OK, it's late, and I am just gonna answer this succinctly, at least in my mind.  You say you have your religion, but you don't believe in it.  That is very strange to me.  On another note, MY CHRISTIANITY has NOTHING to do with what we should eat or not eat, so I don't get the point AT ALL.  My questions are all pertaining to what the Bible talks about, which I wasn't going to get into here, but now I guess I have to.  And they did indeed cook the "fatted calf", although who knows if it was rare or well-done, lol.  There is NOTHING that I am not allowed to eat with my "religion", but when I read this I wonder why about some stuff, is all.  I don't think that is a reason to bite my head off.  I actually probably believe more like you do, but not for your reasons.  I just am not convinced that eating raw meat is better, even though I DO believe that for my dogs, which is a totally different subject, and they are all contentedly sleeping after a
 wonderful meal of raw chicken legs, yep.  I just have questions, and I don't think it's fair for you to attack people on their religious beliefs, especially when my "religion" has no FOOD RULES, sigh.  

Love,
Bren, just trying to figure stuff out...


Brenda Young wrote:
> I just have one question.  Not intended to fight with anyone.  But...Paleo is based on the fact that we are still the same creatures with the same nutritional needs as we were thousands and thousands of years ago, correct???  So, um, how does evolution fit in here???  If we have really "evolved", then that doesn't make sense.  Again, I am not on a religious agenda here...I am completely comfortable and happy with my religious stance and will not be convinced otherwise, but again,  how do the two of those mesh with your theory???  I am in the middle of the road, so to speak, with my Paleo thinking and the other stuff.  I, by NO MEANS, think we evolved, boy it's hard to not continue on this, lol, at least as far as nutritonal needs are concerned, so again, how do you equate firmly believing in evolution AND Paleo???  Doesn't make sense to me at all.   And just so you know, I don't think man has evolved from ANYTHING, and neither has his
 nutritional needs.  You have to pick one side of the fence...or not, I guess.  But the fence part does not make sense to me AT ALL.  Pick one or the other, I guess I would say.  
> Love,
> Bren

Evolution is not a fast process (and not one directional) and evolutionary modern man is between 100,000 and 200,000 years old depending on how/where one defines the changes.  In other words, our ancestors 100,000 years ago are essentially the same as we are today and both groups could likely interbreed (assuming appropriate time machine technology).  How far one can go back in time before one then and now would be able to interbreed is not known, but there is a point.

Introduction of agriculture has occurred in roughly the past 10,000 years.  Our genes have not had near enough time to adapt to these changes including husbandry (milk).  However, adaption is ongoing and lactose intolerance is less prevalent in the western world and gluten intolerance is widespread but not in everyone.  There are other foods that have achieved some adaption but perhaps another 50,000+ years are needed to adapt to the changes agriculture and husbandry brought to diets.  Hence, the paleo diet is still the best diet and one most like to proved to greatest health benefits, even though this "diet" is different depending on food available and seasonal issues depending on location and latitude.

For me, evolution explains WHY the paleo diet is ideal and genetic changes over time provide more than sufficient evidence that any version of religion is bound to fail as a viable explanation.  Evolution is full of flaws, flaws that identify a "perfect" god as not a possible explanation for existence.  Evolution has viable explanations for diseases, beneficial bacteria, predators, flawed attributes (blind spot in the human eye), and many other things ancient religions failed to consider and place in their creation and god myths.

As the saying goes "phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny" (while not exactly true, is eye-opening none-the-less).

Scan down to:
Modern observations
and
Modern theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory

My religious roots are in Mormonism and they have a "Word of Wisdom" revelation on diet which states to eat meat sparingly and only in winter and to get plenty of wheat("All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts"D&C 89:4 <http://scriptures.lds.org/dc/89>).  How wrong is that!  I've yet to read any religious doctrine on nutrition that comes close to a rational paleo diet - usually they are into the neolithic diet additions.  I place modern religious roots clearly in the neolithic era due to respective dietary recommendations even though paleo man likely had his/her superstitions.  Judaism and Christianity are neolithic religions based on diet and Jericho was a thriving city thousands of years before the neolithic Adam myth had him exiting from the garden as the first man.

The benefits of the paleo diet can be explained by evolution while religious explanations on diet are way off in the weeds (or wheat).

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