Good post Katie. Have you ever been to http://www.panix.com/~paleodiet/ ?
Many paleolithic diet links there, including an excellent interview with
Ward
Nicholson. Ward discusses the evidence for what our ancestors ate and when,
including the use of fire. But even more relevant to your post, he talks
about the
dangers of total orthodoxy with respect to a particular diet.

-----Original Message-----
>I can't tell you how glad I am to see this admission from someone with
>credibility on this list.  I have felt this all along; and it is the
>reason that, although I think Ray and friends are  onto something
>important and have some good advice to offer, and that the general
>concept that many of us are better off on a diet closer to what our
>ancestors ate is correct, I'm not willing to try to become an orthodox
>Neanderthiner.  While I think the SAD is WAY distant from what is
>optimal;  I'm not convinced that I need to go 100% orthodox by Ray's
>standards to reach what is.
>
>The idea that people wouldn't have cooked much before metal and ceramic
>technology just exceeds my willingness to suspend disbelief.  Around
>here, they cooked until times within memory of some still alive by
>dropping hot rocks (mostly basalt) into liquids in tightly woven baskets
>or wooden boxes. Smoking was also practiced extensively.  All over the
>Pacific they cooked by wrapping things in leaves and burying them in hot
>coals.  These techniques are completely "portable" , leave minimal traces
>in the long term, and, to my mind, are probably very ancient.
>
>While the arguments concerning grain products and dairy are much more
>persuasive,  I'm just not persuaded that the optimal diet my genes are
>tuned for, if you will, is strictly and exclusively raw.  For instance,
>I'd be surprised if my own ancestors, who come from very long settled
>parts of southern Europe, didn't enjoy things like raisins,  dates,
>roast squab,  hare stewed with selected forbs,  and smoked fish long
>enough ago  that any potential effect on my genes would have had its
>chance.
>
>Does that mean I think I can stuff myself  with a diet limited to such
>foods, live a turn of the millenium couch potato lifestyle, and escape
>adverse consequences? Of course not.  But I do think it means such foods
>needn't be excluded as a matter of dogma in a WOE that is reasonably
>called "paleo", or from which one might expect comparable benefits.
>--------------------
>SAD = Standard American Diet ,  WOE = Way of Eating
>