On Wed, 17 May 2006 11:16, Greg Davis wrote:

>For quite some time now I like to buy a "Field Greens" salad mix at my
>local grocery store.  It contains a bunch of baby greens and I've been
>very curious as to why they would use "baby" greens in the first place,
>how paleo they are, and if there is any disadvantage to eating baby
>greens versus normal ones.  It has baby lettuces and baby greens (tat
>soi, spinach, chard, arugula).  Very convenient for me but I'm wondering
>if anyone has any thoughts on this as I've never come across any mention
>of it on the list or elsewhere.

These are my speculations:

1. Baby greens are ready for market faster, so more profitable than leaves from plants left to 
mature

2. Baby greens is a mixture and so more paleo than a single variety

3. Baby greens are grown hydroponically and less to have been subject to insecticides etc. 

4. Hydroponically-grown plants, lacking access to the full range and intensity of soil microbial 
activity, are nutritionally depleted. They might look good, but must lack some of the nutritional 
complexity of food found in the wild.

5. If the baby greens are prepackaged in sealed plastic, the plants will also have been exposed to 
gases that plants could not have encountered in the natural state. They will also have been 
artificially preserved (in ways that do not necessarily preserve their full nutitional value) and so 
have endured a far longer period from picking to eating than would have been normal in the 
Paleolithic.

Baby greens may not do you any harm if eaten occasionally but, if the above scenario applies, they 
should not appear frequently in a paleo diet. They won't be doing you much good either.  

Keith