On Feb 22, 2008, at 4:57 am, Theta wrote:

> I wonder, readers, do you think that the family food choices passed  
> from generation to generation might be involved here rather than or  
> in addition to genetic material?  I mean, in my family, at least 4  
> generations ate more-or-less the same kinds of foods and recipes.   
> Is this genetics or culture or both?

A bit like William says, you need food AND genes to make a body.  Our  
genes operate under a set of assumptions, namely that we are living in  
the paleolithic era.  They respond to our food as if it was the stuff  
available in that era.  So, eat meat and veg and you should be  
healthy.  Eat cheese and beans on toast followed by a bar of milk  
chocolate every day, and you will either get fat or die of some  
horrible degenerative disease.

Feeding a dog the above non-paleo diet will not make it fat, it will  
kill it (if the beans don't first - I don't know about that).  The  
dog's genes do not respond so favourably to the cocoa (specifically  
the theobromine) in the chocolate.

I also suspect that what the last 4 generations of your family is not  
that dissimilar, from your genes' point of view, to what anyone else  
ate.  Here's a scale of paleo - non-paleo, where the left hand side is  
pure paleo and the right hand side is pure grains, dairy, legumes and  
sugar.  I've marked samples of diets consumed in the paleo era "X",  
and samples of diets consumed today, "Y".

|XXXX-X--X----Y-----------Y---------------------------Y-Y----YYYYYYY-Y|

This is what I have in my head when I hear someone say "I eat a  
healthy diet".  I think, "So you only eat 80% bad stuff instead of  
95?"  (Or alternatively, "So you're in the lower end of the I'm-glad- 
I'm-not-a-dog region")

Ashley