On Sun, 3 Jun 2001, Charles Alban wrote:

> << I recall once reading a remark by Loren Cordain that he permits
>  himself one "anything goes" meal per week, to relieve stress and
>  remain in touch.  In our culture the effort to maintain
>  paleo-purity can itself be a high-stress proposition, and I
>  suspect this can be as dangerous as anything we might otherwise
>  eat. >>
>
> But I find this odd. I would never want to splurge out. Does this mean eating
> a huge piece of chocolate cake, or a mountain of french fries, or what? If I
> did that, I would feel sick.  Since I feel so much better when I eat right,
> and so bad when I eat wrong, I have no incentive to eat wrong. I find it hard
> to see why there's a problem.

But you do eat "wrong," since you told us you have occasional
rich French desserts.  I said nothing about splurging, if that
means binge-eating.  What I understand Cordain to have meant is
simply that he eats what he feels like eating at this one meal,
without regard to whether or not it is paleo.  That doesn't mean,
of course, that he eats without regard to how the food will
likely make him feel later.

Personally, I cannot discern any difference in how I feel as a
result of most moderate deviations from paleo.  I don't suffer if
I eat the croutons on a restaurant salad, or if I consume some
beans, or whatever.  I don't know of any food that makes me feel
bad in moderate amounts.  I have found that more than a little
pasta causes discomfort, but that's about it.  Based on my
personal experience, as long as I keep carbs low, it doesn't
matter to the way I feel whether the foods are paleo or not.  If
I lose control of carbs, I will soon begin to feel the
consequences, though.

My diet, out of habit now, is pretty strictly paleo.  My
digressions tend to happen in restaurants or when I am a guest in
someone's home.  Recently I went to a dinner at a colleague's
house, where they made a special effort to make somethat that I
would like.  It was a duck stew, with chunks of organic sausage.
There were also some Navy beans in it, and some other vegetables.
I ate it all, and did not pick out the beans.  It was delicious,
and I was very pleased that they made something like that and not
lasagna.  But had it been lasagna I would have eaten that without
complaint.

I'm sure that if I sat down to a bowl of Navy beans I'd
experience some distress later, but the amount in this stew
didn't bother me at all.

Todd Moody
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