On Sun, 20 Jul 1997, Paul Getty wrote:
> Who can really say that man ate no grains.  Certainly there were some that
> ate grains, because some early men ate them, and then planted the better
> ones and then little by little we had corn and wheat.  The only reason that
> the earliest man was interested in planting the ancestors of wheat and corn
> was that he was already eating the wild variety.    I agree that he did not
> fill his caloric needs with grains, but I think the idea that he ate
> virtually no grains could be wrong.  And to be horrified at eating a small
> amount of wheat or corn is the kind of thing that comes about when too many
> people who feel the same all get excited and end up extremists.  Some other
> ideas and even lecturing should be refreshing.
> Paul Getty
> Morehead City, NC
> [log in to unmask]

Paul,you need to look at the data again.
Grains are native to a very specific area of the globe -- namely the
Fertile Crescent in the eastern Mediterranean.  They appear to have first
been domesticated around 4,000 BC in that region.  Agriculture then slowly
spread across Eurasia, reaching the upper reaches of Europe several
thousand years later.

This means that MY ancestors didn't have access to those grains until
relatively recently -- and, in fact, people of Scottish and Irish descent
are more likely than people from other areas to have celiac disease, which
is (short explanation here) a severe intolerance for wheat gluten or
related proteins.  Perhaps some of the vehement reactions you see on this
list are from the celiac crowd.  It might be ok for the non-celiac person
to have the occasional handful of grains (they're rather tough, though;
nuts are a lot easier to chew <g>), but for a lot of us, it's just simply
a very bad idea.

When it comes to corn, well, I have a bad grass allergy -- the first thing
I did when moving into my townhouse several years ago was to tear up the
grass and put in perennial herbs, so we'd never have to cut the grass --
and am VERY allergic to corn.  Eating corn puts me straight into an
allergy-induced stupor.  It's certain that my ancestors never ate corn,
and very obvious that my body can't handle it.

And personally, if I start 'cheating' by eating a food I shouldn't eat
much of, like wheat products, I start craving that food.  This is due to
the allergy mechanism -- sometimes we crave things we're allergic to -- or
to the insulin reaction: you get an insulin high from eating a
carbohydrate-loaded food, then drop into a 'low' rebound state, and crave
more carbs in order to reach a 'normal' state again.

Many of us have been on this roller-coaster many times.  Hence the extreme
aversion to foods that cause us problems.

I tend not to be as strict on the diet as some others may need to be in
particular areas that don't cause me problems -- for instance, I use
saccharine and Splenda, which are artificial sweeteners.  But I am
ultimately responsible for evaluating the information and opinions that
others on this list express, and choosing to incorporate them (or not)
into my diet.

This is just a little advice: you came onto this list, and, without
bothering to lurk for a while and read up on what we're all about and
where we're coming from, start telling us that we're fanatics.  That shows
a definite lack of perspective on your part; we have a lot of diverse
dietary needs and dietary opinions in this group.  So, lighten up, and
read some of our materials, and _then_ feel free to join the conversation.

Cheers,
Corbie