This post is meant as a general observation, and is not directed to any
specific post or query.

When we adopt a Paleo diet, we generally do so because we are trying to
bring our food intake closer to that which our Homo ancestors used for
around three million years.

However, in none of those three million years did our ancestors ever
experience many of the conditions some individuals suffer from today.
That is, there would never have been anyone recovering from conditions
like gross obesity or alcoholism, or trying to give up cigarettes.  Many
slight genetic defects would not have survived birth and so there is no
evolutionary reason why people who survive today should necessarily be
assisted by a paleofood diet to overcome those genetic conditions. (For
example, I was born with knock-knees and wore splints for six months when
I was three or four - had I not used those splints and today had hip pain,
a paleofood diet may not have assisted me to reduce such pain.)

We should not claim more for a paleofood diet than it can deliver.  Sure,
it may assist if it addresses the cause of a particular condition and for
that reason it's generally worth a try.

There's another reason why a paleofood solution may not "work".  Food is
one of five aspects of the human situation and the cause of a particular
condition may have its roots in one of the other four - or, even more
likely, it will be multi-causal.  These five aspects are:

1.  Paleo thoughtways (there were no Paleolithic christians and probably
no atheists)

2.  Paleo food (there were no Paleolithic out-of-season fruits eaten)

3.  Paleo activity (including sleep) patterns (there were no Paleolithic
chairs)

4.  Paleo physical environment (there was no Paleolithic industrial
pollution)

5.  Paleo social environment (there were no Paleolithic employees or ways
of communicating other than face-to-face).

Paleofood is great, and I've eaten Paleo almost completely for 2 1/2 years
(cheese and wine have made up about 5% of my calories over the past year;
I reckon I might have eaten a total of around a tablespoonful of wheat,
rice and all other grain products over that time).  But I like to think of
paleofood as being about one fifth of the paleo way.

Keith