ginny wilken wrote:
>
> The worst I've ever gotten is a bit of food poisoning that is quickly
> thrown off. I remain unconvinced that there is major risk or an epidemic
> going on to which I am exposing myself. I do think that I have developed a
> kick-ass immune system from these sorts of exposures. I'll become afraid if
> and when I get good evidence, but there's no way I would ever stop eating
> according to what I see as Paleo, which includes meat, bone and organs.


There is some real (as opposed to overblown media wailing)
risk, for example from beef and fish tapeworms, or
trichinosis from pork, and e-coli contamination. Less these
days because animals are fed less garbage than they used to
be.

My own take on this is that just as wild carnivores don't
usually have any trouble with raw meat, so we SHOULD not
either. But in fact, wild carnivores are innoculated from
birth by their mothers milk. Then, any of them without
sufficiently strong immune systems just die. I read once
that the typical mother lion might have 40 babies in her
lifetime, of which on average only two survive to adulthood.
That is pretty stiff selection pressure to resistance to
everything, including meat-borne diseases and parasites. I
do not wish to subject my own family to this level of
evolutionary selection pressure!!  ;--)  I eat a lot of very
rare, and even raw meat. But I don't ask my kids to do it.