> Olive oil and raw butter
>
> were not consumed in Paleolithic times, as far as I know, yet I  
> believe
>
> you use those, yes? Do you view olive oil or dairy butter as Paleo?
>
>

Not really either, any more than I do red wine. However, olives are a  
fruit, and a bit easier to get oil from than most seeds. Raw butter  
is awfully close to raw meat fat, and for this reason I justify  
including it in my diet. I could be purist Paleo if I wanted, but I  
don't see my compromises as interfering with my health, and they make  
eating much more enjoyable. I use olive oil on salad and very  
occasionally to cook something. But I don't cook much, and I use  
butter or meat fat - chicken, pork, beef, lamb - to cook also. I eat  
all the fat on my meat, and crave the fatty parts, for instance, of  
beef heart - the coronary fat deposits - and kidney suet. I feel a  
lot better since putting raw dairy in my diet - I get kefir cultured  
on colostrum, raw cheese, cream and butter. There are some pretty  
indisputably good factors in here; whether or not they are ever truly  
appropriate for humans is debatable. Prehistorically, no, but  
biologically, perhaps. Do not some of the meat-eating cultures, like  
the Masai, drink the milk as well as the blood of their animals?



> I assume you're joking about the orchards. Paleolithic peoples in  
> Eurasia
>
> and Africa would have found species of wild flax, which are flowering
> herbs, in fields. Wild flax can develop into a bush up to 3 feet tall.

Yes, but enough to make an industry of collecting and extracting the  
oil? Ray's key of whether something could be eaten raw doesn't, in my  
mind, excuse consuming quantities far in excess of what would have  
been practical for H/G's. And there definitely are lectins in flax  
which cause reactions in the sensitive, just as in legumes and  
grains. I do prefer to get Omega 3's already converted by the prey  
animal to usable molecules.


ginny