What follows is a list of a few things ranging from totally not paleo to totally paleo that strike me as distractions from an “Is it paleo?” perspective. This list is by no means exhaustive, and I hope you’ll add your favorites in the comments below.

After a sometimes exhausting year trying to learn about the most important period of human development with way less data than we’d like, I think it’s time for a mini-salute to modernity.

“Then with my face covered in good factory mud, covered with metal scratches, useless sweat and celestial grime, amidst the complaint of staid fishermen and angry naturalists, we dictated our first will and testament to all the living men on earth.” – F.T. Marinetti, ‘The Futurist Manifesto’, 1909

Happy New Year!

10. Creationists Glasses/Sunglasses

ZZ Top is totally paleo by the distributive power of “beards are rad”, and they wouldn’t be the same without sunglasses. I’ll leave it to you to sort out that logic. Another cool thing about sunglasses: polarization. I’m a fan of polarization as a magical coating that cuts down on glare, and in the establishment of false dichotomies and other propaganda tools. If you were a hunter-gatherer who couldn’t see, you’d probably kill for a pair of vision correcting lenses. And don’t mess with Marcello Mastrioanni.

Exception: Implicit in one version of the cover of Guy Debord’s masterwork, ‘The Society of the Spectacle‘, wearing 3-D glasses makes you a mindless automaton that’s been recuperated by the spectacle. Oh, and colored contacts aren’t fair in assessing mate value.

9. Vegans Beer

Hey, don’t question me. It’s written on the sign, and thus, totally out of my hands.

Exception: None. I mean… I could probably make a case for Hefeweizen, what with it’s gluten-bomb wheat base rather than barley. I’d rather make a case against beer with fruit in it, but if I say anything bad about fruit, the president’s vegan personal trainer might get all preachy again.

8. Birth Control

It’s just that it used to be called infanticide and infant mortality. Unless you’re a pope or other form of deviant, we’re much better off with modernity.

Exception: Trojan Condoms’ slogan, “Feels like nothing’s there.” That’s what she said?

7. Coffee

I recently heard someone sincerely say that “coffee is paleo.” Until someone establishes the Homo sapiens “Out of Seattle” hypothesis, I’m going to have to go ahead and reject that coffee is historically or logically paleo. And… I don’t care that it’s not… not even a little.

Exception: Frappuccinos. And no, getting the coconut version doesn’t make it paleo either.

6. Bicycles!

A huge number of people don’t use bikes as a substitute for other forms of exercise, but as a substitute for lazy ass planes, trains, and automobiles. That’s right, Kevin! Having the same birthday as me isn’t going to make me forget your post asking if bikes are faileo. Besides, there’s an entire blog dedicated to paleo cycling, so… game, set, and match.

Exception: None. Not even road bike weenies.

5. Computers {electricity, light bulbs, et cetera}

“You eat paleo, but you’re using a computer!?” Shut up. Seriously. Just. Shut. Up.

“…the chimpanzees I work with are keen on computerized testing: the easiest way to get them to enter our testing facility is to show them the cart with the computer on top.” –Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved

Exception: Macs clearly aren’t paleo because of the high fructose content of apples.

4. Running {and endurance training in general}

Sure, I hate the pain sometimes too, but… it would be a strange evolutionary coincidence that bipedalism is the most mechanically efficient method of distance running, and only humans do it, AND it wasn’t a huge part of our evolution – ostensibly because CrossFit was the hominin fitness program of choice throughout the Pleistocene.

Exception: Clunky running shoes and endurance “sports” based on internal combustion engines.

3. Carbs

If only to shut up critics of paleo that keep saying paleo is dead because 10 Homo sapiens and 3 Homo neanderthalensis fossils show signs of starch consumption. Paleo isn’t anti-carbs! Paleo is anti-carbs in the massive quantity easily and cheaply acquired at Krispy Kreme and everywhere else in grocery store culture.

Exception: Refined sugars and mega-concentrated extracts like agave syrup. Oh, and wheat and corn and rice and all other grains and… (but the latter isn’t a carb thing)

2. Socialism

Sorry comrades. As a bourgeois capitalist, I didn’t want to believe it either. But… the predominant political organization of hunter-gatherer bands seems to be socialist anarchism, libertarian socialism, social anarchism, anarcho-socialism, or some other flavor of social organization that rejects private property and emphasizes communitarian forms cooperation. Objectivism runs into problems (not least because Rand didn’t really believe in evolution… more on that in an upcoming post), and libertarianism relies on a blatantly agrarian conception of property rights.

Exceptions: Authoritarianism, Marxism, State-Socialism

1. Evolutionary Psychology

“Neck-down Darwinism” ain’t cool. If you’ve noticed the difference in personality between golden retrievers and cats, you already understand what evolutionary psychology looks like. Denying that it applies to humans is evolutionarily unjustifiable anthropocentrism. If you still reject it, I hereby sentence you to a lifetime of riding zebras (which I’m told is not unlike herding cats).

Exception: Evolved cognitive biases are real, but I don’t like them.

Your turn! Favorite non-paleo things? Non-paleo things you’re sick of hearing about? Whatcha got?

Without further ado, it is with extreme excitement that I release my contribution to this discussion by way of an alternative hypothesis. It is currently in-press for the Journal of Applied Paleonthropological Hyperbole.

