Jim Swayze wrote:

>Todd > So you think paleolithic people had a rule about legumes?
>
>I don't think they had any rules other than taste, availability, energy
>content, and -- most importantly -- whether consumption of a particular
>foodstuff made them sick.  But I'm no expert, Todd.  All I have to go by
>are 1) recommendations by those who are (Ray Audette's a good one); and 2)
>how a particular food makes me feel when I consume it.  And what little
>wisdom I have is telling me to move away from number 2 because bad things
>happen to me physically when I experiment, as my most recent month-long
>bout with thrush showed me.
>
>Wine and peanuts are very good examples of experiments gone bad as eating
>either has elicited undesirable responses from my body.  I don't need to
>quote statistics on alcoholism.  But do you realize that 2% of the
>population can die from eating peanuts?  To me, that further supports
>Ray's general principle that legumes aren't part of our original diet.
>
>Let's put the question back on you, Socrates.  What makes you think
>peanuts ARE paleo?
>
>
Well, Glaucon, this term "paleo" is more elusive than it at first seems,
as we've all noticed in these discussions.  On one perfectly reasonable
construal, no exclusively New World foods are paleo, including peanuts,
tomatoes and a number of others.  Audette, for one, does not use this
construal, since he accepts tomatoes and uses them in his recipes.  On
the "edible raw" construal, peanuts and some other legumes (especially
in the immnature state) *are* paleo.  Peanuts are edible raw.  As I've
mentioned in the past, this is how my grandmother preferred them, and
ate them regularly until her death at age 93.  As a kid, I used to eat
them too when visiting her, since they were the only peanuts she had
around the house.  I didn't have any trouble with them, though of course
I didn't *like* them as much as the roasted, salted ones.

And yes, I'm aware that a significant number of people can die from
eating peanuts.  But a comparable anaphylactic reaction to strawberries
and shellfish is not uncommon, but I wouldn't take that as a reason to
suppose that they are not paleo.  My general point is that a food need
not be 100% harmless to 100% of people to be considered paleo.  As for
wine, although grapes are paleo on just about any construal, I wouldn't
argue that alcohol in the amounts present in a glass or two of wine is.
I like a glass of wine sometimes, but not because I think it's paleo.

Todd Moody
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