Kirt wrote:
> but I think many times the assumption can
> become 1] nature is perfect, so 2] if I eat the perfect natural diet 3] I
> can have perfect health.

Excellent post.

That is the "noble savage" religion that is prevalent on (and off) the paleo
group: somehow if we are truly back to our primitive roots, we would no
longer have disease. Therefore, if we get sick, it is a result of our diet,
and our caving in and falling for new technology because we are too weak or
whatever.

This is of course a fallacy. Everyone grows old and dies from what we call
"old age" if nothing else. It seems programmed in. Primitive man got sick
and died from all kinds of causes other than violence.

To see how fallacious this is, you can easily learn about counter-examples.

There was an excellent article in the NY Times a few months back about a
physician who traveled to the back country in Latin America. He treated
people who had no contact with civilization as we know it. They had all
kinds of awful diseases that the article detailed.

Animals that live in the wild are another example. They often have parasites
or sickness.

I think paleo eating is a good idea in general but it is part of the total
health picture, and does not represent a panacea for many people. Technology
has a lot of benefits and whether we like it or not, we are in a
technologically advanced world and we cannot get away from that. Further, we
are all going to (hopefully) grow old and that means we will get sick, which
is really the norm rather than the exception.

--Richard