Well, converting the references for my Health & Beyond interviews that Dean
wanted in emailable format didn't take that long after all, especially
since I ended up with a window of opportunity with no work to do this
morning, so I now have them ready for those who want them. I have emailed
Dean the files. Anybody else who would like them, just email me at
<[log in to unmask]> and state that you want the references for the
3-part Health & Beyond interview series. These interviews on Paleodiet were
published in the Oct. 1996, Dec. 1996, and Jan. 1997 issues of Chet Days's
newsletter. He later republished Part 1 on his website at
http://members.aol.com/chetday/ward1.htm, as Dean Esmay mentioned earlier.

For those who are interested in obtaining the entire interview series, here
are the titles/dates/synopses of the interviews. Chet's Health & Beyond
started out as a pure vegetarian publication devoted to the Natural Hygiene
vegan raw-food school of thought, but has morphed into a free-thinking
newsletter that has published a lot of contrarian information ("anything
that makes him think or challenges preconceptions") that has riled people
in the vegetarian community. So the interviews here were targeted to a
skeptical vegetarian audience as a former vegetarian who no longer was one.
I wrote the interviews without any insider jargon, however, so they would
be understandable by other vegetarian groups as well as interested
Paleodieters who might want some ammo :-) for debating vegans, or who are
interested in some of the peculiarities of the movement.

PART 1 -- "Setting the Scientific Record Straight on Humanity's
Evolutionary Prehistoric Diet and Ape Diet." (Oct. 1996, 10,000 words, 99
footnote references). This treatment lays out a timeline beginning
65,000,000 years ago with the first primates and traces the dietary changes
through early homo all the way to the present, concluding with a look at
the ape arguments used to support vegetarianism, thoroughly debunking them
as well as the notion of exclusive fruitarianism in apes as well.

PART 2 -- "Fire and Cooking in Human Evolution, Rates of Genetic Adaptation
to Change, Hunter-Gatherers, and Diseases in the Wild" (Dec. 1996, 10,000
words, 70 footnote references) I still stand by the information in this
part of the interview that was drawn from referenced sources. However, the
speculations and tentative conclusions I drew from it about partial
adaptation to cooking, and some grains and small amounts of milk based on
rates of genetic change that I extrapolated, were based on incomplete
information available to me at the time, and I would now want to change
some of them.

Loren Cordain has convinced me, contrary to my initial idea based on
extrapolating from historical rates of genetic range regarding lactose and
gluten tolerance (plus data I located from the Cavalli-Sforza population
genetics team) that many, many more genetic changes would be needed for
full adaptation to either milk, or grains. (My thoughts were in part based
on the observation that the gene for lactose tolerance spread widely within
3,000 years or less in populations that drank milk, and gluten intolerance
worldwide is lower than lactose intolerance). Beyond that, however, this
part of the interview contains much of the data about the initial discovery
and control of fire all gathered into one place, and continues the
debunking of a number of other notions of veganism begun in Part 1 of the
interview.

PART 3 -- "The Psychology of Idealistic Diets and Lessons Learned from the
Natural Hygiene Many-to-Many about Successes and Failures of Vegetarian
Diets (Jan. 1997, 12,000 words, no footnotes) This concluding section was
based on my experience for 4 years as coordinator/publisher of a newsletter
forum for vegetarians that was written by its participant/subscribers--just
like internet listgroups, only via snailmail, plus my personal knowledge of
these individuals. Written from an insider perspective, this is an extended
look at the idealistic traps in vegetarian nutritional reasoning that can
lead to serious health problems for many vegetarians, which they often
cannot perceive themselves because of denial and rationalizations that skew
their interpretation of symptoms. There is also a look at why some
vegetarians succeed quite well (because some in fact do), and possible
reasons as to why they are able to do so when others don't, especially when
it is not our natural diet.

Chet did not get exclusive rights--just first-time rights--to these
interviews (especially since like all his interview guests, this was a
volunteer article series). It was a rather informal arrangement. So for
those interested, let me know, and I'll get copies to you by either
snailmail or, if you can wait till I translate them, email.

For $5.00 (my cost to xerox and mail, plus the time) I will send the entire
series plus references. The snailmail format is the most readable, typeset
to professional publishing standards in Quark Xpress and output to crisp
600dpi laser printer.

Or if people are willing to wait a little while, I will also be converting
these to emailable format, and eventually get them to you for free, if you
ask. (I anticipate this will be more time-consuming and involved than just
converting the references to readable ASCII was.) Go ahead and let me know
if you would like the series now. If by snailmail, I will send within a few
days of getting your letter and funds. If by email, I will put you on a
distribution list and you will receive them as soon as I have converted the
Quark files.

--Ward Nicholson <[log in to unmask]>

P.S. my snailmail address is:

232 S. Belmont
Wichita, KS 67218-1304