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Sat, 18 Nov 2006 18:23:17 -0500
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World Too Overpopulated to Support Paleo Diet

The biggest problem that the facts of Paleolithic/evolutionary nutrition 
poses is that the planet cannot support everyone eating a Paleo diet. I 
have seen estimates of the carrying capacity of the planet ranging from 
250,000 to 100 million hunter-gatherers. This provides a disincentive to 
spreading the word about the Paleo Diet. As knowledge of Paleolithic 
nutrition spreads, the demand for Paleo foods will increase, eventually 
leading to massive price increases that will put the foods out of reach of 
all but the wealthiest. Many of these foods will likely be overconsumed 
right out of existence. When I came to realize the consequences of this 
problem of limited supply of Paleo foods I was rather disheartened. By 
spreading the word we cannot help all the people who suffer from diseases 
of civilization, but we do increase the possibility that these foods will 
become too expensive for us in our lifetimes. After learning these facts I 
realized that global population control--which I used to see as 
unnecessary--should be the #1 priority of the human race. Daniel Quinn's 
book, Ishmael, reinforced that view. Other priorities are preserving the 
Paleo foods and the remaining hunter-gatherer peoples.

It's impossible to feed the world on the foods of 10,000 years ago, but 
perhaps we can gradually move society away from using the foods that were 
developed in the last 100 years. One method might be to tax all foods and 
food ingredients developed after 1900 and use the revenues to fund 
nutritional research and the costs of the transition to older foods. 

Is it possible for society to develop a wild- or near-wild-plant form of 
agriculture to increase the nutritional value of society's plant foods and 
increase the quantity and diversity of Paleo foods in the diet? I know 
that EatWild researcher Jo Robinson (http://www.eatwild.com/jo.html) 
has "plans to develop a test garden featuring plants with exceptional 
nutritional value that are similar to plants growing in the wild." There 
is also this study: "Prospects for sustainable use and development of wild 
food plants in Ethiopia," http://cat.inist.fr/?
aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1001004

Cordain suggests we can make the following changes and still feed the 
world:

> Eliminate grain feeding of cattle
> Encourage consumption of omega 3-rich oils like canola, flaxseed and 
mustard seed oils

Anyone else have some ideas or heartening thoughts to make the problem of 
the limited nature of Paleo foods more palatable?

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