Good morning everyone,

Two comments about comparing diets, inspired by two messages of the last two Paleodigests
A comment to the news of this information-message which was communicated on and by : Tue, 9 Sep 1997 10:06:00
+0700; From: Jennie Brand Miller; <[log in to unmask]>; Subject: Raw food diets

>         ... (snipped)     ... The Simian diet involves eating only fruit
> and vegetables, but not grains or starchy roots and tubers.  has told me
> personally that although they intended the diet to be based on raw foods,
> they found that they were not able to eat sufficient calories for their
> requirements because of the sheer bulk of of raw fruit and veges.  So the
> trial continues but with cooked veges.

How amusing!  When living in Central Africa, simians used to come to grab eventual remains of our meals on our
terrace, even sometime daring to venture into our kitchen and, at the great dismay of my mother, transforming
it into something like hell.

This summer, while completing a research project, my wife and me, we asked our 8 years old daughter to exercise
at some calculations, with the following problem : Average in our latitudes, a human being requires some 2,500
kcal/day/person to live.  The following figures are medians, as found in our village : Lettuces (8 kcal/100g),
or apples (50 kcal/100g) and bananas (91 kcal/100g) are collected through gathering activities (including in
today's supermarkets); fish (120 kcal/100g), beef (230 kcal/100g), and pork (350 kcal/100g) are from hunting
activities (including in the next door farms when hungry); and bread (250 kcal/100g), biscuit (440 kcal/100g)
and hazelnut chocolate (650 kcal/100g) are from cooking (i.e. detoxifying) activities.  In order to fulfill
your daily energy requirements (for the moment being, let's keep essential nutrients out of the energy
question), how many grammes of each of these food products will you need to eat?

When our second daugther, 6.5 years old heard the figures, talking about the vast amount of lettuces that one
should eat for surviving, she simply said : "I hate lettuces; I do not want to eat all day like a cow and to
listen to Mummy saying "keep grazing, it's good for you!""

Our son, 5 years old, stated : "I love the chocolate, let's get it".

Our second son, 3 years old did not say anything : he expressed his agreement with his sister's calculations by
eating the chocolate, and brought the lettuces to our rabbits.

And our dog, not very good at calculations, ate the wrapping paper, begging for more, while our cat was
stealing the fish from the kitchen table...

It is a true story.  If ever you have hard to believe it, just do the same calculations.  We are very proud of
our children.


Second comment, in answer to Bob's question in message of Sat, 6 Sep 1997 20:12:29 -0400; Bob Avery
<[log in to unmask]>; Question for Luc:

> I enjoyed your Paleodiet post, but little mention has been made thus far
> on this list about the practices of raw fooders such as myself of soaking
> overnight and/or sprouting seeds, nuts, or even grains to neutralize the
> anti-nutritive factors (chiefly digestive enzyme inhibitors, I
> understand) contained in these foods.

You are right : soaking seeds (grains and beans) and tubers induces the germination and/or sprouting process.
This induction triggers the start of the hydrolysis of the seed storage proteins, 85% or more of them having
anti-nutritional properties, hence contributing to the detoxification.  The drawback is that it also induces
the hydrolysis of the energy reserves of the seeds, most notably starch and oil.  Once starch, oil and proteins
have been converted into new roots and the first leaves, then the photosynthesis process takes over for
responding to the next energy requirements of the seedling.

It may be worth observing that soaking is the first part of barley malting, fermenting and brewing into beer,
and of cocoa fermentation and roasting towards chocolate.  In both cases, soaking alone is not enough to
detoxify barley and cocoa, and certainly not to enable you to enjoy the tsate and flavour of beers and
chocolate.  (If ever you stop these two processes at the soaking step, my friends and my kids will hate you.)

In the cooking process, provided that you refrain from overcooking, i.e. burning, you do not loose the starch
and oil.  But you do need to pay the energy required to detoxify your food.

In any case, whether you soak or cook, one cannot win both ways : you will loose some energy.

>                               ....  Given that humans have not always
> had fire under control, it would seem to me that the discovery of this
> method of neutralizing plant toxins could easily have pre-dated the use
> of fire.

For soaking, you need some kind of recipient, pottery or equivalent.  Back in May, there were discussions in
this listserver on pottery dating.  Personnally, I have never done any dating experiment.  But I use
references.  My favourite ones come from good old neighbours of Central Africa, who were my heroes while I was
a kid, i.e. members of the Leakey family.  (From time to time, even as a scientist, I do not mind to be
emotional.  And I am longing for Africa.) In his latests books, Richard Leakey wrote that the fire must have
been invented some 700,000 years ago.  Pottery must have come later.  (If proven wrong, do not worry, I shall
adapt.)

> This method offers a "best of both worlds" scenario to my mind
> since the anti-nutritive factors are neutralized without the production
> of the carcinogens created by firing the starches (in the case of grains,
> for example).

When you cook right, you eliminate the anti-nutritional activities, and you prevent the formation of
carcinogens before it burns.  The delicate balance between pre-cooking toxicity and post-cooking toxicity can
be recognized thank to the Maillard aroma.  A good Maillard aroma, e.g. the aroma that one can smell from well
baked bread of well roasted coffee beans or cocoa beans is an organoleptic indicator of food safety.  Thus,
anosmic excepted (i.e. the few without any sense of smell, i.e. who are smell-blind), everyone of us has a
chance to be a good cook.

Now, for soaking, when the astringency has been reduced to a minimum, then, what you are used to soak may be
safe.  But well, what's the point at missing that then fantastic Maillard aroma that goes with food safety and
quality, and all the good anti-oxidants that have been developed throughout the Maillard reaction during a well
run cooking process!

Ask our kids : the best of both world is called "food diversity", isn't it?

Have nice diets, and kind regards,

Luc
--
Luc De Bry, Ph.D., Head of Research Department
GENERAL BISCUITS BELGIE
De Beukelaer-Pareinlaan 1
B-2200  Herentals  -  Belgium

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Fax 32 (0)14 24 10 25

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