On Thu, 2 Sep 1999, alexs wrote:

> >    ... For example, if we can prove that tomatoes, prior
> >    to Columbus, existed only in the Americas, and that our
> >    paleolithic ancestors were not in the Americas, we have adequate
> >    proof that our paleolithic ancestors did not eat tomatoes.
>
> Piffle. Distraction by bad analogy. The logic I had in mind
> would be: I might claim that Todd Moody is a mole for the Dairy
> Industry, subverting the flow of PALEOFOOD for obvious purposes.

Listen, you made a claim that it is a "tenet of logic" that one
can't prove that people *didn't* do something.  That claim was
false and my argument above showed that.  We were discussing the
logic of excluding or including foods in contemporary
implementations of paleodiet, if you recall.  The point stands:
we can and do exclude foods because we can show that paleolithic
people didn't eat them.  It's neither a distraction nor a bad
analogy.

> As for "adequate proof", in fact there is no evidence that the
> Old People ate tomatoes... proving nothing, really.

There is ample evidence that they *didn't* eat them, the
implication of which is considerably more than nothing.  Since
the premise of this diet is that the best foods are those to
which we are adapted by long exposure, and we have less exposure
to tomatoes than to grains (and dairy, for that matter), it
doesn't make a lot of sense to include tomatoes while excluding
grains and dairy.

> Inaccurate dating of bones and teeth led to the persistent
> myth that a cave-man lived a short, brutal life. New evidence
> has thrown that into doubt... yet the older meme persists,
> even being cited by MDs and dieticians as justification for
> discouraging patients from eating paleo.

The new evidence has not achieved the status of conclusive.
There is considerable doubt on both sides of the question, and
not yet enough evidence to qualify the short-life belief as a
myth.  The real issue is not how long paleo people lived, but
what killed them.  If we can determine that their deaths were
caused mainly by trauma and exposure then that is sufficient to
cast a large shadow of doubt on any insinuation that it was
something wrong with their *diet*.

> >    My point is that dairy, in the form of fermented stomach contents
> >    of young animals, was as available to paleolithic
> >    hunter-gatherers as spice herbs were.
>
> And so were rocks, animal dung, swamp water, parasite-ridden
> boar's livers, foul carrion etc. That doesn't mean these were
> consumed more than once by accident.

And you accuse me of bad analogies?  These things are not *food*.
Bambi-cheese (good term, by the way) is.  Rennet-fermented raw
milk can be purchased in health food shops, as "farmer cheese."
This is essentially what Bambi cheese is.  People buy it an eat
it.  Now I can give good reasons why paleo people would not have
eaten dung and foul carrion, but those reasons don't really apply
to Bambi-cheese.

> Eating bambi's curdled mother's milk might have been occasion
> for real suffering, cramps, diarrhea etc, not relishing
> enjoyment.
>
> Oops... but there I go, "mighting". But this is a stronger
> "might", to the point of likelihood, than the idea that cave-
> dudes might have sought out bambi-cheese when & wherever they
> could. IMO.

What makes it stronger?  The symptoms you describe are typical of
lactose intolerance, which would not be an issue for
fermented Bambi-cheese.  Also note that no one has claimed that
paleo people sought out Bambi-cheese when and wherever they
could.  This is your straw man.  The point is much simpler: It
was available to them and edible.  You have not yet provided any
reason to doubt that they ate it occasionally.

> >    The basic principle of
> >    paleodiet is to eat only those foods that were available to our
> >    paleolithic ancestors.
>
> How long did you say you'd been on this forum?

Since it started.

> This is a misleading
> & incomplete statement. The other half would be to the effect that a
> modern HG could and would forage anything that made her feel good,
> kept her strong & eyes sharp, with good digestion & fertility etc.
> The Paleo WOL & tradition of discovery, trial & error continues today.

