ginny wilken wrote:
> I think there's a big difference between grass seeds, especially
> those cultivated to be food, and plain old grass, or plain 
> young grass.

Yes, I gathered that, but on what are you basing your view that Paleolithic
people ate grass (and I don't mean grass seeds)? The particular grass
powders I was referring to are the barley, wheat and alfalfa grass powders I
mentioned that are in Greens+ and that you responded to by saying "grass
powders certainly are Paleo except for the concentration thereof." [Note:
wheat grass is most commonly spelled "wheatgrass," but I'll try to stick
with the Greens+ spelling of "wheat grass" for consistency and simplicity,
except when quoting someone else.]

I am most familiar with wheat grass, as the store I used to work in sold
that product in bags and as a juice as well as in green powders, and there
was much promotional literature on it. If Stone Agers ate grass, as you
claim, then they likely ate all of these versions of grass--barley, wheat
and alfalfa--in the regions where they were available, so wheat grass can
serve as the discussion example, since it's the one that there seems to be
the most literature on. The wheat grass used to make green powder drinks and
wheat grass juice must be made from modern varieties of wheat, as no
Paleolithic varieties of (wild) wheat are used in mass marketed products.
Wheat grass products tend to be made from Triticum aestivum L. (common red
winter wheat grown in the Mid Atlantic states of the US). So, even if Stone
Agers ate wheat grass, they couldn't have eaten today's cultivated varieties
that are sold in green powders, juices, or bags of grass. 

I've seen wheat grass promoters claim that wheat grass consumption stretches
back to the Essenes, which was an agrarian cult, but not to the Paleolithic
era. Here is an example:

"Wheatgrass's rise to vitamin superstar fame started in the early 1900's,
when Edmund Bordeaux Szekely claimed to have translated an ancient
manuscript found in the Vatican's secret archives which presented a certain
way of eating by a people called the Essenes. ... Szekely claimed that the
manuscript said that wheatgrass is a good food for man. This led him to form
a special society and write many books on the subject." (Wheatgrass packs a
powerful punch to detoxify,
http://www.energyfirst.com/site/newsletter/11-06-Wheatgrass-detox.html)

I've never seen any evidence cited to support even the Essenes claim and
you're the first I've seen apparently make the claim that the grass used in
grass powders is Paleo. It's an interesting hypothesis and I was wondering
what you were basing it on. 

Szekely was a vegetarian who claimed that the manuscripts he claimed to have
translated "proved that the Essenes (early Christians) were vegetarians, and
that vegetarianism was prescribed by Jesus."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Bordeaux_Szekely) To find products
developed and marketed by vegetarians being promoted at the Paleofood forum
is rather surprising.

> >
> > We don't have the multiple stomachs that grazing animals have to 
> > digest grasses and we don't have the necessary levels of certain 
> > enzymes
> > to digest
> > and neutralize the toxins of the seeds of grain grasses that birds  
> > have
> 
> I said grass, not seeds.

I also said grass ("We don't have the multiple stomachs that grazing animals
have to digest grasses"). My adding information about the seeds of grain
grasses does not negate what I said about grass. Ruminants eat grass and
reportedly need their multiple stomachs to digest the grass. Humans don't
have multiple stomachs and don't have a rumen like ruminants do, so we don't
have the equipment that is supposed to enable digestion of grasses.

> We don't need to digest them in the
> quantities that ruminants do. 

Isn't that basically the point? That the Paleo foods are basically types of
foods that were eaten in signficant quantities during the Paleolithic era?
If grass or similar foods weren't eaten in quantity during the Paleolithic
era, and we don't possess the equipment to properly digest grass, limiting
its quantity today doesn't make it any more Paleo.

> Even casual chewing can release the
> cell contents, and we do, after all, possess both cellulase and  
> amylase. 

If all that is needed to digest grass is casual chewing and cellulase and
amylase, then why do ruminants need rumens? Please forgive me, but I get the
sense that you are either guessing here or quoting the claims of grass
promoters, rather than basing this on any credible evidence you've come
across. 

> Grasses are not far removed from leaves and flowers, 
> such as
> in broccoli, cabbages, lettuce, greens, etc. 

So again, then why do ruminants need rumens to digest grasses if grasses are
not much different than broccoli and cabbages? If quantity were the only
question, then they would just seem to need one big stomach rather than
multiple stomachs, regurgitating and chewing the cud, etc.

