> You are right, Todd.  "Paleo" can be elusive.  I believe, though, that we
> can determine if a particular food, such as peanuts, is paleo by asking
> the following question:  Is it part of a class of foods consumed by our
> forebears where that consumption was both regular enough and long enough
> to allow adaptation?  It's not necessary, for instance, that we consumed
> cows for hundreds of thousands of years for cow meat to be healthy.  Cows
> are a particular in the class of large game and are therefore healthy.  (I
> won't get into the grassfed vs. feedlot debate here).
>
> So are peanuts paleo?

I think another issue would be in what quantity were peanuts
paleo, if they are. It isn't hard to imagine that someone found
some peanuts growing in the wild and ate them. But you
have to take into account that eating a handful of peanuts
you found growing wild vs. having a jar full that has been
shelled for you and you only had to expend some money
and the effort it took to open the jar to get to them.

Even though grains weren't staple foods for hunter-gatherers,
I can imagine that someone here or there ate them at some
point. But in doing so they had to expend a lot of energy
to get even a small amount, whereas we would plant a
field full and have a machine harvest them for us.

Not sure that had anything to do with anything, but
I'm done with my rambling now.

Jay