----Original Message----From: Mary
>overall I have had a conversion rate (to paleo) of about zero percent. Why?
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During my vegetarian years, my family and friends were always "upset" when
it came to providing a meal for me or choosing a restaurant.  They felt
annoyed to have to deal with choosing or preparing foods out of the
mainstream of acceptability.  I received many lectures of protein
deficiencies!

Now they are agitated that I don't eat grains, legumes or dairy (never mind
that I am eating meat and getting plenty of protein!).  I am 43 years old
and my Father still gives me a lecture that no matter what kind of crazy
diet I am on, I am to eat the food set out before me because Mother made it.
I am Danish and this means EVERYTIME I visit (nearly every week), it's open
faced sandwiches on breads, beer, rich cheeses and pastries.  My family
actually gives me a more difficult time over grains than they ever did my
refusal to eat meat.  (I find this very humorous...but tiresome).

I think it is harder to convince people that the simple diet that existed IN
THE PAST as being the most healthful.  We are told in all the schoolbooks
that early peoples died from diseases and malnurishment and that modern man
has the best diet ever possible based on the variety available year round.
It's this basic erroneous tenant that has clogged many brains since their
school days (I am from the old 4 food group school, with a heavy emphasis on
dairy and bread!).  Couple that with any direction the media chooses to hype
it plus the major food industries and ALL of the manufacturers of processed
food and add in a little inconvenience called "having to prepare food from
scratch" and you've got a lot of resistance!

It's easier for people to adopt low fat diets.  They receive constant
reinforcement from the media, from their doctors and have many LF products
on the market to chose from.  Most people do not want to research or
experiment with a diet to find out what is optimal.  I no longer tell anyone
that I am on a low carbohydrate or paleo diet anymore because it causes a
resistance.  I just eat my selected foods and let them think I am a picky
eater which ironically is acceptable!  However, I do mention the studies I
come across whenever I am in a non-eating situation.  I also make a point to
stress, that since I don't like to eat bread anymore, I just don't have
joint pain, gain weight or whatever.  It's more subtle and more information
gets out there slowly but surely.   The worst time to introduce paleo
concepts is during a meal gathering, it seems to make everyone uncomfortable
about their choices and therefore defensive.

As far as humans go in this stage of evolution, as frightening as it is that
we have developed foods like Kool-Aide to give to our children, I am more
frightened that we can now clone.  Modern man has already set himself up for
physical disaster in modern nutrition, but it's not the whole answer to the
whole picture.  HG people may have spent most of their lives thinking about
food and living, but modern man has too much on his cluttered mind.

Snowlight