On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, S C wrote:

> What rule do you use to decide if a food is "paleo"?  I know you consider
> starchy tubers to be okay (or some of them, anyway).  You think that some
> legumes are okay (for example, peanuts and snap peas).  Where do you draw the
> line?  Do you define a food as paleo if it can be eaten raw?  Is that your
> touchstone?

I don't have a touchstone, and I think the boundary is inherently
fuzzy.  I think some legumes are okay as adjunct foods, because
that is probably how they were handled by paleolithic people.  I
think "edible raw or with very simple processing" is about as
good as it gets.

> What about the fact that fire was available for most--if not all--of the
> paleolithic period?  Do you think that paleo people cooked any of their
> food--for example, meat?

Good point.  Yes, I think that by at least the Upper Paleolithic
meats were being routinely roasted.  This is probably why the
blood type A started to proliferate then, since type As have less
stomach acid and are therefore probably less good at killing the
critters on semi-spoiled meat.  Likewise, the techniques of
soaking and rinsing were available throughout most or all of the
paleo period.  Some starchy tubers are edible raw, and most are
easier to eat if first "processed" by being pounded with rocks.

In short, I would say that "food processing" of one sort or
another has been with us since the beginning, and is one of the
things that distinguished us from apes.  Stone food processing
tools (more than hunting tools) are found all the way to
australopithecus.  The path from them to us has been dominated,
in my view, by two things: increased hunting and use of animal
foods, and increased processing of plant foods.  Both, I think,
were necessary for our survival.

Todd Moody
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