On Mon, 1 Nov 1999 08:55:12 -0600, Troy Gilchrist <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>>To state the paradox differently: The less grain paleolithic
>>hunter-gatherers ate, the more inexplicable is the rather abrupt
>>switch to grain domestication and cultivation; the more grain
>>paleolithic hunter-gatherers ate, the less reason there is to
>>insist that the paleolithic diet was grain-free.
>
>>Todd Moody
>
>The fact that grain is largely inedible without the domestication of fire
>can't be ignored. Prior to man's domestication of fire (i.e., during the
>overwhelming majority of his evolutionary history), it seems clear that man
>couldn't have eaten grain, certainly not in q
uantities large enough to make
>it a regular part of his natural diet. Our ignorance concerning humans'
>shift to agriculture doesn't give reason to think otherwise. Eating grain
>without being able to cook it renders the grain virtually useless as a
>source of human nutrition.

Troy, I'm afraid that your statement is not exately true.

I'd like to inform you of a little experiment I've done these days:
I sprouted barley.
I watered barley grains for some days, and yielded -after some days-
a very nice and bitter salad. I tasted a bit of it, and i couldn't resist
eating more and more because of the very satisfying bitter taste.
Sprouting required only water and a small container. Mine was of glass
and a little stone pit or bag of leather or leave would have done equal good.

I ate a considerable amount of it and had no digestion problems, no aches,
no dizzyness, I didn't get high.
I j
ust felt good and satisfied about the taste ( I like other bitter salads
like chikoree too).
This, despite I am blood group 0 , who are suspected to be sensible to
wheat lectin, and despite barley is full of gluten.
Well, barley isn't wheat and I'm not sesible to gluten, thanks good.
Barley obviously is edible raw and even tastefull.

I may attempt to translate a little excerpt of my reference (1):
"The very oldest lentils have been found in the cave Franchthi (Peleponnes)
in the old-stone-age layers (paleolithicum, 20000-7000 b.c).
They are from wildly grown lentils, witch the humans collected while the last
ice age, or about its end.
Together with wild cereals and seeds of other wild plants.
A similar finding  of gathered plants can be found in the same cave in the
levels above of the middle stone age (mesolithicum, abt. 7000-6000 b.c.) ..."

This looks like evidence, that cerea
ls, as well as pulses (lentils) have been
collected and eaten in paleolithic times, doesn't it?.

>The evidence suggests that cooking has not played
>a role in our evolutionary history until very recently.

Cooking herds have been found up to 500k years back,
from humanoids which are probably not among our anchestors
(various ice age hunters).

Cooking makes a lot more food items edible. They are not inedible at all,
but above all in bigger amounts of one single stuff.
Because cooking destroys the inside poison materials.
In plants this are the various antinutrient materials, in meats
it are bacteria toxins and parasites.
In milk, i can't locate any toxic material, but the common used milk of
bovines (cows) can and were criticized because of its production process
involving unwanted agrochemicals or treatement (homogenization),
and because of it's 3-fold too high protein conten
t.

Cooking makes a lot more materials accessible as a foodstuff, as would be
accessible for us otherwise.
 We are stemming from fruit-eating primates after all.
Trying to adopt true paleolithic lifestyles and ways of nutrition
we try to avoid food items which can lead to health problems.
This may be food items not eaten in paleo-times because their toxin contents
are too high uncoocked
- and maybe too, avoid the chemical reaktions cooking involves.
The edible/inedible barley or meat may teach us too that we might better
*not* rely too much on single food-items.
Dangers from food may be avoided (and surely have been avoided) by the very
very large selection of food items to live upon.
Relying on a few single stocks for the whole year may be a bad custom
mainly found in conventional modern diets
(potatoe - bread - beef and few others)
but possibly too among many paleo-eaters.

regards
Amade
us S.