On 5 September, 2004 06:37, Keith Thomas wrote:
> This post is meant as a general observation, and is not directed to any
> specific post or query.

Good idea, and needed to keep us on course, however:
>
> 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.

This has to be a guess. Remember the tuber tribe? and the fat controversy.
I still opine that lean meat was dogfood.


>
> However, in none of those three million years did our ancestors ever
> experience many of the conditions some individuals suffer from today.


This is the steady-state idea recently beloved of institutional types
(university). IMHO successfully attacked by I. Velikovsky and successors.

Recent evidence of a "population pinch" about 77,000 years ago, and another
about 20,000 years ago  don't support gradual progression.


> That is, there would never have been anyone recovering from conditions
> like gross obesity or alcoholism, or trying to give up cigarettes.

Not proven.


> 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.)

"Pottenger's Cats" and probably other sources indicate that this is more
likely maternal malnutrition, if true, this is not genetic.


>
> 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)

I've tried to bring thoughtways/worldview/weltanshauung(sp?) into the
discussion and been shot down every time.

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

Not hard to dry fruit. For instance pemmican IIRC had dried blueberries in.
>
> 3.  Paleo activity (including sleep) patterns (there were no Paleolithic
> chairs)

No evidence, but they could have made chairs.


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

Has archaeology ever seriously looked for evidence of such ancient pollution?
The only one I remember is a pattern visible from a great height at the site
of the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that looks like nothing other
than a nuclear airburst. Also a city in India, forget the name, shows similar
evidence from ground level. Of course these are not paleo, but still show
that high tech. is not necessarily the first time, may have been others in
paleo times.

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

Wonder if there were mothers-in-law?


>
> 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.

Agreed, but it's to me a major part of self-defense against neolithic tyranny.
Definitely political.

William