In a message dated 5/5/99 7:16:17 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:

>
>  Has anyone seen the "Wilds of Europe" programs on PBS?  One episode
featured
>  the high mountain region of northern spain, and spoke about how it has one
>  of the oldest human populations in europe.  The people today are
essentially
>  primitive dairy farmers

Oh man, would I have loved to see that!  A while ago I posted about native
Spanish cultures
and native foods indiginous to Spain.  I was searching for info on anything
related to ancient
diets of the region.  I did find some information in a book about prehistoric
Europe.  Indeed,
the Northern Spanish are some of the oldest civilizations in Europe.  Being
of Spanish decent
I was hoping to find information on what foods might be more natural for me
to eat.  (assuming
that any of us even has a clue as to what food was available during paleo
times).  The reliance
on dairy in that region is well known.  I am lactose TOLERANT.  I can eat any
milk products
without any noticable negative effects (keyword *noticable* we'll see when I
get old).
 Milk tolerance is considered an evolutionary advantage, and it looks like I
got it, but frankly I wish I weren't so tolerant, cuz
Haagan Dazs is the proverbial monkey on my back! LOL

I have also been doing a lot of reading on Native nutrition from various
areas of the world.  Fermented milk products are a staple for longevity in
*many* old cultures. Though I believe in the paleolithic way of eating, I
would like to point out that man has had tremendous health in many areas of
the world that eat grains and milk.  Several native peoples live to be over
100yrs old on these diets, the Russian Georgians have some claiming over
150yrs of age...proving it is very difficult as you can imagine, but the
centurians have been proven.  The distinction in the diets is the FERMENTED
nature of RAW, NOT PASTURIZED, milk products, and  WHOLE, UNPROCESSED grains.
 I believe we can have optimum health eating some neolithic foods, if eaten
in their natural form, with minimal cooking. (And in reasonable amounts. My
extra 15lbs is nothing more than the love of eating! I finally figured this
out after trying and failing on many diets. The one common denominator is
that I always overeat, no matter what diet I'm on!)

I am hypoglycemic (being a sugar junkie all my life), I have to watch my
carbs, and grains can really mess me up.  But even I can have certain grains
with no problems at all. I do recognize however, that there are many, many
people with allergies/intolerances to milk and grains.  I agree that it is a
lack of these foods in their diets, long enough to evolve into tolerance,
that makes it so. I am fortunate (?) to not have these problems to any great
degree and am comfortable with the idea that I evolved from dairy farmers.  I
avoid modern milk products whenever possible though, they are truuuly
unhealthy (check out www.notmilk.com.....really scary stuff!). But I have
incorporated a few organic raw milk products and organic unprocessed grains
into my diet, with no ill effects. I have also switched to eating fish as my
primary protein source, this has *really* made my body happy ( I never used
to eat fish). I wanted to try eating more fish because it is so commonly
consumed in Spain, and it seems to be a really good thing for me.  Eating
foods native to that area/culture seems to agree with me quite a bit.  I
encourage anyone that can trace themselves back to a region, to check out the
native foods, in their *least processed* form (neolithic too) and see if
those are tolerable for them.  This is only for those that can't or won't
stay 100% paleo, cuz after all, I still believe Paleo is best, though not
always possible for many of us.....8-)

If anyone knows of any source of information regarding the ancient foods of
Spain, I would loooove to hear from you!!  Email me privately please.  Thanks
for reading, it was longer than I expected....8-P

Anna L. Abrante
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"The more things change,
 The more they stay the same."