Jim Swayze wrote:

> But I see little reason to believe that either chocolate or
> alcohol are paleo.  

Clearly cocoa products are not paleo. Cocoa is a New World food. It was
first consumed probably by the Aztecs or their ancestors in Central or South
America. As I recall Europeans did not know of cocoa until the Spaniards
learned of it while conquering the Aztecs. And of course the Aztecs were not
a paleolithic people. Humans did not appear in the Americas until 10-15
thousand years ago.

I agree however with those who consider very modest amounts of alcohol to be
paleo (the operative words here are "very modest").

Fermented fruit is prevalent in nature. It seems likely that even our most
primitive ancestors in Africa consumed fermenting fruit while scavenging for
food, probably even before meat was added to the diet. Also microbes found
in the human gastrointestinal tract produce alcohol constantly. The human
body has even evolved an enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase, the purpose of which
is the metabolism of alcohol. 

Consumption of alcohol would also have served an evolutionary purpose:
alcohol (aka ethanol) prevents the growth of bacteria. Food and drink that
contained a bit of alcohol were less likely to spread bacteria and disease,
giving an evolutionary advantage to paleolithic humans who were adapted to
alcohol. 

This same principle was later used consciously by sailors: the sailor's
drink known as "grog" was a mildly alcoholic drink designed to help prevent
the spread of disease aboard sailing ships. Grog was not a recreational
drink of sailors; it was a mandatory replacement for ordinary drinking
water.

-gts