On Fri, 8 Aug 1997, Gary Jackson wrote:
> On the one hand, looking at paleolithic evidence highlights
> problems such as the agricultural grains that are otherwise very
> difficult to expose. On the other hand, by looking at nutritional
> markers we can highlight deficiencies in our diet. By combining the
> two approaches we can identify the nutrients and then find appropriate
> sources.
I agree with this approach. For one thing, it is clear that we
must rely on a great deal of guesswork to determine what people
ate a million years ago. This is not to say that what
researchers have learned should be discounted, but I think that
most would agree that the picture we have is rather
coarse-grained. We are undoubtedly missing many details, some of
which may be important. Furthermore, contemporary and recent
hunter-gatherers *do* rely on technology for their foods. These
technologies include cooking, fermenting, soaking, and so on. To
the extent that modern hunter-gatherers enjoy the robust health
that we imagine was enjoyed by ancient peoples, we have evidence
that good health does not depend upon the avoidance of
technology-dependent foods.
There are technologies and there are technologies. It makes
sense to look at them and the foods that they make possible on a
case-by-case basis. It seems to me that it could be a mistake to
dismiss simple goat cheese, for example, and homogenized,
pasteurized, "fortified" cow's milk simply because both are
"dairy", especially if we are in a position to say with more
precision what the health risks and benefits of each are.
Furthermore, to re-state a point that I argued recently, it seems
to be a mistake to place too much weight on the assumption that
there has not been enough time for adaptation to changes in diet
to have occurred. The very fact that human beings, in their
migrations around the planet, have become adapted to new
conditions and disadapted to old conditions (e.g., skin
coloration, type of hair, etc.) shows that significant
adaptations can occur fairly rapidly.
Returning to the guilty-until-proven-innocent idea that I debated
with Ward Nicholson when this list was first launched, I agree
that paleo principles give us good prima facie reasons to be
suspicious of technology-dependent foods. I do not agree,
however, that such foods cannot in principle ever be justified.
Pemmican is, after all, a technology-dependent food. Native
Americans did gather and eat wild rice, and I'm not aware of any
evidence that their health suffered as a result.
It is possible to consider foods that have been around for a few
thousand years and to study their effects on the people who
consume them. The fact that a few thousand years may not be much
time, compared to the time that hominids have been around, does
not nullify the utility of this approach.
> So, by only looking at a macro paleo picture we can run the risk of
> becoming nutrient deficient and by only looking at the micro nutrient
> picture we run the risk of saying " we need B vitamins and wheat germ
> is a good source, so we need 5 servings per day". 8^)
And we also run the risk of spurning good nutritional food
choices simply because cave-men couldn't get them. Take a look
at http://www.ag.uiuc.edu/~stratsoy/soyhealth.html, for example.
Yes, we have evidence that soy phytates interfere with mineral
absorption, but perhaps this is acceptable, given the other
properties of soy protein.
Audette and Gilchrist argue that "alien proteins" cause an immune
response, but offer no specific documentation. D'Adamo's blood
type theory attempts to provide precisely that information about
how food proteins interact with the immune system. I believe
that this work is still in its infancy, but it seems to me that
it is theoretically of great importance to anyone who takes
NeanderThin seriously. If it is even partially true that the
emergence of the A and B blood types are markers for adaptations
to dietary changes, then this is obviously a very significant
piece of information.
As Fox Mulder says, the truth is out there.
Todd Moody
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