Abstract

The nature and causes of the disappearance of Neanderthals and their apparent replacement by modern humans are subjects of considerable debate. Many researchers have proposed biologically or technologically mediated dietary differences between the two groups as one of the fundamental causes of Neanderthal disappearance. Some scenarios have focused on the apparent lack of plant foods in Neanderthal diets. Here we report direct evidence for Neanderthal consumption of a variety of plant foods, in the form of phytoliths and starch grains recovered from dental calculus of Neanderthal skeletons. Some of the plants are typical of recent modern human diets, including legumes, and grass seeds (Triticeae), whereas others are known to be edible but are not heavily used today. Many of the grass seed starches showed damage that is a distinctive marker of cooking. Our results indicate that in both warm eastern Mediterranean and cold northwestern European climates, and across their latitudinal range, Neanderthals made use of the diverse plant foods available in their local environment and transformed them into more easily digestible foodstuffs in part through cooking them, suggesting that the extinction of Homo neanderthalensis may have been caused by introduction of food sources sufficiently deleterious to individual health.

The obvious question then becomes: How long do we have to wait before proclaiming Neanderthals were vegans? Why would Neanderthals continue to eat substances that were toxic?

For that, we need look no further than modern humans. When ingested items provide an observable short-term benefit in terms of calories, they are assumed to be beneficial. When the negative effects of toxic inputs are cumulative over a period of weeks, months, or years, individuals are incapable of isolating the confounding variables. This is further complicated by not being limited to dietary inputs, but also those of microbial, genetic, or other environmental factors such as shortages or overages of vitamins, minerals, and myriad chemical compounds. This problem has not been solved with modern scientific methods, and it is reasonable to assume that Neanderthals were less capable of determining cause and effect during the Pleistocene.

When the introduction of toxins does not manifest with sufficiently deleterious symptoms for a duration in excess of nine months in females, and nine seconds in males, significant adaptive pressure may not be placed on reproduction for that individual. Thus, the combination of an inability to disambiguate dietary toxins across a relevant period of time with the lack of strong selection pressure in delayed onset cumulative symptoms may result in both poor health and reproductive success, especially in the short-term. However, over time, the inability to recognize the delayed onset cumulative symptoms of the introduction of dietary toxins may lead to an increase in the consumption of the toxic sources. While a disconnect in the causal relationship between dietary input and its negative health outcomes persists, we may see a paradoxical increase in the consumption of such toxins which are believed to be beneficial. As consumption spreads through a population, the negative health consequences would come earlier in life, and with more frequency. Since we have no reason to assume adaptation in all cases (to the contrary, we must assume non-adaptation as the null hypothesis), it is possible that the paradoxical increase in consumption lead to unsustainable population levels within the species.

We are certain of two points: Neanderthals ate grains, and Neanderthals are extinct. To date, there is a complete lack of evidentiary support for hypotheses involving any benefits to the introduction of grains into the Neanderthal diet. Thus, we find all hypotheses of our colleagues that indicate grain consumption provided any survival or reproductive benefits to Neanderthals to be strange and unfounded. Since Homo neanderthalensis is extinct, and the deleterious effects of grain consumption can still be seen in the modern Homo lineage, it is more reasonable to conclude that increased consumption of grains in the Neanderthal diet played a role in their extinction.

Discussion

Grain consumption may result in death and subsequent fossilization of you and your species. Further research is required.

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by evolvify.com in connection with the upcoming book, ‘The Extinction Diet: How to Lose Weight and Save the Planet Through Individual Death and Species Extinction’.

Just as there’s truth underlying what makes comedy funny, there’s some truth in stereotypes. Rather than a reflection of truth, stereotypes typically represent a cultural amplification of minor differences. As such, it’s difficult to disentangle what’s real from what’s cultural (yes, I just said culture isn’t real). In the realm of stereotypes, the association between men and meat is pretty strong. From the [debunked] “Man the Hunter” hypothesis to the staple imagery of Dad “manning” the grill, we have no shortage of references from which to draw. Maybe it’s the fire, maybe it’s the meat, but I’ve always embraced the opportunity to run the grill. I’ve also been curious about where cultural indoctrination gives way to instinct in this area. Recently, my attention was directed back to this from a strange direction.

As part of the ongoing paleo debate about the amount of animal products vs. plant products we should consume to achieve optimal health, I turned my attention to vitamin C. The topic is doubly interesting to me because, from a “why evolution is true” standpoint, the genes to synthesize vitamin C singlehandedly refute the notion of an “intelligent” design. Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is necessary for certain biological functions, and therefore, most animals have evolved to synthesize it. Humans have the gene coding for vitamin C synthesis, but it has been deactivated. The [almost certainly correct] hypothesis is that it was deactivated during a period of high dietary fruit consumption in distant primate evolution. Since vitamin C was ample in the diet, there was no positive selection pressure for the activated gene. Which brings us to scurvy…

Scurvy

Acute vitamin C deficiency in humans leads to scurvy. I noticed a strangely consistent risk-factor for scurvy while doing preliminary research on the condition. It seems that being a single man is itself a risk factor. It was listed in every result I saw from a basic Google search on the topic so I’m chalking this one up to common knowledge for medical professionals. Not only is being male and single a risk factor, but it’s also referred to colloquially, and in medical literature as “bachelor scurvy” (Connelly, 1982) or “widower scurvy” (Hirschmann, et al. 1999).

One of the hypotheses forwarded to explain why men are more prone to scurvy is that they don’t know how to cook. That seems strange considering that cooking destroys vitamin C. It’s found in high concentrations in a wide range of foods (raw fruit in particular) readily available to any grocery store culture. If a single guy can get to the store to buy hot dogs, he can buy an orange. Thus, I have to emphatically reject the “single guys can’t cook” hypothesis before even considering whether it’s factually accurate to say that “men can’t cook”.

