On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 05:11:05PM -0500, Lawrence Tagrin [[log in to unmask]] wrote (in part):
| When organizations try to compare the Paleo diet to other diets
| they often fail to make a valid judgement because of a
| qualitative difference between the Paleo diet and others.
| 

I agree, and even worse, there are also (the old stickler) the
food policy paradigms that remain a yardstick for macronutrient
evaluation so Paleo immediately lands outside the box. 

Just got this from Medscape today:
http://www.medscape.com/features/slideshow/popular-diets?src=wnl_edit_specol&uac=48744DT
Shows what some surveyed doctors claim to be eating, some are
paleo. But the 'con' box for paleo is your typical 'pyramid
squared'. Annoying.

However, I think like any other way of eating, even paleo can
have a quite a bit of flex and cultural differences. (Kitavans
for example). My foodie background is primarily Asian and I tend
to like Chinese and Japanese flavors. If you want to emulate an
aboriginal paleo diet, it may have variation due to resource
issues.

Most of us have to deal with our current day and age,adapting to
what we can get in the present time with our budget and practical
restrictions. (I sometimes get a chuckle over foodie videos where
a 'caveman diet' practitioner is messing with a blender for the
root veggie dish--it's the time warp factor)

Historic paleo and hunter/gatherer uses pretty much the whole
animal. (tho most of us don't need 'nose to tail' for dress and
furnishings, or feeding our hunting dogs now). A lot of the paleo
discussions I find are by necessity, culturally biased, using
primarily muscle meat, and not using the odd bits and offal. So
there really seems to be a sliding continuum of what different
people practice or *can* practice. Obviously the current
practices in paleo have cultural, situational, and personal
limitations. That could be why some give 'stretchier' meaning to
their use of what is paleo and can give it a bit far too much
range--it's fine, it works for them, but don't call it 'paleo'.
Maybe paleo derived?

If you raise your own poultry and other livestock, you have
access to more of the animal bits than the average person. When I
grew up, the chicken head and feet were part of the plate before
us. A gutted, prepared fish presented us with access to the
eyeballs, the head, the skin, bones, any eggs if present.

Doubt many of the doctors on the medscape survey are eating
chickens with the feet and head still on.

In feeding dogs the raw diet, likewise, some raw feeders (who
would never eat paleo themselves, and eat egg white slurries out
of cartons <ew>) just use the chicken cuts typically prepared for
human fare. There is no real 'prey' model in some practices,
while others grow rabbits and poultry for whole prey model of
rawfeeding their dogs)

It doesn't bother me so much that people practice variations, but
it does get annoying when a way of eating is criticized without a
good understanding of the fact that macronutrient balance of the
food pyramid is not where the truth begins.

Because of cultural and resource issues as well as personal
tastes, the paleo way of eating can be hard for the food
'pyramidologists' to figure out with their rose colored glasses.
-- 
Janice - proofreading? what's that?
Semavi Anatolians <in California> http://cobankopegi.com
  http://www.cobankopegi.com/blog/ (pictures, fun, a little dis'n'dat)
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