> From a nutritional
> standpoint, I'd choose a powder of a raw, carefully nourished baby  
> green than any amount of cooked collards or kale. 

Again, based on what? This sounds remarkably like the promotional materials
we received in the health food store from the companies that manufacture the
green powders. You make the claim that baby green (grasses) are more
nourishing for a baby than "any amount of cooked collards or kale." Do you
have any extraordinary evidence to back up this extraordinary claim? 

If we believe the Paleolithic/evolutionary theory of nutrition and we
believe that green grass powders are more nutritionally bioavailable to
humans than collard greens or kale, then we would logically conclude that
Paleolithic humans must have eaten more grass than leafy greens (or at least
a significant quantity of grass), correct? We would also logically conclude
that we would find that at least some modern hunter gatherers would be
continuing this practice to this day, correct? Is there evidence of any of
this? Has anyone actually proposed this hypothesis? Even the promotional
materials I've seen don't trace wheat grass consumption back to the
Paleolithic or to hunter gatherers today. Instead, it is connected to
allegedly vegetarian Essenes and I have found no record of substantial grass
consumption by humans before Szekely.

> I don't eat wheat grass.

This discussion started when I warned that the book The Bone-Building
Solution promotes some non-Paleo foods like "green drinks," of which the
author Graci's version contains barley, wheat and alfalfa grasses (among
other non-Paleo ingredients), and you responded by saying that "grass
powders certainly are Paleo except for the concentration thereof, and I feel
they offer valuable nutrition." If you are now saying that wheat grass
powder is not Paleo then we are in agreement and my initial warning about
the book and Greens+ was justified, at least as far as wheat grass powder is
concerned. 

You also appear to agree with me that the rice bran and soy products
promoted by Graci and DeMarco are not Paleo or healthy--please correct me if
I'm wrong. If your view is that there are good green drinks that don't
contain any non-Paleo ingredients, and good books that don't promote foods
that contain wheat grass powder, rice bran, or soy, then you are free to
share information about those drinks and books with us, but my warning about
Graci and DeMarco and their Greens+ drink and book would still be valid. 

> Find evidence that wheat as we know it is
> Paleo, and I'll let you know.

I don't consider either wheat (or barley) seeds (grain) or grass to be
Paleo.  There is evidence of allegedly roasted barley seeds found in an
ancient Paleolithic fire site, which I provided in earlier posts (but I am
skeptical of it), but no evidence that I know of regarding grass consumption
(again, if you have some please share it with us). Even if Paleolithic
peoples did consume some barley or wheat going back more than 100,000 years,
it appears that the regions where barley and wheat grew wild were limited
and the foods would have been only supplement or starvation foods, rather
than staple or regular foods. This goes for both grass and grass seeds, with
grass seeds being the more likely food (seeing that even with today's
processing methods the seeds are consumed far more than the other parts of
the grasses).

Ginny> ...grass powders certainly are Paleo except for the concentration
thereof...

Philip> > Also, as you point out, Paleolithic people certainly didn't
process 
> > grass into powders and add other manufactured ingredients like
> soy lecithin.
> 
Ginny> I already told you that I don't eat soy. I avoid lecithin as well.
> And the products which I consider to be good formulations do not  
> contain wheat or soy. So, say what you want about them, but 
> please be  
> careful to differentiate. Some of us can read labels.

I didn't say anyone couldn't read labels or that you eat products that
contain wheat or soy, and I certainly didn't mean to give that impression. I
said that the book promotes soy and Greens+ contains it and that Greens+
contains manufactured ("concentrated") ingredients, which you pointed out
here and (as I recall) in other threads is not strictly Paleo because Stone
Agers didn't use modern manufacturing/processing techniques. My point re:
soy lecithin was that it is a particularly highly manufactured ingredient,
not that you eat it.

It looks to me like we are more in agreement than disagreement. If you agree
that soy and wheat grass are not Paleo or healthy, then my pointing out that
Graci's The Bone-Building Solution promotes soy and that his Greens+
contains soy and wheat grass would seem to be useful information. 

I have shared the questionable ingredients in Greens+ and would be happy to
share the complete list of ingredients with anyone who is interested, and I
mentioned that I tried another green powder product myself. If you want to
discuss a better green powder product then please do share with us the list
of ingredients. 
The most Paleo green drink I have come across contained rice and therefore
could not be classed as purely Paleo based on the ingredients (not to
mention being processed). The existence of better products would not negate
my warning about Graci's product, which his books and brochures help
promote.