb Wolf's rebuttal), I think the main point that Ilaine was making and that many if not the majority of paleo folks would make is that "paleo" or "primal" are just convenient terms for a specific way of eating, namely one that involves eating whole, naturally raised foods, not processed foods. "Modern" people were eating paleo before anyone was calling it that (I was eating primal before I knew such a term existed) and for *most* people, they eat that way because it makes them feel better, addressed medical problems conventional medicine couldn't, helped them lose weight, etc., not because they feel they should eat the way our ancestors did just "because". And honestly, most of the scientific reasoning I see in support of it from paleo folks is based on the science of how certain components of food act in our bodies and does come from actual science*.

Of course there are people who are the exception, who take the term literally or who generalize ancestral diets, but paleo as most people understand it is not meant to be literal. In fact, I believe a large number of us would prefer a different term for just that reason.

Chris Kresser, who is one of my favorite resources for paleo related info, especially as it deals with medical issues, quite often talks about cultures or groups of people who eat ____ non-"paleo" food in large quantities (often the main component of their diet) and are quite healthy. This article on dairy is just one example of that.

I get how it might be frustrating for you as someone who has studied this area so closely to read misinformation on the topic. All I can say is try to keep the bigger picture in mind. One, paleo is just a convenient term. Two, for most of us, eating "paleo" is about finding a diet that gives us optimal health, nothing more and nothing less. We can look to ancestral diets for guidance on what those things might be, but ultimately we find what works for us through trial and error.

*And if you really want to get on the bad science/pop culture topic, let's talk about the poor poor job the media does of representing findings of scientific studies so that people are led to believe things that are totally inaccurate because no one bothers to actually parse out the difference between correlation and causation among other things.

ETA: By the way, I have been working my way through Big Bang Theory recently. I'm currently part way through season 4 so I love the Sheldon reference. :)

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I found the video excruciating because she was "debunking" something that does not actually exist. She made good points that actually support what many others who talk about "Paleo" or "Primal" or "Ancestral" have said, and say every day.

OK, I am a litigator, I argue all the time, I listen to arguments that others make, I analyze arguments that others make. I love a good argument, whether as participant or spectator.

You don't win an argument by mischaracterizing what the other person is saying.

It reminded me of sitting in court watching someone who sounded like a very good lawyer make a very good argument, which you knew was completely wrong, because it was based on a false premise.

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I found the video excruciating because she was "debunking" something that does not actually exist. She made good points that actually support what many others who talk about "Paleo" or "Primal" or "Ancestral" have said, and say every day.

OK, I am a litigator, I argue all the time, I listen to arguments that others make, I analyze arguments that others make. I love a good argument, whether as participant or spectator.

You don't win an argument by mischaracterizing what the other person is saying.

It reminded me of sitting in court watching someone who sounded like a very good lawyer make a very good argument, which you knew was completely wrong, because it was based on a false premise.

So much more concise than my semi-drunk ramblings. ;)

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What I really don't get about the "Paleo"-type diets is the insistence on avoiding fruit and natural sugars. Our hunter-gatherer forebears were surely opportunivores who ate ripe fruit whenever they found it, as do other primates in the wild. And hunted for beehives in order to raid them for honey. Our first food, breast milk, is incredibly sweet--it's no wonder that we crave sweet foods.

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What I really don't get about the "Paleo"-type diets is the insistence on avoiding fruit and natural sugars. Our hunter-gatherer forebears were surely opportunivores who ate ripe fruit whenever they found it, as do other primates in the wild. And hunted for beehives in order to raid them for honey. Our first food, breast milk, is incredibly sweet--it's no wonder that we crave sweet foods.

Not sure who told you that, but fruit is a normal part of the paleo diet. As are raw honey and maple syrup. Various reasons why people might want to moderate their consumption of these higher sugar items (weight loss being the obvious one), but they're all a part of the paleo diet.

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Not sure who told you that, but fruit is a normal part of the paleo diet. As are raw honey and maple syrup. Various reasons why people might want to moderate their consumption of these higher sugar items (weight loss being the obvious one), but they're all a part of the paleo diet.

Well, that just shows how little i know about fad diets... A friend of mine, who told me she is following a "Paleo"-type diet, eats meat, fish and vegetables and no carbohydrates at all.

