on 8/19/03 10:15 PM, Craig Smith at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Don Wiss wrote:
>
>> I was thinking of buying a high powered gas grill. So my question is: are
>> there other paleo people out there grilling their meat?
>
> I'm a big time griller.  I have a major gas grill (by Aussie,
> best I've ever had), which I use all four seasons.  (When I lived
> in Vermont, the only part of winter that I didn't use it was when
> the grill was buried under four feet of snow.)

I grill often, too, but I prefer charcoal, and I prefer to use "natural"
lump/bulk charcoal, such as the RealFlavor brand from Wal Mart, rather than
the composite briquets that are made with some kind of glue to bind the wood
particles together. The lump charcoal even *smells* better than the briquets
when it is heating up. If you've never tried it, I highly recommend it!

> Note that while I am paleo in spirit, I am not always one in
> strict adherence, so anything I say should be taken with a chunk
> of unrefined sea salt.

Heh! Same here! For steaks, chicken, etc., I like a bit of McCormicks
Season-All (that's not *too* far off, is it? ;) but my "world-class" smoked
spareribs get a dry rub that I mix up using brown sugar. Of course, I figure
that most of the sugar melts off, anyway, but it does give a spicy-sweet
taste to the meat. I usually don't even bother with putting any kind of
sauce on them, either. Don't need it, actually...

We are also fond of smoked turkey and beef brisket. :)

> But it seems to me that (a) grilling meat
> and fish and poultry is pretty darned close to cavepeople sitting
> around a fire, feasting on freshly killed behemoth or wild
> turkey, (b) carcinogen studies are generally based on far higher
> concentrations of the substance being tested than would generally
> be found in most people's diets, and (c) charred stuff may not be
> good if eaten with the opioids in grains and starchy veggies, but
> no one has studied their effects in combination with a paleodiet.

As for myself, it seems to me that if grilling meats were so carcinogeous,
the human race might have died out long ago, since it is assumed that
open-fire cooking was the main technique of cooking for all those eons...

Stan