I take it that you mean that the "right" foods for the modern
paleo diet are a subset of the foods selected by the principle
that I stated.  Thus, foods available to our paleolithic
ancestors are acceptable for us now only if they made us feel
good now.  I have no quarrel with that, since it leaves
considerable latitude for differences among individuals.
Bambi-cheese is not the only paleo food that some individuals
don't tolerate well.  On this list we have heard from people who
don't feel well when they eat eggs, nuts, strawberries, beef,
certain fish, and so on...

> >    The seasonal nature of the availability of dairy is comparable to
> >    the seasonal availability of fruits, nuts, eggs of certain
> >    species, some fish, and many other foods.  Do you propose that
> >    only those foods that were available to our paleolithic ancestors
> >    year-round are acceptable?
>
> Nope. But you know as well as any human that if a food is available,
> it will be eaten (unless known to be bad for you, but mostly not
> even then). One of the curses of Neolithic is that previously seasonal
> food is available year round: instead of a handful of indigestible
> grain in the fall, it's now bread year round. Instead of bambi-
> cheese, very rarely IF EVER in the spring, it's 2% homogenized in
> January (or July down under) by the gallon every week.

I don't dispute that the consumption of highly processed and
denatured dairy products is a far cry from dairy consumption as
was possible for paleos.  But the question that started this
thread was Mary's question as to whether Price-Pottenger
advocates raw dairy.  Your peremptory response was that she
should take her question elsewhere because dairy is not paleo.
Well, if foods that were plausibly consumed by paleo people
seasonally can be considered paleo, then you were wrong.

Your "curse of the Neolithic" above applies equally well to those
paleo foods that are now available year-round, thanks to shipping
and refrigeration and other technologies.  As we have discussed
in the past, even the large fat deposits on animals are seasonal
in nature, and I've already mentioned the seasonal availability
of fruits, nuts, berries, and many other vegetables.

> Both grains and dairy have demonstrable addictive qualities in their
> morphine-like peptides and casein digests. This has been postulated
> as the reason they dominate the SA/Neolithic diet, and why so many
> people have a hard time moving into paleo.

It has not yet been demonstrated that those opioid residues enter
the bloodstream in significant quantitites in most people whose
guts are not damaged.  Remember that they are residues from the
*incomplete* breakdown of the proteins into amino acids.

> >    Perhaps so.  But then we must question the principle that what
> >    was available to our paleolithic ancestors is okay for us.
>
> Not necessarily. Since this is *supposed* to be a WOE/WOL support list,
> the context for discussion herein is over what is available today,
> based on the long-term *staples* available to ancient paleolithics
> and humankind's long-term genetic adaptaion thereto.
>
> Milk, like grain, would not have been a staple. Only meat on the
> hoof (& wing) could provide the concentrated nutrition year-round
> needed for basic sustenance. If some slow-moving, stupid and very
> fecund cheese-sloth had been the basis of (proto-)human nutrition
> for 500K years, then this discussion would not be taking place.

This then implies that only meat should be eaten by modern
paleo-dieters, doesn't it?  If you stretch this to include foods
only intermittently available to paleo people -- i.e.,
non-staples -- then Bambi-cheese is back on the table.

You have a dilemma: If you exclude Bambi-cheese because it was
not continuously available and consumed as a staple, then you
must exclude a plethora of other foods (which are have generally
been considering paleo) for the same reason.  If you allow those
foods that were only consumed seasonally, and in small amounts,
then there is no reason not to allow raw (udder milk) or
fermented (Bambi-cheese) dairy.  Which is it?

> As for milk, obviously occasional exposure is tolerated by many
> today as it MIGHT have been in the Paleolithic. It's the known
> problems with chronic dairy these days that makes its use in-
> defensible, so even arguing that cave-Men enjoyed bambi-cheese
> whenever they could is pointless at best, and dangerous and
> bordering on advocacy at the worst.

Not at all.  The dilemma presented above puts certain dairy foods
into a category with a large number of other foods.  The
resolution of that dilemma has *massive* implications for any
contemporary implementation of paleodiet.

Todd Moody
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