Off topic, but hopefully interesting (re: Vitamin A).
I saw a show on PBS about people who had survived extreme ordeals.
One fellow was shipwrecked (or some such) and survived on a raft for what I seem to remember to be weeks.
He told a compelling story.  In the beginning, he caught fish and ate only the flesh, raw discarding the remainder.  After some time (don't remember how long), he came to crave the eyes of the fish.  He talked about how he would frantically devour the eyes and didn't care about the rest of the fish.  He just kept trying to catch fish for the eyes.  It was all he wanted.
The narrator described this as a vitamin A deficiency.  (there was also a similar story from a man caught in a cave).  Apparently, if you are sufficiently deficient in something like vitamin A, you will crave a food that previously you found disgusting.
Sometimes I get strange cravings that I can't quite identify, wandering about the house thinking, "what is it that I want?" knowing I want something, but not quite able to identify it.  Perhaps I should go outside and examine worms, insects or other creatures when I find myself in that state - perhaps allowing my limbic brain (or instinct) to override my frontal cortex!
gale



----- Original Message ----
From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, August 1, 2008 8:56:50 AM
Subject: Re: Cordain Bashing why??? RE: Newbie Question - Organ Meats

> Are you sure, Todd?  I know that grassfed beef contains ten times the
> beta carotene as grain fed.  Since the body can readily convert beta
> carotene to vitamin A, I'd think you'd be able to get more than
> sufficient amounts.  But I'd need to do the math.

Well, I'm never really sure of anything, but I accept the premise that
grassfed beef has a lot more beta carotene.  But the conversion to vitamin
A is lossy, and gets moreso as we age.  That may, of course, be due to
non-paleo diet and lifestyle, but I'm inclined to believe that getting
some dietary pre-formed vitamin A (and vitamin D) is important.  Although
we commonly think of vitamin A in terms of eye function, it is also very
important for immune system function and, interestingly, supports
testosterone production.  This is actually how I came to research it, a
couple of years ago.  Despite a pretty good paleo diet, at the time, a
routine checkup showed pretty low testosterone levels.  I was getting a
good amount of exercise too, so this seemed odd.  Since I was 53 and the
reading was at the low end of, but still within, the "normal" range (which
is quite wide), the doctor just shrugged.

I was unaware that sleep apnea also causes testosterone reduction, and
also unaware that I had severe sleep apnea, so looked around to see what I
could find out.  As you'd expect, the bodybuilding web sites have a lot of
info about testosterone boosting, and that's where I found the first
suggestion that vitamin A (not beta carotene) supplementation could help. 
I started using cod liver oil *and* pure vitamin A supplements, which are
dirt cheap anyway.  I was taking about 30,000 units a day.  About four
months later I had my levels checked again and they had tripled.  And
between then and now I haven't had a cold, a cough, a sniffle--nothing.

Of course, the other variable is the sleep apnea, which I found out about
a bit later, and have apparently had for a long, long time.  But that's
off-topic for this list.  My main point is that I think it's important to
get pre-formed vitamin A.  Weston Price thought so too, as I recall.

Todd Moody