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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