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Well, that just shows how little i know about fad diets... A friend of mine, who told me she is following a "Paleo"-type diet, eats meat, fish and vegetables and no carbohydrates at all.

That's extreme, especially since vegetables have carbs. ;)

Plenty of other carbs that are considered paleo as well - root veg, sweet potatoes, squash, pumpkin, etc.

Paleo in a nutshell: water, vegetables, meat, healthy fats (pastured animal, coconut, palm, grassfed butter or ghee), carbs mentioned above, fruit, nuts (the latter 3 in moderation if you are trying to lose weight or other reasons like less fruit if you are insulin resistant, less nuts if you have gut issues that may be affected by them, etc.). Also generally in that order, meaning eat a lot of vegetables first and foremost, paleo is not a meat diet although we've been known to talk about our love of bacon ad nauseum. ;)

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I think there is also a disconnect between people who view this as a lifestyle or way of eating and people who haven't done much research but have heard it is a great way to lose weight.

Neither Mr. BLB or I have lost that much weight since adopting this way of eating. But his reflux disappeared and seriously, I didn't know how much of my crankiness was connected to grains and sugar.

I really believe the mantra from It Starts With Food. Every bite of food you take can either help heal and nourish you or hurt you. The headache after eating a piece of bread isn't worth it anymore. The sugar hangover in the morning isn't worth it anymore.

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I think there is also a disconnect between people who view this as a lifestyle or way of eating and people who haven't done much research but have heard it is a great way to lose weight.

True. A lot of what people choose to eat or not eat has a lot to do with why they've chosen to eat this way in the first place. Even what I choose to eat varies depending on my goals at the time. Avoiding blood sugar issues and horrific IBS symptoms I was having means I stick to the main tenets as much as possible. When I'm in weight loss mode, I restrict "paleo" things I wouldn't otherwise.

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Zora, there are a lot of people who like to think and talk about Paleo, Primal, and Ancestral topics, some of whom have blogs, and some of whom comment on blogs. Loosely, they call themselves the "Paleosphere", and there is so much internicine warfare that this is referred to as the "Paleo wars." Which is why I say, "there is no Paleo diet" -- goodness, no, not if you experienced the Paleo wars.

Some do eat fruit, reasoning, as you say, our ancestors ate fruit when they could get it.

Others say that the fruit our ancestors could get before agriculture was small, and not very sweet.

I eat fruit, but only a little bit, maybe a handful of blueberries, because I need to keep my blood sugar low. A handful of berries is very nice.

Choirgirl, as you say, vegetables do have carbs, but some don't have very much. In addition to blood sugar issues, I also have IBS, and have found that a little starch in my diet really helps me avoid symptoms.

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Others say that the fruit our ancestors could get before agriculture was small, and not very sweet.

I'd like to find a brontosaur and ask him his opinion. :)

It seems to me there are two polar ways of looking at this issue (with various points in between): the scientific one, i.e., lperry's viewpoint, and what I'd call Paleo For Dummies. The latter seems intuitive to me (and is surely the only one I understand), and is a synonym for "healthy nutrition," framed in a slightly different way than the norm. In other words, it's a fad diet rooted in common sense.

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I'd like to find a brontosaur and ask him his opinion. :)

It seems to me there are two polar ways of looking at this issue (with various points in between): the scientific one, i.e., lperry's viewpoint, and what I'd call Paleo For Dummies. The latter seems intuitive to me (and is surely the only one I understand), and is a synonym for "healthy nutrition," framed in a slightly different way than the norm. In other words, it's a fad diet rooted in common sense.

Just putting my toe in the water here and stepping back...but the concepts of health/healthiness/nutrition are luxuries we have now. People 10,000+ years were focused on survival. If all we had to survive on was chemically engineered foods would we all die off? Or would some people be better adapted to that diet and survive? I don't know.

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I'd like to find a brontosaur and ask him his opinion. :)

It seems to me there are two polar ways of looking at this issue (with various points in between): the scientific one, i.e., lperry's viewpoint, and what I'd call Paleo For Dummies. The latter seems intuitive to me (and is surely the only one I understand), and is a synonym for "healthy nutrition," framed in a slightly different way than the norm. In other words, it's a fad diet rooted in common sense.

