"Tom Bridgeland" wrote:

> On Sunday, September 28, 2003, at 10:27  PM, Rundle wrote:
>
> > OK, I must admit this has been one [of several] bees under my personal
> > bonnet re paleo eating... this one is about olive oil...
>
> We imitate the paleo diet, as best we can. Pressed olive oil isn't
> paleo, but olives are. Likewise flaxseed oil etc. Like you, I don't
> worry too much about it as long as I feel well. I think we can agree
> there is a difference between olive and say, margarine. ;--)

Stone-pressed EV olive oil, flax oil, and virgin coconut oil
are about the only healthy oils available nowadays. But what
about fruit and vegetable juices? Is a juicer any worse than
a food processor, meat grinder, blender, dehydrator, stove,
microwave, or other modern technology? Fresh-squeezed juice
is probably healthier than the processed junk in stores.

What about dried fruit, pitted dates, shelled nuts, roasted
nuts, nut butters, nut flours, apple cider vinegar, sea salt,
fermented/pickled foods, maple syrup, and other gray areas?
Jay Banks pointed out that Ray Audette and Loren Cordain do
not address fermented foods in their books.

They say to avoid alcohol, including wine and champagne, but
we can easily produce those by letting juice ferment. A few
hunter-gatherer tribes ate rotten meat and eggs aged months.
Is that any different or worse than fermenting plant foods?
We don't need technology to make wine or champagne or apple
cider vinegar or sea salt, do we?

Some people go to an extreme of saying we shouldn't prepare
food in a way that requires advanced planning or technology.
They pretend that primitive people never went to the bother
of preparing a feast. Even animals prepare foods in certain
ways. For instance, squirrels bury nuts and seeds, then dig
them up later, after they've begun to germinate. The tribes
studied by Weston Price used similar methods to make plants
more nutritious. They probably learned this by copying wild
animals. What could be more paleo than that?

-Bruce Kleisner