I sent this short reply and thought others might be interested. Todd Moody [log in to unmask] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes by the age of 34, Ray Audette relates in NeanderThin he began reading about the probable causes and concluded they, along with allergies, colitis, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, lupus, many cancers and cardiovascular diseases, as well as obesity were associated with civilization. Cut out our overpopulated, over-poluted, over-weight civilization, he reasoned, and you'll do away with these devastating diseases. This is a caricature of Audette's reasoning. He certainly does not urge us to "cut out civilization," whatever that would mean. In fact, he points out that it is only the infrastructure achieved by civilization that makes the NeanderThin program feasible in this age. More importantly, you neglect to mention the theoretical basis (culled from his research) for his ideas. First is the notion, common to other low-carbohydrate diets, that excessive consumption of carbohydrates elevates insulin levels, which in turn causes many problems, including obesity, high cholesterol, and water retention leading to hypertension. Where the NeanderThin plan differs from other low-carb diets is his theory that our lack of adaptation to agricultural diets goes beyond just their carbohydrate excess. His view is that the activation of our immune systems by bombardment with proteins from foods to which we have not had evolutionary time to adapt is the other cause of health problems. This is an important idea, well worth thinking carefully about. Audette is really more of a supermarket hunter-gatherer. His diet eliminates technology-dependent foods such as grains, beans, potatoes, dairy products and sugars. Yes, for the reasons sketched above. I might be convinced by someone who heads for the wilderness and lives only on wild animals and plants. But to consume animals and plants which have undergone tremendous genetic changes over the generations that they have been domesticated, and which are pumped full of chemicals, pesticides, hormones, synthetic feeds and increasingly bio-engineered, then to call that a caveman diet is a delusion. I think that Audette concedes that the use of wild animal and plant foods would be ideal, but he also wants to offer options to those for whom this is simply not feasible. It is possible now to buy foods that are relatively free of additives and pollutants, even if such foods are more expensive. The basic premise is also false: the "diseases of civilization" are associated primarily with Western civilization: Asians, for example, who eat less meat are less prone to these diseases. Indeed? Some of the highest cancer rates in the world are in China. Heart disease rates among *urban* Chinese are comparable to our own. Animal fat is not the nutrition equivalent of fats derived from plants. Audette's arguments that humans are innately meat eaters is contradicted by human dentition and the human digestive system, which are not those of carnivores. I'm not sure what "innately" means in this context. Audetted does not rely only on arguments from physiology but also on evidence from paleoanthropology as to what paleolithic people did in fact eat. And he does not claim that humans were or are exclusively carnivorous, but only that we have been omnivorous for a long time, deriving a substantial portion of our food from animal sources. If you know of evidence that contradicts that, I'd like to know about it. His argument that the principle cause of animal extinction is the plow not the slaughterhouse (because farmland denies wildlife habitat is ludicrous: what do domestic animals eat (it takes 7 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef) and where do they roam? Well, how much grain do you have to eat to get the protein that is available in that pound of beef? And why is it preferable to eat all that grain if it is causing major health problems? And for that matter, where does Audette recommend feeding grain to cattle? His choice of Neanderthals as a model is unfortunate. Neanderthals were probably not direct ancestors of ours, but a specialized adaptation to Ice Age Europe who died out - an evolutionary dead cul de sac. He doesn't really use Neanderthals as a model, but I agree that the title "Neanderthin," though catchy, is perhaps unfortunate. Still, there is much more to this little book than you have given your readers reason to suspect. Audette includes a fine bibliography of scientific and popular writings on the subject of paleolithic nutrition and its theoretical underpinnings. That bibliography alone is worth the price of the book. His reasoning is considerably more sophisticated than you have represented it to be in this review. Todd Moody [log in to unmask]