Since vitamin C is ridiculously easy to consume, I’m inclined to view “bachelor scurvy” as a result of voluntary food selection choice. It seems the “single” part is because women opt for an increase in fruit/vegetable consumption rather than a Leave it to Beaver cliche of women in the kitchen. As it turns out, quasi-scientific studies confirm a certain level of disdain for vegetables by men…

Most Vegetarians Are Women

I think it’s safe to say that the go-t0 resource for wisdom related to evolutionary based diets is Vegetarian Times (VT). Thus, I’m happy to report that a study they commissioned in 1992 found that women are more than twice as likely to be vegetarians as men. At that time 68% of vegetarians were women compared to the remaining 32% of men. They went on to speculate that this difference is because women care about health and men don’t. There may be some truth to that, but since the assertion was unsupported, I remain highly skeptical. There are certainly other explanations available.

The premise of the VT article was that the president of the North American Vegetarian Society (a heterosexual female) couldn’t find a suitable vegetarian man to date (understandable, as I have recurring nightmares of this guy and his hat). Tapping into folk wisdom once again, I refer you to Pulp Fiction…

“…my girlfriend is a vegetarian, which pretty-much makes me a vegetarian.” – @ 0:53 below
[cft format=0]

Rather than assuming that only 32% of men are vegetarians, I wonder if it isn’t true that less than 32% of men would be vegetarians if they weren’t influenced by, or trying to impress, vegetarian women.

In a sidebar of the same VT article, a referenced study surveyed individuals in the 18-35 age bracket regarding their food cravings. The results showed that 33% of men craved meat or fish in the previous year, compared to only 9% of women. It seems that when thinking about taste and/or satisfaction, men display an almost fourfold increase in a desire for meat when compared to women. So aside from the ideas that men can’t cook and don’t care about health, what evolutionary explanations are available?

Hunter-Gatherer Explanation?

If the bulk of human evolution consisted of hunter-gatherer tribes in which men did most of the hunting (and therefore killing), and women did most of the gathering/foraging, could natural selection have favored mental traits that favored men with less reservations about killing animals? Could this have resulted in males more comfortable with processing, and ultimately in eating, meat? In environments in which hunting and eating animals afforded survival and reproductive advantages, it would make sense for males who psychologically objected to this practice to suffer increased selection pressure. In other words, quasi-moral vegetarian tendencies would be a direct disadvantage to men in hunting societies.

The meat craving study referenced in VT also found that the gap in cravings between men and women decreased from 24% to 16% in populations over the age of 65. While the 36-64 age group is missing from the article, we can make some assumptions about the 65+ group. Perhaps most importantly, this is beyond the reproductive age of nearly all women. Women’s cravings for meat more than double from the lower age bracket to the upper one. Thus, there could be a relevant factor in the consumption of plant matter in relation to fecundity (fertility) and/or diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding. The data in this study is insufficient to clarify this, but it’s an interesting question worthy of further study.

Parting Ponderings

First, I’m interested in any research or insight that may be relevant to this question. I find it unlikely that there isn’t research that I simply missed. If you can point out other information that may shed more light on this, please add it in the comments below.

As I said in the beginning, I can’t commit to a solid hypothesis on this. There seems to be some instinctual inclination toward increased meat collection, preparation, and consumption in men. There’s certainly a significantly larger percentage of women who are vegetarians. I find current explanations of why men would shun consumption of vitamin C containing foods to be absolutely unconvincing. So… what’s the deal?

References
Connelly, T. J., Becker, A. and McDonald, J. W. (1982), Bachelor Scurvy. International Journal of Dermatology, 21: 209–210.
Hirschmann J.V., Raugi G.J. (1999), Adult Scurvy. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. 41(6): 895-906.

Stereotypes of sports fans abound. This seems to be a universal. Comics use the stereotypes as common fodder. Sitcoms use the stereotypes as common fodder. It doesn’t really matter which sport it is, there are likely to be stereotypes of the fans. One of the more interesting is the posturing of male fans representing themselves as more masculine than both one another and non-fans. Any rational look at sports fans will realize the act of watching sports is passive, and an abstraction from reality. Shallow arguments can be made about the physical jostling that goes on in stadium seats, but in general, fans get their fix from a seat… and most often, through a screen. Those in seats in the stadium are experiencing sports through one degree of abstraction. Those watching on a screen through two degrees of abstraction. Fantasy football, which makes a fantasy out of a 2nd degree abstraction, is particularly distant.

“The jager- and buffalo-wing-tinged air inside a sports bar settles damply on a sea of rapt bros watching grown men lope across huge expanses of Astroturf, likely muttering “Rabblerabblerabble” as they run. Patrons at such a joint pound their fists, yell a lot, spill beer, sweat, shout and jump and pound chests when something ostensibly good happens on the enormous televisions, watch the commercials with equal interest, and refer to teams whose collective salary could probably fund annual education for all of Sudan’s children as “we.” Sports. Bars. Suck.” [STUFF HIPSTERS HATE]

So what does psychology have to say about the quasi-alpha-male behavior exhibited by fan boys? To do this, we get to subconsciously invoke another sports stereotype: the apelike mentality. Two studies in particular shed some light on fan mentality. First, a study from 1995 showed that some monkeys would rather be rewarded by the opportunity to watch videos of other monkeys than be rewarded with food (Andrews et al. 1995). Another showed that low-status monkeys are willing to pay (using their prized fruit juice as currency) to look at pictures of high-status males. Whereas high-status males won’t look at pictures of low-status males without being paid (Deaner et al. 2005).

Watching Monkey Sports?

Well now… a bunch of males paying to watching other males at the exclusion of other rewards. Hmm… who does that sound like!? Add to that the fact that the players typically don’t pay attention to fans without being paid (not only is this demonstrated by players’ salaries, but in speaking fees, fees for autographs etc.)  and the “fans as monkeys” stereotype is starting to make some sense from an evolutionary perspective. Based on the studies mentioned above, there is no alpha male value being demonstrated by fans.

