On Tue, 14 Apr 1998, John C. Pavao wrote:

> Well, let me state it another way.  I've been eating this way for a little
> over a year now.  I have no obvious illnesses, no sydromes or symptoms, my
> hair is not falling out (any faster than it should, I guess), and my skin
> looks pretty normal.  So where would I even get the idea that I needed some
> kind of supplementation except from other people?  And what other people
> tell me I need, I am always just a little suspicious of, because most often
> those who tell me I need something are those who sell it.

There is a fallacy in your reasoning, namely that a need for
supplementation would become obvious to you in a year or so.  But
that is no more plausible than the theory that the alleged
dangers of eating, say, soy would become obvious in a year or so.
They might, but they might not.

There is growing evidence that an important risk factor in
coronary heart disease is elevated homocysteine, a substance that
makes cholesterol more likely to adhere to artery walls.  In most
cases homocysteine is kept low by means of folic acid, B-6 and
B-12.  These substances are abundant in fresh meats and
vegetables, but they are also notoriously vulnerable to being
denatured by cooking and just by sitting around.  As I've pointed
out before, those of us who buy foods in supermarkets and then
cook them are getting a signficantly reduced supply of these
vitamins.  So, would your skin crack or your hair fall out?  No.
But if your arteries are narrowing you might not notice it for a
long time.

Where would you get the idea that you need supplements, then?
You would have to think the thing through.  The first thing to
remember is that supermarket-paleo is *not* the way
pretechnological humans ate.  They did not store, ship, or cook
their foods.  All of these are forms of food "processing," even
if it is less invasive processing than milling and chemical
adulteration.  Supermarket-paleo is a rough facsimile of the way
some pretechnological humans might have eaten.  While I am
persuaded that it is healthier than many other options, it is far
from clear to me that it is a close enough facsimile to make
supplements unnecessary.

Just to take another example, we have often discussed on this
list the fact that supermarket beef is from corn-fattened
animals.  This increases the polyunsaturated fat content of the
meat, and virtually eliminates the omega-3 fat content, as
compared with free-range animals.  The increased PFA intake
increases the oxidation load that we incur.  Cooking tends to
reduce the antioxidant potency of the foods we eat.  The result
is increased exposure to lipid oxidation, even on a
supermarket-paleo diet, as compared to our ancestors.  It's not
too farfetched to suppose that supplementation with antioxidants
could help to put us closer to where we should be.

Todd Moody
[log in to unmask]