Wally wrote:
> The point is that human evolution was
substantially "complete" well before the advent of fire or other food
processing technology.

There is an interesting question implied here.  There has been quite a bit of
debate in the literature about exactly which point in our history we should
use as our dietary model.  Sally Fallon uses modern hunter-gatherer societies
and other traditional cultures after the advent of agriculture.  (Did you
read the debates between her and Loren Cordain in the paleodiet files?)  Most
paleo nutritionists take the position I'm advocating--that the important
period of time is from 2 million years ago to 10,000 years ago, before the
Neolithic revolution.  Your position is that we should model our eating after
what pre-humans ate MORE than 2 million years ago.  This doesn't make sense
to me.  These beings were not the same as us physiologically, so what they
ate may not be good for us.

Why do you think that we should eat what the creatures who evolved INTO us
ate, and not what our own species ate?  The argument against eating the
products of agriculture (mainly grains and milk products) is that 10,000
years isn't enough time for our bodies to have fully adapted to these new
food sources.  There is only partial adaptation.  Most modern adults produce
lactase (for digesting lactose), but in paleolithic times, no human over the
age of about two produced lactase.  Milk was indigestible by human adults
until after the agricultural revolution.  In contrast, 1.5 million years is a
very long time for adaptation, and our diet was essentially stable during
this time (with regional and climactic variations, of course).  So
paleonutritionists say we should eat what these ancient humans ate--not what
pre-human animals ate.

> Raw meat can be quite delicious, and if you seriously propose that humans
and pre-humans did not eat raw meat for millions of years, then you're
clearly living in a fantasy...

Go ahead and eat your meat raw if you like, but be careful of bacterial
infections.  The human body isn't as equipped to cope with this sort of thing
as other animals, which says something about our evolution.

Pre-humans surely ate all their meat raw, but they were not physiologically
the same as us, so what was good for them may not be good for us.  We need to
look at the diet of beings that were physiologically the same as ourselves,
and these beings appeared at about the same time that evidence of fire
appeared.  The earliest beings like us most likely ate much of their meat
cooked.  If you prefer raw meat, then perhaps you are not a being like us. LOL

     - Sheryl