Taking the logic a bit further, the stereotypes about women’s disdain for their men’s proclivity for fan-boy-itis start to make sense. Women allocate a large portion of mate value based on his status. Therefore, indirect demonstrations of low-status will tend to lower her perception of a man’s value as a partner.

Another interesting component of the psychology of these male sports fans is their internalization of the notion that their fan-ness will somehow transmit the status of the team to them. Moreover, the constant use of “we” in reference to the team, and fan superstition as an expression of irrational belief that they themselves have some influence over the team, is an attempt to signal that they are also somehow worthy of being attributed a share in the success of the team. The successes of the very external team are met with internal personal elation. The failures of the very external team are met with internal personal dejection.

Low-status is the default, majority, and status quo of the human population. As such, what does this do to the collective view of manhood, manliness, et cetera? Could the rise in television and the subsequent increase in 24-7 dedication to fanhood be a cause for the supposed increase in whimpiness of men?

Are you a sports fan? Are you willing to admit it here? Either way, what options are available to communicate actual status and value rather than *cough* aping the status of athletes who live in the same geographical area or go to a school you’ve heard of? Let me hear it…

References

Andrews, M., Bhat, M., & Rosenblum, L. (1995). Acquisition and long-term patterning of joystick selection of food-pellet vs social-video reward by Bonnet Macaques. Learning and Motivation, 26(4), 370-379.

Deaner, R. O., Khera, A. V., & Platt, M. L. (2005). Monkeys pay per view: adaptive valuation of social images by rhesus macaques. Current biology

Shocker! News just floated my way that Mr. McClellan just happens to also be a vegan advocate! An ABC affiliate reports (emphasis mine):

“For three years, [Cornell McClellan] served on the inter-national(sic) board for Earth Save, an organization founded by John Robbins, author of “Diet for a New America.” Their mission is to bring the world closer to a plant-based lifestyle. He was a member of Roots of Peace, a Chicago-based vegan group, whose mission is to educate the children and community about the benefits of a vegan lifestyle.” –ABC News Chicago

Well now does’t that put this hokum visual of your insides rotting in a bit of melodramatic context? “Eating a steak three times a day can potentially whittle your waistline, but the impact it’s having on your insides might not be as attractive”

The other main idea I proposed in the article was that religious folks often have an axe to grind with paleolithic diets because of the reliance on adaptive principles of Darwinian evolution. And double shocker:

Cornell’s Statement of Commitment
“I want clients to understand what needs to be done, and to commit to doing it. Living a healthy life is just one way to give thanks to God for the life He has given us.”

Now, I can’t say that Mr. McClellan is a Creationist at this point. However, the implications of the statement that “God” has “given us” life are many. It hints strongly at the negation of adaptation in human evolution. Notions of a creator god don’t allow room for evolution to happen in an adaptive way. Unlike the release of Darwin’s 1959 1859 work, “On the Origin of Species”, the paleo diet has a very real and visceral day-to-day meaning to people. Using the logical framework of a paleo approach tends to inherently keep the logic of evolution in one’s mind. Like Darwin’s book, paleo has the potential to cause further erosion of beliefs in Creationist myths and the anti-adaptationist motives of ID.

The new information on McClellan’s vegan advocacy adds another dimension to the lack of journalistic integrity in his original article. With this new light, the attempts to berate paleolithic diets by completely sensationalized rhetoric is amplified by concealing a very significant motivational bias. Sinister may be too strong of a word, but hiding a vegan advocacy agenda behind a nutritional propaganda is, to borrow the words of Mr. McClellan, “somewhat questionable”. Is that enough to qualify for “shill” status? You tell me.

UPDATE: November 7, 2010

McClellan apparently has a real problem with celebrities eating meat…

“McClellan bemoans the fact that celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Jessica Simpson have misconstrued vegan diets as being unhealthful; in a recent interview for her movie Salt, Jolie said that being a vegan “nearly killed me. I found that I was not getting enough nutrition.” …The best part of the article, though, is the fact that McClellan recommends Dreena’s cookbook Eat, Drink & Be Vegan” –Arsenalia.com

…and he’s clearly not skimping on the ultra vegan bias in general.

Perhaps the more important question is whether the vegan fad diet is healthy.

For a comprehensive list of paleo related links and, including some related to veg*an ideas, you might check out paleodiet.com.

Target

The seeds of this article have been on my mind for a while, but its timing is a reaction to an article I saw yesterday in the Chicago Sun Times titled “Meaty fad diet goes back to Stone Age“. Here we go… Back to the 3.4 million year “fad”. The author added to the fad rhetoric by calling the paleo diet “silly”. That sort of title is pretty common in the anti-paleo polemics that circulate in the blogosphere. However, this was from what I presumed to be a nominally significant traditional media outlet. It was clearly written by a non-journalist, which is fine I guess, but it struck me as particularly poorly researched. There were no online responses when I read it, so I fired off a hasty, but I think accurate, comment. At the time of this writing, it’s the first of a few comments, but who knows what whims might change that.

Semi-Irrelevant Backstory

When I first read the article, I read every word, but stopped at the 2nd to last sentence of the piece: “Cornell McClellan is the owner of Naturally Fit… a personal training and wellness facility.” Maybe it’s not fair nor accurate, but when I think gym owner / personal trainer, I envision a wall of supplements and meal replacement bars and powders… you know…. merchandise that needs to be “moved”. Thus, I tend to take their advice on nutrition with a grain of yeah, right. In missing the last sentence, I missed something that would have changed my comment somewhat. Here’s that non-trivial sentence: “He is also the fitness trainer for the President of the United States and the First Lady.” Yes, you may {insert scratching record sound here}.

