On Wed, 22 Nov 2006 17:33:40 -0600, Tom Bri <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Fun discussion. Thanks. Anyway, I think you all are far too pessimistic.
>Paleo is not just eating wild foods. Few of us even try to eat mainly wild
>foods. So questions of the carrying capacity of the Earth for
>hunter-gatherers is interesting to speculate on, but irrelevant to our
>actual situation. 

Agreed, and I don't think anyone was advocating returning to a pure hunter-
gatherer (h-g) way of life for everyone. The source of the confusion might 
lie in those h-g carrying capacity estimates I included early in this 
discussion as a starting point, somewhere above which actual Paleo-like 
food carrying capacity levels would lie (which I stated in those early 
posts). I didn't have an estimate of the latter at the time, which is the 
only reason I didn't give one. I later noticed that Cordain had given an 
estimate--approximately 600 million people, presumably using modern 
agricultural methods to push production of Paleo-like foods to the maximum.

>Replace wheat with other grains. Wheat is the number one villain in my 
mind,
>the single cause of most of the damage. Replace it with corn or rice and a
>lot of the damage goes away. 

I agree and would add the other gluten grains (rye and barley) that should 
be replaced, but wheat does indeed appear to be the number one villain, 
especially given the massive quantities that are produced and consumed. A 
Sri Lankan reporter wrote that diabetes has skyrocketed there since wheat 
bread began to replace rice as the staple starch.

>
>It would be nice if people ate less sugar and other simple carbs. Unlikely
>to happen, they taste too good and are cheap. Really, nothing for us to
>worry about except where it concerns our friends and family. It isn't my 
job
>to convert the masses to paleo eating.
>

Mine either, and the incentives, as we both have implied, seem to weigh 
more the other way--keeping this somewhat of a secret and sharing the 
knowledge only with friends and family, so that other people don't drive 
up the prices of our Paleo-like foods on us. The irony is we are 
discussing this on the Net, though this site is not widely read. 

When I first learned of the Paleo diet and discovered the amazing health 
benefits it was providing myself and others, I wanted to tell the world--
and one person even told me, "You have to tell the world." But then I 
realized there are downsides to that. Much of the world doesn't want to 
hear it anyway and there is little profit that can be made from the Paleo 
foods or lifestyle to drive it (as Ray Audette has apparently 
unfortunately experienced) so it's a bit moot at any rate.

>Replace badly balanced fats with a better balance. This is happening right
>now. I heard an ad on the radio today, a seed company was pitching low
>linoleic acid soybeans to local farmers. The benefit is oil that does not
>turn to trans fats when processed. Another small step, possibly in the 
right
>direction.

Yes, and we have agreed in this thread that reducing trans fats seems to 
be a positive step. I have wondered about whether how much of an 
improvement that will turn out to be. Trans fats are very bad, but whether 
the soybean oil is partially hydrogenated or not it is still not a Paleo 
food, as we all know, and not much study has gone into the negative 
effects of soy. The research that does show negative effects could have 
found the majority of it, or it could be just the tip of the iceberg. 
Still, I and Cordain's writings agree with your general point that small 
positive steps can be achieved.

>
>Sure, it would be nice if people stopped eating all that crap, but it just
>is not going to happen. So, no shortage of paleo foods for those of us who
>choose that path. 

Doesn't it give you a bit of an odd feeling to hope that most other people 
keep eating crap? It does me. I find that thinking in terms of millennia 
helps a bit--that people have to eat this crap now, but imagining some day 
far in the future humanity can reduce its size back below 600 million and 
go back to living the way it was designed. I'll be long gone of course, 
but somehow it makes things a little more palatable. Perhaps a delusionary 
hope, but like you I prefer optimistic hopes for the future.

I expect no price rises specifically for our foods. Prices
>will probably fall in fact if more and more people start eating them,
>creating more robust markets for farmers to respond to.

In the near term that could indeed happen, as happened when demand for 
Atkins products increased and large supermarkets started carrying them, 
which previously were only available in small, expensive specialty stores. 
Like I said, whether it takes 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 or 1000 years, the Paleo 
foods will eventually increase greatly in price. Even if the Paleo diet 
never catches on, the health benefits of individual Paleo foods will be 
discovered and people will want to eat more of these magical "cancer 
cures." This is already happening, with the near daily reporting of more 
health benefits in "magical" Paleo-type foods like bilberries, grapes, 
dark leafy greens, teas, spices, broccoli, cacao (despite being called a 
bean, it is a fruit), tree nuts, cantaloupe, etc. 

>
>One last thing. The population bomb is over. Finished. Dead. Population is
>still rising only because of momentum, and recent future world population
>predictions are down. 2050 will probably be the year world population
>actually starts to fall, according to the studies I have seen recently. 

That's good to hear, and I too have seen reports along those lines, but 
there is a long way to go to get from 6.5 or more billion down to 600 
million or less. It ain't happening in our lifetime.

>If I
>had a crusade, it would be to help jump poor countries over that level in 
as
>short a time as possible, to limit the damage as much as possible.
>=========================================================================

Not sure about this. China is developing rapidly, leapfrogging ahead, and 
they are reportedly experiencing a massive increase in pollution. It is 
possible to use "greener" technologies, but no guarantee poor nations will 
do so, even with help from industrialized nations, which is difficult to 
convince taxpayers to support. I do think that population reduction will 
have to occur via modern techniques like contraception, education and 
employment of women, and technological development, because society is not 
going to abandon agriculture, the primary engine of population growth, 
anytime soon. Similarly, green technologies will have to be pursued 
because people are not going to give up modern technology altogether.

Even if all this goes splendidly, we will still be nowhere near down to 
600 million in population anytime soon (short of the global catastrophes 
that some have predicted in this thread, which pose massive problems of 
their own). A low world fertility rate of 1.6 children per woman would 
still leave the world with over 4 billion people in 2150, according to UN 
estimates 
http://www.uwsp.edu/business/economicswisconsin/e_lecture/pop_images/projec
t_world_pop.jpg. So for the foreseeable future it seems societies will be 
restricted to making small steps of progress, such as those suggested by 
Cordain and in this thread.