Todd > Around here, milk is considered to be a major source of foreign
 proteins.  The Masai consume large amounts of it.  If you have some reason
 to think that the milk proteins from the Masai cattle are less foreign,
 then please share it.  That milk might be a lesser  offending food, but I
 see no reason to think it is a lesser source of foreign proteins than
 supermarket milk.


 It does make sense to me that grassfed, non-hormone-laced,
 non-homogenized, non-whatever-else-they-do-to-milk-cows-in-2002 milk might
 be less a source of foreign proteins than supermarket milk.  But perhaps
 that's not true and the quality of the protein itself isn't affected by
 our modern dairy methods vis a vis natural, grassfed cattle.


 Todd > Okinawa (rice, noodles).  The Tarahumara Indians of South America
 subsist mainly on corn and beans.  See
 http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/Insulin.athlete.html for example.


 Thanks for those cites.  Again -- like milk from grassfed cattle -- rice,
 and beans are lesser offending substances.  Corn is a killer, though.  But
 since we're not removing the outer husk (the germ?), it's not as bad as it
 could be if we were to do to it what we've done to wheat to create white
 flour.  The husk slows absorption of bad proteins.


 Todd > Heart disease rates have gone up without an obvious increase in
 consumption of foreign proteins.  This means that consumption of foreign
 proteins explains little or none of the increase in heart disease.



 Perhaps on paper we are consuming the same SOURCES of foreign protein
 during the period that heart disease has gone up.  (Perhaps not.  What
 about the increase in the use of frankenfats?)  But you're forgetting one
 important factor: Because of the way we process foods, we've given those
 foreign proteins much quicker access to the body.  A good example is the
 fact that we're now eating a lot more white flour than wheat flour.  The
 roughage in wheat flour makes it more slowly absorbed by the body, so with
 wheat flour you get a much less efficient movement of offending proteins
 into the bloodstream.  In other words, not only does this extra processing
 of flour affect insulin levels, how quickly the body can convert the flour
 to glucose, it affects the level of foreign proteins in our system as
 well.  I think Richard Geller got it right when he said that "cardio
 problems are largely auto immune disorders that occur over an extended
 period of time due to our body's reaction to abnormally high insulin
 levels and especially 'foreign proteins' found in things like most grains,
 many legumes etc."


 From a health standpoint, there's a step down from true paleo to including
 rice, beans, corn, milk to your diet.  Can you cite anyone who's
 mainlining processed foods?  That's the next step down -- a big one
 --where I believe you'll really see the heart disease rates jump.


 Again, it's not even close to being clear to me that foreign proteins
 don't cause heart disease.