Let it be known that I am was in no way hostile to the Obama administration when I read the article. Sure, I could work up a reasonable critique of a dozen or so things I think were bad policy decisions, but my critiques of the Bush Jr. administration would be measured in hundreds or thousands. For reasons mentioned by neither Democrats nor Republicans, I find the health care bill to be flawed. It also strikes me as unconstitutional, but I went to the law school of James Spader and William Shatner. To the Presiden’ts credit, as a non-theist, the following may be my favorite quote by any U.S. President since James Madison:

“I’m somebody who deeply believes that the bedrock strength of this country is that it embraces people of many faiths and no faith. This is a country that is still predominantly Christian, but we have… atheists, agnostics… that we have to revere and respect….” Barack Obama, September 28, 2010.<

The only reason I’m writing this article is that I got curious and googled Cornell McClellan. It was then that I found out he’s 1 of 16 official members of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition. It was only after finding that page that I went back to the article and connected all of the dots. I remain skeptical of its claim that Mr. McClellan has an “extensive knowledge of the human body and nutrition.”

The Meat of It

Cornell McClellan’s article really is garbage. I do encourage you to read the whole thing to take in the totality of its emptiness. The portrait of the paleo diet that he paints is more a cartoonish mischaracterization of the Atkins diet than paleo. And to be fair to the Atkins folks, it’s not a fair representation of them either.

The problem with this sort of article is that the average person sincerely looking for a way to improve their health is not likely to see through the unsupported assertions made by someone who’s a professional personal trainer backed by the President and officially promoted as an outstanding exemplar by the United States government. My thoughts and references follow each of the quoted snippets.

“a recent study has come out that refutes some of [the paleo diet’s] basic tenets. Findings from archeological digs in Italy, Russia and the Czech Republic suggest that cavemen did not only rely on meat for sustenance, as evidenced by traces of starch grains found on stones used for grinding and preparing food.”

Well at least Mr. McClellan did go so far as to read the Reuters blurb on this and maybe even the NYT piece [“page not found” error as of this writing]. However, the actual study did not reveal evidence of “grains” in the sense that would be appropriate for a paleo diet discussion of grains… namely, cereal grains such as wheat, barley, amaranth, millet, et cetera. The grains being referred to are grains in the sense that they are particulates; that is, the result of grinding. The popular science media misconstrued this research ad nauseum when it was first published. Its implications for paleo dieters are approximately zero. It’s been refuted many times, but Melissa McEwen provides my favorite critique thus far. It’s based on the actual study, not the other journalists’ general audience pieces, and she even bothered to include a relevant chart from the study that shows the non-grain plants in question.

Not trivial in the media coverage of this study was the post-publishing opining by some of the article’s authors. At least one made a wild and unsubstantiated guess that they used the ground plant material to make bread. I ask again, who among you thinks mashed potatoes are the same as bread? Perhaps we have to be scientists to make such a determination?

Archeologists were shocked to discover that our carnivorous ancestors actually were making and preparing foods such as roots, vegetables and perhaps even cracker-like foods.

Now this is just ridiculous. First of all, no serious scientist currently thinks our ancestors were “carnivores”. It is widely accepted by archaeologists and anthropologists that humans evolved as omnivores. I’d let laymen off the hook on this distinction, but Mr. McClellan knows better and is exaggerating for effect. The paleo diet approach simply echoes a range of foods our omnivorous ancestors would have had access to. Second, there are longstanding hypotheses and evidence of hominid “preparation” of roots and vegetables. The rest of us know that crackers were invented by the Keebler elves, no earlier than the First Age of Middle-Earth. Proving that humans made crackers in the paleolithic is about as likely as leading us to a magical elven forest.

These recent findings suggest that man cannot live on meat alone, but that hasn’t stopped thousands of people from signing up for the Paleo Diet.

Now we’re getting ridiculous-er. The paleolithic diet doesn’t suggest that anyone could, should, or would survive on meat alone.  I’m sure someone could make a case that humans could survive on meat alone, but it would remain a question of how long and how well. Scientists do hypothesize that Neanderthals were mostly carnivorous, but they’re a separate species and that argument is beside the point.

a meat-heavy diet isn’t recommended for most people. Not only do I discourage any diet that disallows entire food groups, but cholesterol levels are directly linked to the ingestion of animal products.

Meat-heavy is vague, unhelpful, and pejorative in a way the author clearly intended. Here we also have a legitimate disagreement on what constitutes a food group. Grain might be a Food Group, but it is not a group of foods or nutrients required for human health. There are no essential nutrients found in grains that are not found in dramatically higher concentrations in the other “food groups”. Yes, grains, as a practical matter, are necessary to sustain the massive current global population of Homo sapiens with the current agribusiness-dominated farming system, but they are by no means necessary for individual people. Please examine your assumptions, Mr. McClellan.

The final claim about cholesterol and animal products is too big to discuss here. I’ll blindly assert his unsupported claim has been sufficiently refuted and address references should they be provided at some future time.

Eating a steak three times a day can potentially whittle your waistline, but the impact it’s having on your insides might not be as attractive. Sadly, Paleo dieters also are encouraged to limit fruit to small helpings, as it believed that our ancestors didn’t have access to the amazing produce offerings that we now do.

Until I see a citation for the “steak three times a day” charge, I’m going to assume that it’s again made up for dramatization of the author’s non-point. While our ancestors did eat a lot of meat when it was available, it wasn’t available in steak form three times a day. Such is life when you don’t have refrigeration and a pantry.

