Brenda Young wrote:
>     
>   
>> I have never quite understood why yeast is non-Paleo.
>> After all, there are wild yeasts in the air, and
>> certain foods that hang around for a while will
>> provide a hospitable environment. Same way with
>> vinegar - it may not have been a major item in the
>> diet, but fruits and vegetables kept for a while would
>> have the potential to ferment and then turn to
>> vinegar.
>>
>> Andrea
>>     
>  
>
> There are people who say that ingesting yeast contributes to internal yeast
> overgrowth or infections ("candidiasis"). Some examples:
>
> - "Most nutritionists agree that any good candida diet should reduce as much
> as possible processed sugar, yeast, dairy, wheat, caffeine, nicotine and
> alcohol. They are the main culprits because they help candida yeast to
> grow." ("Candida Diet," http://www.pureliquidgold.com/candida-diet.htm)
>
>
> On the other hand, there don't seem to have been a lot of studies done on
> the harmful effects of yeast and some people claim that vinegar has
> medicinal properties. 
>
>
> I am so NOT a scientist, lol, but methinks that there is good and bad yeast, just as there is good and bad bacteria.  I can tell you that when I have a yeast "infection" (loved your description, Ginny...."squatters", hehehe), I drink the organic apple cidar vinegar with the mother, and the "infection" is cleared up in three days or so.  It also works instantly (for me) for the hiccups.  Lovely stuff, Paleo or not.  :)
>    
>   Love,
>   Bren, who thinks it's good on spinach, too
>
>   
I agree with the "good and bad yeast" idea. I also think that Paleo 
folks would have been exposed to both kinds frequently. The fact that 
yeast plays such an important role in so many aspects of the 
agricultural diet (bread, beer, wine, etc.) makes it seem conceivable 
that man was aware of it early on. I am not a fan of theories that 
require things to be discovered by chance, particularly when they are so 
prolific (There is no evidence that any culture on Earth ever lacked 
awareness of them.) Wild yeast would quickly attack any food that Paleo 
man consumed given the opportunity and the results would have been 
sometimes pleasant sometimes not so much.

With respect to the candida stuff: I had a coworker from India who made 
a very interesting comment once, when contemplating a trip home. He 
said, "Every time I go home I get sick. Things are so clean here. My 
body is no longer accustomed to the things it used to be. None of my 
brothers or my cousins ever get sick. As a child I was never sick, but 
now I always get sick when I go home."

Some traditional anthropologists are of the opinion that Paleo life must 
have been unpleasant and short because of all the nasty infectious 
organisms that would have co-existed with man in the wild. I think it is 
more likely that modern life is unpleasant and short because we kill our 
immune systems by living in a sterile world. It seems logical to me that 
the immune system is like any other system in the body... use it or lose 
it. A lot of our modern problems, allergies, autoimmune disease, 
susceptibility to infection, antibiotic resistant super-bacteria, etc. 
could be symptoms of this.