From: "Johnny Battle" <[log in to unmask]>


> One of the attractive features of the Paleo diet, at least as I understand
> Cordain's version of it, is its simplicity and intuitiveness. You eat as
much as
> you want whenever you want of what you want, just so long as it's of
fruits,
> vegetables, and lean meat. This is how I always thought diet should be,
and I'll
> bet it's basically how humans ate for tens of thousands of paleolithic
years.

1. Fruit of today is much richer in sugar and available plant tissue than
fruit of the olden days. I have eaten wild fruit in Hawaii a number of times
and am always struck by how many more seeds there are, and how much extra
work it is.

2. There is fruit available all year around while that wasn't true in paleo
times.

3. It is easy to gorge on anything now in quantity, but this doesn't mean we
should do so. Our bodies are not always designed to regulate how much of
something we eat, especially sweets. Many of us will over-consume unless we
have external regulation or are really careful -- I have never tried
"instincto" but never felt it had intellectual merit based upon my
observations.

It seems to me that in paleo times we might have gorged on a particular food
for one day or so, but then we might not have had the first food for time
time thereafter. Depends upon what is hunted and gathered, which will tend
to be opportunistic.

I recall from reading Jared Diamond, modern h/gs often can identify and eat
hundreds of different types of plants, and will eat insects and rodents at
times.

Eating too much fruit consistently is not paleo. Eating a lot of fruit
occasionally, in season, might be considered a "paleo pattern."

--Richard