Well, I'm in lperry's camp as far as this discussion goes. Why call this type of diet "Paleolithic"? I'm not convinced that eliminating whole grains because our paleolithic ancestors didn't eat them makes a lot of sense, when clarified cow's milk butter is included in the diet, obviously a by-product of agriculturally-based cultures. Bogman and Oetzi the Iceman both had grain in their stomachs. That was pretty far back in human history.

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I agree Pat that this diet du jour is a luxury concept and I think other cultures must laugh over our general blathering, dithering and hand wringing. It just seems to come so much more naturally and joyfully in other cultures.

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Well, I'm in lperry's camp as far as this discussion goes. Why call this type of diet "Paleolithic"? I'm not convinced that eliminating whole grains because our paleolithic ancestors didn't eat them makes a lot of sense, when clarified cow's milk butter is included in the diet, obviously a by-product of agriculturally-based cultures. Bogman and Ulli the Iceman both had grain in their stomachs. That was pretty far back in human history.

Tollund Man (Bogman) was Iron Age, 4th century BC. His stomach contents were a gruel of grains and wild seeds.

Oetzi was about 3300 BC, Chalcolithic, Copper Age, transition between Neolithic and Bronze Age. His stomach contents were Eincorn and ibex.

But, as I have said before, early humans probably ate whatever they could get their hands on.

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Tollund Man (Bogman) was Iron Age, 4th century BC. His stomach contents were a gruel of grains and wild seeds.

Oetzi was about 3300 BC, Chalcolithic, Copper Age, transition between Neolithic and Bronze Age. His stomach contents were Eincorn and ibex.

But, as I have said before, early humans probably ate whatever they could get their hands on.

Well, that just goes to show that I didn't Google them before I posted, and just relied on my faulty memory. Opportunivores we obviously agree on. It occurs to me that improvements in healthcare and modern medicine may also have something to do with our having so many seemingly diet-based problems. Take me, as an example--I inherited my father's allergic tendency--he had respiratory symptoms that were never severe enough to have killed him, but no food allergies. Without emergency medical care on several occasions, as would have been the case at earlier times in history, I probably would not have survived long enough to reproduce, and live on into late middle age with food allergies and a variety of associated immunological problems. Any number of cousins on my father's side, who share a portion of my genetic heritage suffer from IBS, Crohn's disease, severe asthma, and food allergies. Fortunately, my daughter has inherited healthier genetic material from her father, and has no allergies. While diet choices may ameliorate some of these problems, a faulty diet did not cause them.

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Zora, you were correct, both died with domesticated grain in their stomachs. Actually, the Einkorn Oetzi ate may have been wild, but the barley that Tollund Man ate was almost surely not wild.

My own auto-immune disease symptoms ameliorated when I gave up wheat entirely. I did not really want to do that, but my IBS symptoms were so extreme I was afraid I would not be able to continue working. I miss wheat! None of the workarounds commercially available are really satisfactory.

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The part of Paleo, not yet addressed on this thread, that has most confused me is the prohibition of legumes (beans). Robb Wolf is one of the leading advocates of Paleo and acknowledges Loren Cordain (a PhD and prolific author on faculty at Colorado State) as a founder and his mentor. Here is Cordain's take on the legume question.

I'm curious to know if any Paleo adherents here follow that aspect of it and, if so, why?

I've read a fair bit about the diet (e.g., Chris Kresser, Diane Sanfillipo, Robb Wolf, Loren Cordain, Gary Taubes) but haven't embraced it myself as a result of that research. Have always agreed that processed food avoidance and real/local/seasonal are good and healthy principles along with moderation. I've never been one to follow named diets but, if Michael Pollan started a "Pollan Diet," (I.e, fresh, wild, pastured, seasonal, cooking is good, perimeter of the grocery store better than the interior, big thumbs up on veggies) that might most closely align with what I do.

Mark Furstenberg's baguettes, levain and other breads definitely aren't Paleo but I'm a big fan of those. Likewise Aggie Chin's and Ann Amernick's desserts, Frank Ruta's pastas, Fabio Trabiocchi's lobster ravioli, Robb Duncan's gelatos, Jon Copeland's pizza, Roberto Donna's risotto, Mary Beall's bagels, and Wagshal's or DGS' matzo ball soup. And, so on. All very much in moderation though.

Most seriously, I am a strong believer in the different strokes idea that most everyone on this thread seems to support.

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