Todd >  Why is it that the longest-lived people on earth, the Okinawans,
are able to eat gluten every day (in noodles) without succumbing to
autoimmune disease?

Because they prefer to die of cancer, which is responsible 30% of all
deaths in Okinawa (compared to 25% in the US).  But you're right, they
do live longer than those in other wheat-eating, industrialized
nations.  Other confounding factors are genetics and exercise levels.

Jim  >  You cannot deny at least that humans fare very well on food that
requires no processing whatsover save a rock against a skull or a spear
into a side.  No doubt in times of scarcity we searched for alternate
food sources -- and had to "process" them to make them edible.  Doesn't
make those food sources ideal.

Todd > I'm not sure what you're getting at here.  Are you saying that
humans turn to non-meat foods only in times of scarcity?

I am saying that we run best on animal-derived foods, that humans can
survive their entire lives -- and be very healthy doing it -- with
nothing but the right game and clean water.  Everything else is a
dietary adjunct and inessential.  Would we pop the occasional wild
grass seed in our mouths?  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.

Todd > The cultivation of grains, of all things, in the neolithic period
makes no sense if people weren't already eating them.

Jim >Somebody somewhere came up with the idea of sticking these grass
seeds in the ground and waiting around until they came back up.  No
doubt that person or group of people had consumed the seeds before.

Todd > This would be a tedious and pointless exercise unless the seeds
were seen as pretty valuable and worth the work.  Why would they think
such a thing?

You miss my point. You said earlier that the cultivation of grains
didn't make sense if people weren't already eating them.  True, people
were eating them.  A very tiny minority "invented" farming.  It later
swept the world because it was seen as such a good idea.  So it doesn't
follow that "people were eating them," in the sense that the entire
world was.