(NOTE: I am breaking this post into 2 parts even though it might not be
necessary, so as to avoid potential truncation by the listserver.)


Kenny Brown writes:

> The following is a very long message. I asked a family friend
> who has a Ph.D in Nutrition to look over some of the Paleo
> websites. She passed it to a grad student. And this is what she
> says. Please don't contact either one of them, I want the
> chance to clear up some misunderstandings first. Thanks...

My post here is in response to the one referred to above written by Monica
Machalka (an R.D.-eligible grad student nearing her Masters in Food and
Nutrition) that was forwarded to the list about three weeks ago by Kenny,
apparently commenting on and critiquing my paleo interview on the web,
among other things. Normally I only lurk on this list. However, since in 3
out of the 4 primary points that were made by Ms. Machalka, information
and/or paraphrased words were put into my mouth that I did not in fact say
nor imply, I wanted to comment, if belatedly.

On the website at http://www.beyondveg.com where the interview as well as
other articles on paleo and/or vegetarian topics by other authors appear,
we have gotten used to a continuing stream of misrepresentations from
dietary fanatics of one sort or another, and typically just ignore them
considering the source. In contrast, I am sure that in Monica's case one
can trust the misrepresentations (or perhaps just misinterpretations in
this case) were inadvertent or due to carelessness rather than based in the
intellectual dishonesty we see so often in reactions we get from
extremists. It is disappointing, however, that an academically trained
individual in the field of nutrition would be so careless as to not read
what they are commenting on carefully before keyboarding a response.

I hope going over the misrepresentations and/or misinterpretations here
will show why we are so intent on challenging "authoritative" opinions and
commentary on the Beyond Veg site: Those with an officially credentialed
education in nutrition can and do make erroneous attributions just like any
of the rest of us might.

> Regarding the website
>
> http://www.nutritionsciencenews.com/NSN_backs/Apr_97/paleolithic.html...

One more preliminary comment here: it's unclear why the above link was
inserted immediately preceding Monica's comments about my interview, since
the link takes one instead to a paleo piece written by Jack
Challem--perhaps it was a simple cut-and-paste error of some sort, maybe
one by Kenny rather than Monica, I don't know. (Kenny's forward/post was
also truncated at the end, and it was unclear whether there may have been
further comments that got chopped off.) Just to clarify, the interview
actually is located at:
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview1a.shtml.

In any event, the discussion about the actual interview (as far as I can
tell) seems to begin with the subsequent comment that:

> Mr. Nicholson claims that when the agricultural era came about
> and people were consuming more starchy foods, there was an
> increase in tooth decay, malnutrition, and infectious diseases.
> However, not mentioned in the interview, increase number of
> people living near each other as well as increased life span
> can also lead to malnutrition and infectious disease. As for
> tooth decay, fruits are just as likely to cause tooth decay as
> starchy foods are. Just brush regularly.

Contrary to what is stated above, directly quoted material from the
interview, which I've reproduced below, explicitly notes the potential role
of denser human settlement in infectious disease (in addition to the role
of a more starch-based diet). Further, in her comment about the role of
life span in malnutrition and infectious disease, Ms. Machalka seems to
have missed another article of mine on the Beyond Veg website
(http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/angel-1984/angel-1984-1a.shtml)
discussing paleopathological data that estimates ancient life spans. This
data shows that, if anything, Neolithic people apparently lived a bit
*shorter* lives than Paleolithic people, thus rendering the point about
increased life span as a potential factor in the incidence of malnutrition
and infectious disease (while interesting) irrelevant in this context.

(Strictly as an aside--and not to imply Ms. Machalka has necessarily done
so here: It seems that almost everyone outside paleo circles is all too
willing to credit, without examination, the myth of those supposed
Paleolithic brutes [ooga, ooga :^) ] who must surely have been outlived by
those far more civilized agriculturalists following them who ushered in the
dawn of the earliest thing we can relate to as REAL civilization. It would
be interesting to know where this myth got started, since the available
data doesn't support it.)

Granted, one certainly can't expect someone to read through the entire
Beyond Veg suite of paleo-related articles and sub-articles in the few
hours that were taken. (Certainly not without taking periodic time-outs to
sneak another peek at Ray's book ranking on Amazon.com since one's last
log-in there. :-) ).

However, the underlying factual oversight here seems to indicate the
commentary is not based on sufficient familiarity with basic
paleoanthropological evidence about Paleolithic diet. Otherwise this type
of inaccurate supposition would not be made in this context. This is
another problem we find on Beyond Veg with the comments that conventionally
trained nutritionists often make about Paleo topics--they haven't done
their homework.

