On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, Michele Wiedemer wrote:

> > This reminds me of something I've wondered about for a long time.
> > If tomatoes are a member of the nightshade family, and nightshade
> > plants are supposedly not included in our paleo food choices, how
> > come folks on this list eat tomatoes?
>
> I've wondered about this, too. I just started eating paleo a few
> months ago--because I have ALOT of allergies, including especially
> tomatoes, so obviously I haven't been eating it. But if my allergies
> one day improve, I'd like to know whether I could include tomatoes on
> a paleo diet.

People on this list interpret paleolithic diet in diverse ways.
Some use the Neanderthin rule, to the effect that any food that
is obtainable and edible to a human "naked with a sharp stick"
(and only such food) is acceptable.  Since tomatoes, and some
other nightshades, pass this test they are acceptable.

Others, such as myself, consider the "naked with a sharp stick"
rule to be only a handy but imperfect rule for identifying those
foods that have been part of the human food supply for long
evolutionary periods of time.  The rule is imperfect because some
foods that are edible to a human who is naked with a sharp stick
nevertheless did not enter the food supply until relatively
recently, for other reasons.  Tomatoes and other nightshades are
in this category because they are New World foods.  This means
that they only entered the food supply when humans came to the
Americas.  Although there is controversy as to when this took
place, the still-received view is that it was about 15,000 years
ago -- not much longer ago than the development of agriculture in
the Near East.  Furthermore, those who came to the Americas at
that time remained isolated and did not interbreed with others
until very recently; i.e., the waves of European invasion.  Thus,
although native Americans may have had up to 15,000 years to
adapt to the proteins in these foods, the rest of humanity has
had only a few centuries.

This means that if we accept the Neanderthin premise that 12,000
or so years is not enough to cause reliable adaptation to
agricultural foods then we should also accept the conclusion that
there has not been enough time to adapt to New World foods.

Bottom line: If the logic of Neanderthin is sound one should not
eat these foods.

Todd Moody
[log in to unmask]

PS A case could be made that the coconut should be avoided for
similar reasons.  Although it is not a New World food, it
originated in regions (tropical lowlands of New Guinea and/or the
islands of Fiji) far from the savannahs of our evolutionary
formative years.