Paleo dieters are encouraged to adjust fruit consumption based on their current body composition and how much exercise they’re getting. Fruit generally has naturally high levels of sugar. Is it really sad to suggest that obese, sedentary individuals throttle back on their intake of sugar, while marathon runners shovel it down as needed?

Not only are these diet choices somewhat questionable, it’s also worth pointing out that our Stone Age ancestors were not eating factory-farmed meat, which is full of chemicals and hormones. Unless you have a spear handy and access to unlimited buffalo, you are going to have a hard time truly eating like a caveman.

Yes, the mythical all meat diet that excludes spuriously essential food groups and bans fruit would definitely be questionable. Unfortunately for the arguments of Mr. McClellan, that isn’t the paleo diet. The paleolithic dieters are fully aware of the problems with factory farmed, chemically-treated meat and make it a point to eat naturally fed (typically grass or pastured) meats. And yes, such meats are difficult to find at a fast food window, but they are often available at standard grocery stores. And as I’ve said before, paleo is a logical framework applied to modern humans, not a historical reenactment.

Finally, any diet that is as restrictive as the Paleo Diet is problematic because it requires cavemen-sized willpower, which means many people will soon abandon their hunks of meat for a modern-day helping of lasagna.

The willpower problem is a modern diet carbohydrate addiction problem, not a paleolithic problem. Direct links have been demonstrated between carbohydrate cravings and obesity (Spring 2008). In effect, suggesting that sufficient willpower is too difficult implies that we should all simply give up and submit to an unbreakable cycle of carbohydrate addiction. The cool thing about paleolithic diets is that most people find the addiction and cravings go away. Indeed, you find yourself quite full if you eat ample amounts of meat, fruit, and vegetables.

After discovering the naive nutritional understanding of “The First Trainer”, I’m a little worried for the President. I hope his doctors aren’t using similarly anachronistic, post-medieval methods. Nobody likes leeches and bloodletting.

McClellan’s sagelike advice? Don’t eat “Big Macs”. Deet deeeet deeet deet deeeet… This just in off the news wire.

Dear President Obama, myself and many others in the paleo community would be happy to update your nutrition regime. P.S. Please tell President Clinton he could probably use a bit more protein these days. Bonus: Many of us have a natural immune system resistance to TV and radio pundits. Which brings me to my next point…

Religion

Religion (in some forms) is fundamentally anti-paleo. Obvious culprits in this regard are Creationists. While I formally and warmly invite them to apply paleolithic ideas to their eating and exercise habits, it’s also pretty obvious that the paleo diet relies on the logic of Darwinian evolution. Some folks who believe in “intelligent” design may also be inclined to reject the logic of the paleo diet. The adaptive power of natural selection in evolutionary theory is a foundation of the paleo diet. If a divine force was guiding the process, adaptation would be irrelevant. It could be claimed that the “intelligence” knew all along that humans would need grain to force an artificially large population explosion, and therefore, paleolithic habits would be irrelevant.

I personally know Creationists who have been quite successful on the paleo diet. I wonder how they ignore the implications there. If their holy books tell them eating bread is a good thing, how do they reconcile that unhealthy advice with reality?

Corporate Interests

I don’t want to get all conspiratorial, but I think it’s at least worth considering financial influence in politics as it relates to pushback against paleolithic dieting. As the famous quote from the 1976 film All the President’s Men says, “Follow the money”. And lookey here, we just happen to be talking about one of the President’s men. The list below highlights a few publicly traded companies with direct financial interest in producing, fertilizing, transporting, and/or distributing paleo-unfriendly wheat & corn products for human consumption [2010 Fortune 500 Rank, $Revenue]. Major direct producers in bold.

• Wal-Mart [1]
• Exxon Mobil [2]
• Chevron [3]
• ConocoPhillips [6]
• CVS Caremark [18]
• Procter & Gamble [22]
• Kroger [23]
• Costco Wholesale [25]
• Walgreen [32]
• Marathon Oil [41]
• PepsiCo [50, $43 billion]
• Safeway [52]
• Kraft Foods [53, $40 billion]
• Sysco [55, $37 billion]
• Coca-Cola [72, $31 billion]
• Tyson Foods [87, $27 billion]
• Rite Aid [89]
• Publix Super Markets [99]
• Deere [107]
• McDonald’s [108, $23 billion]
• Coca-Cola Enterprises [113, $22 billion]
• Tesoro [139]
• General Mills [155 $15 billion]
• Smithfield Foods [163, $14 billion]
• Pepsi Bottling [174, $13 billion]
• ConAgra Foods [178, $13 billion]
• Sara Lee [180, $13 billion]
• Kellog [184, $13 billion]
• Monsanto [197]

I’ll just leave it at that for now. Government subsidies of the crops in question raises an entirely different, yet equally important level of questioning. If I get requests to flesh this out further, maybe I’ll put some more work into it.

Vegan / Vegetarian

Noooooo… Not again! There are a lot of veg*ans out there. They’re politically active, they like to team up, and they [some] hate that other people eat meat.

Guilt by Association / Ad Hominem

We see this time and again in propagandists rallying against those of unknown motives trying to quash the idea that eating grains is bad (see the reference to Gwyneth Paltrow in the intro here). This is true in attacks on anti-gluten folks and anti-paleo folks.  Indeed Cornell McClellan injects this approach into his piece, “celebrities such as Megan Fox are rumored to owe their hot bodies to this ancient diet plan… there is no secret behind the body of your favorite celebrity”. Dismissing something as a celebrity fad is itself a fad and it carries with it a very real sign (in the semiotic sense) value. Its cultural meaning instantly evokes mental images of superficiality, imminent expiration, and flakiness. Thus, accusing something of being a celebrity fad associates the idea of hollow vapidity to whatever is linked to it. Propaganda 101, baby.

