On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 13:41:09 -0600, Wally Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> What I do have an issue with is their reluctance to admit that many of  
> the foods they eat require "special attention" because the foods are not  
> part o f humans' natural dietary. My logic is this: if grains *require*  
> soaking, sprouting, or souring (fermentation) to make them safe - then  
> why eat them at all?

A reasonable point, but look at it this way.  You don't eat onion seeds --  
you plant (sprout) them and eat the result.  (Whether you *could* eat  
onion seeds or not isn't the point.)  It seems unlikely that primitive man  
would have bothered trying to gather a handful of onion seeds to eat.  But  
I can imagine him pulling a nice green onion sprout out of the ground and  
munching on it.  Maybe the same is true of grains -- maybe the seeds  
weren't even interesting, but the sprouted plants were.  To us, the seed  
is the point.  Maybe to primitive man, the plant was the point.  (I have  
no idea, I'm just showing my reasoning.)

> On the other hand, at least one anthropologist I have corresponded with  
> (John K Williams http://faculty.smu.edu/jowillia/articles.htm) believes  
> we have been eating grains for much longer than the rather simplistic  
> "sudden agricultural revolution" proponents would have us think.

I tend to feel that way myself, though I have no research to back it up  
other than "gut feeling".

> In other words, it wasn't inclusion of grains in the diet that started  
> the downwardhealth spiral, but the *milling* of grains (and subsequent  
> long-term storage) that did it.

I think that's *extremely* likely.

-- 
   Robert Kesterson
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