On Feb 02, 2006, at 7:21 pm, Wally Day wrote:

> First, he put a root on a stick and roasted it over the fire - but it
> retained all of it's bitterness. It softened and puffed up just like a
> marshmallow, but - at least to him - it was still inedible.
>
> Then, he boiled the roots in his hat (I kid you not). First time  
> I've seen
> someone actually accomplish this feat. The hat (obviously  
> waterproof) was
> filled with water (like a hide might have been), and heated rocks were
> added until the water started to boil. He would cover it, let it  
> simmer for
> awhile, add another rock, let it simmer, and so on. Eventually, the  
> root
> was very soft, and had lost much of it's bitterness. He still  
> grimaced at
> the taste, but it apparently satisfied his hunger.

Hmmm, maybe I should be grateful for cultivated veg after all...

If you look on www.westonaprice.org , there's a description somewhere  
of aboriginal Australians who processed a huge range of plants.   
Apparently some of them were poisonous.  So it makes you wonder where  
to draw the line about what is paleo and what is not.  I guess making  
a poisonous seed form 80% of your diet probably counts as too far,  
but below that who's to say?

This is the sort of thing I don't like to discuss with paleo- 
sceptics, as it's a prime example of something that is easily  
manipulated to make the whole diet look unsound.  But I've often  
wondered if one of the reasons for our success as a species is that  
our language lets us describe foods in exceptional detail.  We can  
tell the difference between an edible mushroom and deadly one that  
look almost identical.  On the other hand, I think chimps have been  
observed using plants for medicinal purposes (eg flushing out  
parasites), so perhaps we aren't that much more advanced after all.

Ashley