On Thu, 6 Jan 2000, Norman Skrzypinski wrote:
> > I don't know the answer. If the idea is to avoid all erucic
> > acid, then don't eat them. But I doubt that paleolithic people
> > avoided all erucic acid.
>
> Paleothic people had no knowledge of the potentially harmful effects of
> erucic acid. We do. We can avoid it.
I agree. This is another example of the tension between
paleolithic diet and what might be called scientific diet.
> I think that it's likely that our best diet is that of the
> early Africans, tempered by the fact that most of us are now in a temperate
> climate. That is, eat only those foods that would have been available to
> pre-Ice-Age Africans, but eat less fruit and more meat/fish/fowl. Eat no
> New-World food. Eat lots of leaves. Eat it mostly raw.
But even these guidelines would include mustard greens and
mustard seeds, which contain erucic acid.
Todd Moody
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