I've just joined this list recently. I read Neanderthin and Diet Evolution about a year or 18 months ago. I've not yet done a strict paleo regimen but lean in that direction. I'm a nutriton coach and former psychotherapist so have a particular interest in food/mood/behavior stuff and have been follwing the recent on depression with interest. >>>They were also breastfed--and intensively so--increasingly rare over the past 40-50 years in America. Lack of breast feeding paired with general malnutrition (common in the U.S. even among those who are not impoverished) is the major contributor to the high rates of dental deformites (need for orthodontia), visual deformities, depression, attention deficit and learning disorders, asthma, allergies, deformities, obesity, degenerative disease The other aspect of breastfeeding that's important and related to these degenerative conditions as well, is the lack of physical/emotional/ and energetic contact that often goes with a non-breast-fed infant. Somone mentioned the concept of limbic resonnance in an earlier post. Haven't read that book but suspect we're talking about the same thing. I know from personal experience (my upbringing) and my work as a therapist, that loving emotional and physical contact is as important to physical development as nourishing physical food. When that isn't present, especially in early infancy and childhood, there is a predisposition to clinical depression, not to mention over or under eating. Our tissue is fed vibrationally as well as physically, and tissue that isn't "bathed" by good energetic connections is not vibrant and healthy. This translates into low immunity, depression of many vital functions including manufacturing of neurotranasmitters related to depression. Add to this a poor diet and you've got big problems. In the Continuum Concept, also mentioned earlier, one of the things I remember most vividly was the description of mothers working with their diaperless babies wrapped tightly against their bodies. The questions was raised as to how the moms knew when the babies needed to urinate or deficate. The question was met with puzzlement and the answer was something to the effect of "we know as we know it in our own bodies" How many of us were raised with that kind of attunement to our organism? How can people who interact with a computer all day experience that kind of attunement to or from others? Cyberspace while offering many wonderful features is a vibrational vacuum! So good food is crucial, but a vibrant, alive body comes from other things as well, and makes it possible to put that good food to good use. Judy Stone Since you ultimately grind the dried beef into a powder, is there any reason using ground beef instead of sliced, wouldn't work as well? Judy