Jim Swayze wrote:

> "Duh" is my reply to your comments above.

Well your earlier comments on this subject contradict the comments of mine
that now seem to be so obvious to you. 

> Here's where we apparently disagree.  Not everything paleo
> man consumed was good for him.  The overwhelming majority was
> and we should try to imitate it, but it isn't necessarily
> true that EVERYTHING was.  I'm arguing that alcohol, if
> consumed as much as you think it was, is in that class.

I don't think alcohol was consumed to a great degree in a paleo times, if
that is what you think.

As per my first post on this subject, I think it was consumed in "very
modest" amounts, as in the very modest amounts that would have been consumed
from fermented fruit.

The letter from Cordain that you posted here supports my position, not
yours. Cordain states that the genetic instructions for the production of
the enzymes that metabolize alcohol were inherited from our ancestral
primate ancestors. This is of course as it should be. Our primate ancestors
would have consumed plenty of fermented fruit in the jungles of Africa. 

All mammals, including those in our genetic history, needed a way to
metabolize the alcohol that was so prevalent in nature. Selection pressure
led to the evolution of the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme. 

Small amounts of alcohol are therefore paleo. Organisms do not evolve
enzymes for no reason.

-gts