>> The solanine level in normal potatoes is close to the toxic level, which
is
>> why I think they are the most marginal of all foods in the diet.

>What is the toxic level?

A:See the book!

>> Potatoes also have lectins and enzyme inhibitors in abundance.

>I believe all the nightshades are high in lectins.  Not sure
about enzyme inhibitors.

A: there are good and bad lectins. A tomato lectin is menioned in
Freed's
paper in BMJ that we've all looked at. THe issue isn whether or not
each
particular interacts with human physiology and how so and how
strongly.

>> In the medical literature, there are over 30 recorded cases in of death
from
>> eating raw potatoes  (ref Loren Cordain, paleodiet list).

>But I bet there are more than that from eating strawberries.

A:Well, allergy is a bit of a fickle thing.

>> Potatoes sure are not paleo!!!

>I think their New World origin is sufficient to establish that,
lectins or no.  New World foods simply cannot have been an
important part of the ancestral diet.  But potatoes are edible
raw, if one knows enough to avoid green or bruised ones.  That is
not much of a caveat, since similar qualifications must be placed
on the edibility of, say, mushrooms.  I.e., you have to know what
you're doing.  I don't say this as a recommendation of potatoes,
which I don't much admire anyway, but only as another instance of
the tension between various definitions of what is paleo.


A:I certainly wouldn't eat them raw- why not search paleodiet archives
for
Cordain's item on potatoes? AS for what we co-evolved on, well as the
sea
level had risen 400-600 ft since the Ice Age finished, maye all our
heritage
is drowned, so all the archeologists are just guessing.

Ben Balzer