>i have eliminated all of the suspect items for a long period of time(1 year
plus) and actually felt worse than before....low energy, sore gums, among
other things.

This is the first time I've heard of anyone experiencing ANY ill effects when
eating paleo (other than frustration when having to explain for the fourteen
thousandth time why it is that you're loading your body up with obviously
fat-loaded and unhealthy fare).

I've found that those not doing well on the diet have followed the plan just
long enough for their bodies to get used to the idea that they will be eating as
they should.  Then they cheat a little and naturally feel terrible.   Cheat a
lot and it could be much worse.

A little personal experience.  I was a couple of months into the diet when I
took off on a RV vacation with my father, brother, and nephew.  I made the
mistake of not getting more involved in meal planning but considered the
addition of minor things like potato chips and such to probably be no big deal.
And it wouldn't have been had I just cheated once or maybe even twice.  But that
week, being out in a remote section of New Mexico sixty or seventy miles of bad
dirt road from the nearest store, I had no choice but to eat what these guys
brought: bread, beans, potato chips and the like.

The result?  Not only unbelievable weight gain, bloating, crankiness, and
depression but a relapse of the "cold sores" that I'd assumed would be a
permanent part of my life, and which had all but disappeared after I started
eating paleo.  For years, I had suffered from the ocassional common herpatic
sore or two in my mouth.  I'd live with it for a week and they'd go away.
Frustrating, but no big deal.  But this episode of sores was unlike anything I'd
ever seen.  I developed seventy (!) sores simultaneously, not only inside my
mouth but in my throat as well.  The weight I'd gained on the trip?  Not a
problem because my the pain would simply not allow me to eat.  I lost the ten
pounds I gained that week and then lost ten more because I could not eat.  I
ended up in the emergency room on a Sunday morning with a doctor peering into my
mouth.

I believe that, at least for me, cheating a little causes some bothersome
responses from my body.  Cheating a lot can be very dangerous.

Jim Swayze