>I think the premise  [of the Neanderthin WOE] is that prehistoric people
didn't do much
>preparing or storing of foods, but ate what they killed or found
>pretty much on the spot.  But you are correct.  The evidence
>indicates that people have had fire for 700,000 to 800,000 years.
>Whether they did much cooking and what they cooked is not known
>with any certainty, but tools for preparing foods also date back
>that far and farther, so a case can be made that food preparation
>(as opposed to eating things as you find them) has been around
>for a long time.  ---Todd Moody

I can't tell you how glad I am to see this admission from someone with
credibility on this list.  I have felt this all along; and it is the
reason that, although I think Ray and friends are  onto something
important and have some good advice to offer, and that the general
concept that many of us are better off on a diet closer to what our
ancestors ate is correct, I'm not willing to try to become an orthodox
Neanderthiner.  While I think the SAD is WAY distant from what is
optimal;  I'm not convinced that I need to go 100% orthodox by Ray's
standards to reach what is.

The idea that people wouldn't have cooked much before metal and ceramic
technology just exceeds my willingness to suspend disbelief.  Around
here, they cooked until times within memory of some still alive by
dropping hot rocks (mostly basalt) into liquids in tightly woven baskets
or wooden boxes. Smoking was also practiced extensively.  All over the
Pacific they cooked by wrapping things in leaves and burying them in hot
coals.  These techniques are completely "portable" , leave minimal traces
in the long term, and, to my mind, are probably very ancient.

While the arguments concerning grain products and dairy are much more
persuasive,  I'm just not persuaded that the optimal diet my genes are
tuned for, if you will, is strictly and exclusively raw.  For instance,
I'd be surprised if my own ancestors, who come from very long settled
parts of southern Europe, didn't enjoy things like raisins,  dates,
roast squab,  hare stewed with selected forbs,  and smoked fish long
enough ago  that any potential effect on my genes would have had its
chance.

Does that mean I think I can stuff myself  with a diet limited to such
foods, live a turn of the millenium couch potato lifestyle, and escape
adverse consequences? Of course not.  But I do think it means such foods
needn't be excluded as a matter of dogma in a WOE that is reasonably
called "paleo", or from which one might expect comparable benefits.
--------------------
SAD = Standard American Diet ,  WOE = Way of Eating