At 4:41 +1000 10/4/1999, Todd Moody wrote:

>On Fri, 9 Apr 1999, Hans Kylberg wrote:
>
>> Who is the athority to tell what is a paleo food and what is not?
>
>If we use the criterion that a paleo food is one that is edible
>in the wild state, then tomatoes and oranges are paleo.


A resource I find invaluable is the Related Plants List.
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/Food/RelatedPlantList.html
That web site is pretty slow, so save a copy locally :)

While the list is undoubtedly incomplete, it contains a lot of information
about which parts of a plant are edible and which are toxic, and whether
special preparation is required to make the plant edible. Very paleo.


I also check the list to see if close relatives of the plant are toxic.

Examples:

The recently mentioned mongongo nut of the !Kung has many toxic relatives,
and I don't think I would choose to make this nut a staple of my diet.

The nightshade family reads like a who's who list of poisons, hallucinogens
and initiation ceremony drugs. This makes me wary of tomatoes, eggplant,
potato and peppers, although I do love hot chili.

The legume family contains a number of toxic members.


I also read somewhere recently that advances in genetic analysis are
causing a shake-up in botanic classifications. It seems many plants that
look similar and have thus been classified into the same family are in fact
not closely related at all. Since the related plants list is structured
around the traditional classifications, it may be wise to approach it with
a little wariness.

 ...Richard.