>The mechanistics will appeal to the older set and in
> their childhood years they probably ate closer to paleo than most as there
> was not much in the way of cereals other than whole rolled oats in the
> supermarket aisles.

I don't know about this as there were lots of *cereals* eaten "back then,"
if my family is any indication.  Homemade biscuits and gravy were served
every morning at breakfast and cornbread, usually, for the large "dinner"
meal that was served at noon.  Whatever bread was leftover from those meals
was served again at supper.  And whatever biscuits were not eaten then were
saved and recycled into bread pudding a couple of days later.  Likewise,
leftover cornbread was saved for baked hen and dressing.  And then there was
chicken and dumplings, and chess pie made with cornmeal.  Gosh, I could go
on if I were to give more thought, but these come quickly to mind.  They
bought flour in 25 lb. cloth flour sacks, but grew their own corn and had it
milled.   Grains were staples for country folk, and for country folk who
took their folkways with them when they moved to the city following WWII.
I'll add that all these things were made with lard or bacon drippings and
butter.  *BUT* moving to the city did change some things.  Homemade biscuits
were replaced with canned biscuits, lard with Crisco, butter with margarine.

I'm 48 and grew up in the city, so trips to visit country relatives and
their "peculiar" way of life caught my notice.  My brother who is 58
remembers all these peculiar things as "normal" for the early years of his
life.

Incidentally, he's terribly overweight (prob 70-80 lbs) and has a litany of
horrible health problems.  He puts full faith in the conventional medical
establishment and assigns them and his pharmacist full responsibility for
his health.  I don't know how many different kinds of pills he takes every
day, but it's a large handful and he just keeps getting sicker.  (This
reminds me of one definition of insanity--"Doing the same thing over and
over again and expecting different results.") And he doesn't do real meals,
but lives on junk food.  But tell him that.  He thinks I'm crazy because I
won't take statins, etc., but prefer to treat my problems with diet,
exercise, and some nutritional supplements.  Looking at him is one of the
reasons I have chosen (or, rather, evolved to) this path, and with good to
excellent results!   I have the lab profiles to prove it.  For the past two
years he has kept saying, "You've got to tell me about your diet," because
he can see the difference in me.   I do, but he can't listen without
interrupting to "correct" me.  What he can't outwardly see is the difference
in the way I feel.   And that's worth maybe more than the 19% of total body
weight I lost in the first year just by doing "general" low-carb.  Don't
know how much muscle I added, but I weigh 20-25 lbs more than I did in high
school over 30 years ago but now wear the same size as I did then, even
taking into account today's vanity sizing.

I'm going to give him a copy of Neanderthin.  Easy read, straight to the
point.  Then, if he's really interested, I'll turn him on to the Eades' and
Cordain.  And, no, I don't care for Schwarzbein's book or advice, either.
Didn't buy it but did spend an hour or so reading for free at the bookstore.

Theola