Conclusion

We have good reason to question the personal business motivations, political motivations, and religious motivations of individuals launching derisive attacks at paleo. The financial stakes alone are in the hundreds of billions (more likely trillions) annually. The perceived religious stakes are just as powerful and perhaps more, if slightly less lucrative and less…um… what’s the word I’m looking for here? The stakes for vegetarians can be just as powerful and personal.

There are reasonable arguments within the scientific community that are worth having. However, when pieces such as McClellan’s hit the media with such a gaping chasm between the known science and the claims, red flags should go off and alarm bells should ring.

Yes, our knowledge of the paleolithic environment in which humans evolved is less than 100% complete. However, we know a lot more about it than Mr. McClellan and other politically motivated paleo haters would lead you to believe. We know enough to help people in a very real and immediate way. I’ll link up a couple books below, and feel free to ask me questions if you’re not sure about where to start or where to go next.

Slainte,

Andrew

UPDATE: Cornell McClellan is a vegan advocate!

References

Spring, B., Schneider, K., Smith, M., Kendzor, D., Appelhans, B., Hedeker, D., et al. (2008). Abuse potential of carbohydrates for overweight carbohydrate cravers. Psychopharmacology, 197(4), 637-647.

What is the “Adventure Gene”?

The science on the genetics of personality is still in its infancy. It landed on the world in 1996, with two papers attempting to link Novelty Seeking (NS) and Extraversion with the DRD4 gene coding for a particular dopamine receptor in the brain (Ebstein 2006). It’s important to consider that the interaction of particular gene expressions within individuals is quite complex. The interaction of multiple genes can yield a range of results. Therefore, we can’t say the gene discussed here is an on or off switch that says people with one variant will necessarily act a certain way and those with another variant will necessarily act according to another set of expectations. So literally… there is no single, binary adventure gene that determines whether or not you’ll be boring or awesome. However, links to personality traits that would tend to bias an individual toward certain personality traits that would lead someone to be more adventurous are starting to pop up. Enough of the scientifically required equivocation… back to DRD4…

Novelty Seeking

The problem with science is that somebody has to pay for it. Don’t get all “it’s all a drug company conspiracy” on me now! What that means for this discussion is that most of the early research on the genetics of personality has involved “disorders” such as ADHD. Thus, we need to parse a bit of the jargon. “Novelty Seeking” is a specific personality used by researchers and professionals to make comparisons from one person to the next. The research here talks about it like crazy, but let’s go colloquial.

The Non-Technical Guide to Novelty Seeking

• Tendency to respond strongly to novelty
• Exploratory activity in pursuit of rewards
• Active avoidance of monotony
• Active avoidance of punishment
• Less influenced by emotion (especially fear) in risk assessment (Roussos et al. 2009)

Say what? Novelty seeking means seeking novelty? Shocker… I know. The trouble is that if you read the literature, much of it discusses NS in terms that may make you think of depraved gambling addicted meth fiend crack head zombies (see Igor, science fun). As it turns out, novelty, and the other tendencies, have serious implications when we start to talk about how this relates to human evolution and the spirit of adventure required to populate the entire planet.

When we start looking at DRD4, it turns out that a specific variant significantly correlates with NS. In such individuals, those with the “adventure gene” present by using less emotion to make decisions and are less impacted by the negative emotions of others when forced to make decisions. Some people are more inclined to be “response ready” when faced with tough decisions in situations of uncertainty and emergency. (Wang et al. 2004)

Consistent with this “response ready” behavior hypothesis is the significantly better performance of DRD4 knockout mice on tests of complex coordination and the observed faster reaction times exhibited by individuals with [the adventure gene], in comparison to [the boring gene] individuals (Roussos et al. 2009).

Humans with the adventure gene also tend to be startled less. What I found interesting about that is not only do they seem less startled physically (they don’t tend to jump and squeal with shock), but their emotional response to being startled is also attenuated. This tendency is true on a short-term scale, but also holds up when stretched over time. These individuals maintained their ability to plan, make decisions, and undertake complex problem solving in the face of direct threat or in novel environments (Roussos et al. 2009).

We’re starting to get a pretty solid picture of the type of person you might want to turn to when things get ugly. For now, we’ll go ahead and ignore the fact that this sort of behavior can be problematic when my ex-girlfriends others have to deal with me these relatively detached wayward souls on a day-to-day basis… when nothing dramatic is afoot.

Paleo Exit from Africa

So much happened in the paleolithic! Not only did our favorite species, Homo sapiens, hit the scene, but the travel industry was born! The migration of humans across the globe had such an impact on our psychology that, to this day, we can simply put “travel” in a list of things we like and all the sexy people in a hundred mile radius will feel an irresistible attraction to us.

Sure, Homo erectus had the travel industry cornered a few hundred thousand years before us, but hey… they’re kind of us too. Current estimates for the last out-of Africa exodus focus on 44,000-47,000 years ago. And wouldn’t you now it, the explosion of the adventure gene in the population has been dated to 40,000-50,000 years ago by completely different methods (Wang et al. 2004; Roussos et al. 2009).

“The simplest explanation, then, for this worldwide [spread] is the most straightforward: the [adventure gene] was strongly selected for at about the time of the last major out-of-Africa exodus (Wang et al. 2004)”.

Now why oh why would something christened “the adventure gene” by hyperbolic determinism have been strongly selected for during a global migration?

Evolutionary Considerations

Make no mistake about it, we’ve ventured well beyond evolutionary biology to get to this point. We’re talking about genes that directly influence behavior and cognition for favorable survival and reproductive success. That’s right confused minions… evolutionary psychology. Before long, we’ll all be automatons controlled by our genes making us tell everyone we want to be astronauts and firemen! Oh Noes!

