On Fri, 26 Nov 1999, Ben Balzer wrote:

> Loren Cordain: Well, it's more than grain-free. We found again from a
> Paleolithic perspective that humans didn't drink a lot of dairy, nor did
> they consume legumes or yeast-containing foods. Dairy, legumes, and yeast
> contain peptides with amino acid sequence that are homologous to amino acid
> sequences in a variety of human tissues as well.

What yeast-containing foods does he have in mind, I wonder?  I
suppose he is thinking primarily of things such as bread.  Yeast
organisms are everywhere, which is why many fruits and berries
ferment spontaneously.  It is interesting that we, and many other
creatures, have a metabolic pathway for using alcohol and
vinegar as energy sources, though in rather small amounts.  Why
are we so equipped?  My theory is that this adaptation in effect
lengthens the window of opportunity for consuming the wild fruits
and berries.  That is, animals that can utilize the wild grapes
and mulberries after they have begun to ferment have an advantage
over animals that cannot do so.

An anecdote about yeast:  I have sometimes mentioned my
grandmother, who was a lactovegetarian for the last 50 or so
years of her life, until her death at 93.  She was quite healthy,
never had a heart problem or cancer, and her dietary staple was
rice and beans.  The rice was typically Uncle Ben's parboiled
white rice.  The beans varied; often garbanzos, sometimes red
beans, etc.  She would harvest dandelion greens, purslane, etc.
from her yard and boil them and eat them, too.  She would save
the water that she boiled her veggies in and drink it.  She was a
petite woman who never gained weight.

A few years after she died, I attempted to emulate her diet.  I
made the rice and beans just the way she showed me, drank the
veggie juice, etc.  I found that I just couldn't eat enough of
the rice and beans, however, and gained weight quickly.  There
was, however, one key difference between her diet and my
emulation of it: She used to sprinkle brewer's yeast on her rice
and beans at every meal.  I tried this but found it unpalatable.
I have always wondered if the yeast was what made her un-paleo
diet "work"...

Todd Moody
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