On Jan 1, 2007, at 3:38 PM, Philip wrote:
>> but grass
>> powders
>> certainly are Paleo except for the concentration thereof,
>
> Why do you consider grass powders like barley and wheat grass  
> powder to be
> Paleo? As far as I know, Paleolithic peoples generally ate animals  
> that ate
> grasses rather than the grasses themselves (except perhaps the  
> seeds as an
> occasional "starvation food" or small supplement to the regular  
> diet in the
> limited regions where cereal grain grasses grew--and I can imagine  
> them
> perhaps eating some young sprouting grasses when desperate, though  
> I don't
> have any evidence of this and it doesn't appear to have been a  
> staple food,
> nor is it a staple among any modern HG peoples that I know about).

I think there's a big difference between grass seeds, especially  
those cultivated to be food, and plain old grass, or plain young grass.
>
> 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. We don't need to digest them in the  
quantities that ruminants do. Even casual chewing can release the  
cell contents, and we do, after all, possess both cellulase and  
amylase. Grasses are not far removed from leaves and flowers, such as  
in broccoli, cabbages, lettuce, greens, 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. In fact, cooking  
really destroys the "stop" on veggies, too. I feel quite satisfied  
eating a small amount, two or three sprigs of raw greens, and this,  
to me, is a perfectly Paleo response to a more-or-less Paleo food.

> I also thought it was generally agreed that wheat is the most
> unhealthy cereal grass and that it's seeds are one of the most  
> unhealthy
> staples in the SAD. Do you feel that eating wheat grass before it  
> goes to
> seed is Paleo?

I don't eat wheat grass. Find evidence that wheat as we know it is  
Paleo, and I'll let you know.

> Also, as you point out, Paleolithic people certainly didn't process  
> grass
> into powders and add other manufactured ingredients like soy lecithin.

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.

ginny




All stunts performed without a net!