Keith Thomas wrote:
> Don't get me wrong. I don't doubt that pure chocolate has addictive properties. But there are 
> degrees of addictiveness. Cocoa does not approach nicotene in its addictive power, but its 
> pharmacologic properties do have an attraction. My point was that cocoa's addictive properties are 
> of themselves insufficient to account for its popularity, and for people consuming excessive 
> amounts of chocolate. They could get more of chocolate's pharmacologic agents for less price by 
> buying pure cocoa and spooning it down. But would they?
>
>   
Agreed. Certainly the popularity of chocolate products, many of which 
have little or no cocoa in them, is a larger phenomenon which has as 
much to do with marketing as it does with the product itself. 
Nonetheless chocolate "addiction" is a real thing that can be 
scientifically linked to the substance itself.

> This is where the relevance to Paleofood comes in. It is only because of the addition of sugar, fat, 
> milk, soy lecithin, glucose syrup, colouring, preservatives, gelatine and artificial flavours (all non 
> paleo foods) that cocoa has its appeal. Marketing and cultural acceptbility help too. (These are 
> also non-Paleo.)
>
>   
Here, again, I disagree. Chocolate is popular around the world. The 
particular form it takes here in the US is linked to American tastes, 
especially for refined sugar. In other countries chocolate products with 
less or different forms of sweetening are popular. e.g. Belgians like a 
purer cacao, the French like to mix it with cognac, Germans like a less 
sweet more processed form of cocoa (i.e. "Dutch" cocoa,) etc.

> The larger point is that many of the foods we like to think of as paleo are not. My pet hate is 
> having plastics touching food. The phthalate oestrogen mimics leach into foods, particularly those 
> containing fats (like meat, nuts, butter, cheese). I'd guess that much of the declining sperm counts 
> of human males is due to the oestrogens they have absorbed from foods. Even grass-fed beef, 
> once wrapped in plastic, is no longer paleo.
>
>   
In a pragmatic sense, there are limits to how Paleo we can really be. 
For example, it is hard to find beef that hasn't been exposed to modern 
water and air full of chemicals that were unknown, or existed in very 
different concentrations, prior to the last century. We ourselves cannot 
avoid direct exposure to these pollutants, let alone exposure to them 
once they have accumulated inside our food. The real point of Paleo is 
to learn from our past and use that knowledge to make healthier 
decisions. To emulate our past is a more difficult task and there are 
practical limitations.

Thanks,
Adam