(Lest I single out Monica for special treatment, we often observed this
same problem in regard to the university-trained nutritionists, R.D.s, and
even population geneticists who made comments about Paleolithic diet
evidence on the Sci-Veg list, for instance, before its demise last October.)

For comparison and to set the record straight, here is what I actually did
say, which tallies for the most part with what Monica states about
malnutrition/infectious disease above [CAPS ADDED HERE FOR CLARITY]:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Remains of fossil humans indicate decrease in health status after the
Neolithic. In most respects, the changes in diet from hunter-gatherer times
to agricultural times have been almost all detrimental, although there is
some evidence we'll discuss later indicating that at least some genetic
adaptation to the Neolithic has begun taking place in the approximately
10000 years since it began. With the much heavier reliance on starchy foods
that became the staples of the diet, tooth decay, malnutrition, and rates
of infectious disease increased dramatically over Paleolithic times,
FURTHER EXACERBATED BY CROWDING LEADING TO EVEN HIGHER RATES OF
COMMUNICABLE INFECTIONS." (direct quote from
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview1c.shtml)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regarding Monica's statement about fruit consumption and lack of brushing
as a cause of tooth decay, few would argue the *general* point that these
can be contributing factors. However, we are talking about a specific
situation here (early Neolithic farmers), not generalities, and again the
commentary seems to be based on a certain lack of familiarity with the
evidence.

In the context of early Neolithic diets, it seems unlikely that fruits
would have been the major cause of decay, at least not one rivaling grains.
Given what is known about the diets of Neolithic farmers and the dramatic
increase in consumption of starches/grains, they are a much more plausible
hypothesis. Fruits were also not cited by the paleopathologists as a likely
source of the problem here in the sources consulted for the interview or I
would have mentioned it.

The point in this context is that, as far as anyone knows, neither
Paleolithic hunter-gatherers nor Neolithic farmers brushed, yet tooth decay
was rare in the former and relatively common in the latter. It's therefore
not clear to me what the reason was for bringing up the fruit angle here.
While interesting in the context of dental decay vis-a-vis more modern
diets, it seems mostly a red herring to the main points that were being
discussed in the interview regarding the problems that ensued with the
Neolithic transition.

Another erroneous comment about what the interview stated occurs in the
following remarks:

> The other problems such as anemia can be caused when people do
> not eat enough meat. It is not caused by people eating starchy
> foods though. Here, Mr. Nicholson is confusing two separate
> issues. He is claiming that when there was an increase in
> starchy food consumption, people started getting anemia making
> it sound like that caused the anemia. When in fact, people can
> eat a diet high in starchy foods and still avoid anemia if they
> also eat some meat. It is not an increase in starch that causes
> anemia, it was the lack of meat (possibly due to the increase
> in number of people compared to the number of animals, or due
> to the fact that people didn't have the money to pay for meat).

What I actually said about anemia was that its presence in early Neolithic
peoples was more likely caused not by diet but by the stress of infectious
disease. For comparison, here is a direct quote of what was actually stated
in the interview [AGAIN WITH CAPS ADDED FOR CLARITY]:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Skeletal remains show that height decreased by four inches* from the Late
Paleolithic to the early Neolithic, brought about by poorer nutrition, and
perhaps also by increased infectious disease causing growth stress, and
possibly by some inbreeding in communities that were isolated. Signs of
osteoporosis and anemia, which was almost non-existent in pre-Neolithic
times, have been frequently noted in skeletal pathologies observed in the
Neolithic peoples of the Middle East. It is known that certain kinds of
osteoporosis which have been found in these skeletal remains are caused by
anemia, and although the causes have not yet been determined exactly, THE
PRIMARY SUSPECT IS REDUCED LEVELS OF IRON THOUGHT TO HAVE BEEN CAUSED BY
THE STRESS OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE RATHER THAN DIETARY DEFICIENCY, ALTHOUGH
THE LATTER REMAINS A POSSIBILITY.[68]" (continued quote from
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview1c.shtml)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is nothing in what is said above that directly suggests the higher
incidence of anemia may have been specifically due to grain or
starch-eating; rather the more likely culprit is suggested to be infectious
disease's role in depleting iron as the proximate cause.

Now, if one wishes to engage in some speculative extrapolation, it may
be--since it was stated earlier that starchy foods were one of the likely
contributors to infectious disease (which itself is then later noted as a
potential factor in anemia)--one could engage in a speculative chain of
inference here. But if one were making that kind of extrapolation, they
would also then have to consider the potential role of denser human
settlement potentially leading to higher infectious disease, thence
possibly leading to anemia, as another potential cause--one that Ms.
Machalka brought up herself in the earlier point that was critiqued. I
would respectfully suggest that the one "confusing [the] issues" here is
the person doing the mis-paraphrasing of the interview, rather than its
author.

(continued/concluded in second part)