----- Original Message -----
> "Eat only those foods to which you are genetically adapted"

I think it's practically impossible for an individual to know what foods
he/she is genetically, or inherently, adapted to.  Ancestry can only be
traced back so far to give any of us a clue.  Peoples of antiquity were far
more mobile than many of us usually believe.  And such "recent" events as
the Thirty Years' War in Europe (1618-1648), for example--virtually a world
war of the day--left soldiers at war's end and/or their semen strung from
one end of Europe to the other.  (Perhaps some became bald as a result. <g>
Or grew hair on their hands.)   Add to this the displaced persons uprooted
from their ancestral territory.   I've worked on my genealogy for years, and
last year when I went paleo I actually tried to figure out based on ancestry
what foods I would be most adapted to.  Mostly an exercise in futility.
While my ancestry is mostly English and Southern German (with--hey,
hey!--maybe an old Celt or a Roman somewhere in the mix),  I've also got
French, Swiss-German, and a single line each of Irish and Cherokee. Uh,
weren't the latter originally Asian?  But Asian gets murky when it's
remembered the Cherokee were Iroquois and the Vikings to pre-America left
blue-eye genes among the Iroquois.  I wonder what foods those
quasi-Native-American descendants were genetically adapted to?   Was it from
one, two, or three continents?  And what regions of those continents?  Or
what about the African slaves some of my ancestors owned whose bloodlines
became mulatto over time?  What foods were they most genetically adapted to?
The foodstuffs of Africa or England?

In animal husbandry--which <g> applies to humans too, there is such a thing
called hybrid vigor.  In theory, it makes for a stronger offspring.  But I
question, for whatever or how much is gained, might there not also be
something lost?  Through what--genetic dilution?   I like to blame the
solitary line of Irish for my sensitivity to wheat.  Whether it's the gluten
or not, I don't know.  Rye doesn't seem to have as deleterious an effect,
and for this I thank the numerous Germans (though I don't eat any grains
now).  And where on earth did I get a sensitivity to eggs (they give me a
brief nausea) since they are oh-so-paleo?  Dairy gives me no discernible
digestive problem at all.  But I'm a cheap drunk--one glass of wine or a
beer and I'm looped.  Happily that is, but I never was much into alcohol.
Even a little usually makes me feel bad afterwards.

My point is that genetics is just too complex with too many historical and
pre-historical comminglings of blood lines, even very ancient tribal ones,
to have any more than a general idea of what foods a person *might* be
genetically adapted to.  --Did anyone happen to read the recent article that
the Brits are far less Roman and much more Celt than previously believed?
Tribal men tended to stay more rooted within their own groups whereas they
traded/bartered/bought/bagged women from other (sometimes distant) tribal
groups.  If this ancient practice was indeed as widespread as DNA studies
indicate, then it makes for quite a bit of genetic diversity spread around
via women.  Granted this study is relevant to neolithic times, but is it too
far-fetched to extrapolate that such activities very probably occurred in
the paleolithic too?  Has human behavior changed so very much?  I rather
think not.  Sort of makes me think of six degrees of separation.  Or is it
six countries and one-third to half as many continents for me to determine
which foods I'm most genetically adapted to?

Theola