“It has been suggested that [the adventure gene] would have great evolutionary importance contributing to major human migratory expansions in the past. Indeed, it is conceivable that risk taking with efficient problem solving, under-reactivity to unconditioned aversive stimuli and low emotional reactivity in the face of preserved attentional processing of emotional stimuli may have been advantageous phenotypic characteristics fostering migration and expansion. Low emotional reactivity is associated with high emotional endurance which can afford physical, emotional and mental resilience in the face of adversity in perilous environments. The disadvantageous decision making in [the adventure gene], high NS individuals does not necessarily result in dysfunctional behavior, since all our subjects were normal healthy volunteers, with no history or presence of psychiatric illness. It may even be that [the adventure] genotype may be protective against stress, anxiety and depression by moving attention away from emotional adversity, as an analogue to the psychological termof “denial” (Roussos et al. 2009).”

In other words… “[The adventure gene] appears to be favoured by selection (1) when benefits can be gained from migrating to new environments , and (2) under resource-rich environmental conditions (Penke et al. 2007 )”. And the extra bonus is that it may protect individuals from downward emotional spirals in adverse situations. So maybe you get accused of a little misanthropy from time to time. Ah well… it will probably seem worth it when you’re having more fun than everyone else.

What could be the behavioral differences that are selected for? By observing current genetically influenced differences in human personality, it has been suggested that resource-depleted, time-critical, or rapidly changing environments might select for individuals with “response ready” adaptations, whereas resource-rich, time-optimal, or little-changing environments might select against such adaptations . We have speculated that such a “response ready” adaptation might have played a role in the out-of-Africa exodus and that allele frequencies of genes associated with such behavior certainly would be influenced, subsequently, by the local cultural milieu (Wang et al. 2004).

Referring to these findings, [others] noted that under conditions of environmental harshness and resource scarcity (as is common in hunter-gatherer societies), intensive cooperation, strong family ties, stable pair bonds, and biparental investment are necessary for survival and successful reproduction. These ancestrally typical conditions would maintain the more risk-averse, ancestral form of the [the adventure gene] (Penke et al. 2007)

In this model, the 4R variant has been honed for hundreds of thousands of years to function optimally, whereas [the adventure gene] variants are suboptimal yet confer a behavioral advantage in some environments. Though the “response ready” hypothesis was proposed as an environmental adaptation, sexual selection has long been proposed as another source of human variation (Darwin 1871). (Wang et al. 2004)

The next question for me is… “So what do we do with this information?” If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them below. To my mind, it would be an act of violence (in the parlance of Foucault) for society to place constraints on this group of people. If some of us suffer rapt elation at the prospect of adventure and exploration, wouldn’t herding such children into pens of monotony be a “tyrrany of the majority” of a serious flavor? Or is it better to reign in such impulses… to keep them in hibernation until such characteristics are needed?

And… Why is adventure so damned sexy that it’s the foundation of memes?

Please leave a minimum of 3 comments (yes, 3 each ya slackers) below.

[cft format=0]

Be sure and subscribe via RSS or email (up and to the right) so you don’t miss out when we discuss such delightful topics as…

But under more luxuriant environmental conditions, when children can survive without so much paternal support (as in most agricultural and modern societies), the more risk-seeking 7R allele should be favoured by selection, as it leads to a personality more prone to sexual promiscuity and intrasexual competition (Penke et al. 2007).

and… Your paleo brain in the modern world…

We have speculated that the same traits that may be selected for in individuals with a DRD4 7R allele also may predispose behaviors that are deemed inappropriate in the typical classroom setting and hence diagnosed as ADHD. In this environmental-mismatch hypothesis (Hartman 1993; Jensen et al. 1997), the DRD4 7R subset of individuals diagnosed with ADHD is assumed to have a different, evolutionarily successful behavioral strategy, rather than a disorder. It is also possible, however, that DRD4 7R, although selected for in human populations, could have deleterious effects when combined with genetic variants in other genes. (Wang et al. 2004)

Oh your heart is pounding just thinking about it! I can almost feel it. No, seriously. You didn’t feel that?

References

Ebstein, R. P. (2006). The molecular genetic architecture of human personality: beyond self-report questionnaires. Molecular psychiatry, 11(5), 427-45. [Link]

Penke, L., Denissen, J. J., & Miller, G. F. (2007). The evolutionary genetics of personality. European Journal of Personality, 21, 549-587. [Link]

Roussos, P., Giakoumaki, S. G., & Bitsios, P. (2009). Cognitive and emotional processing in high novelty seeking associated with the L-DRD4 genotype. Neuropsychologia, 47(7), 1654-9. [Link]

Wang, E., Ding, Y., Flodman, P., Kidd, J. R., Kidd, K. K., Grady, D. L., et al. (2004). The genetic architecture of selection at the human dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) gene locus. American journal of human genetics, 74(5), 931-44. [Link]

Food! On this particular day, I set out amply satiated by a hearty breakfast. Knowing me, it was something intended to be an omelet,  but wouldn’t fold over once I’d thoroughly packed it with goodness. The plan was just to hit the trail and count off however many miles I cram into about four hours. And yes, I’m fully blaming the whopping 2 miles per hour average that I clocked to tasty sea creatures. When there’s a fork in the trail, and a post in the ground is etched with an arrow pointing to the left that says “beach”, and an arrow to the right that says “trail”, I go left. And when the tide is low and the rocks are exposed, I get wet.

How to Harvest Mussels

Depending on where you live in the world, harvesting shellfish can be a sketchy endeavor. Our civilization(s) have done an excellent job of bringing the oceans to the brink of death. One great thing about the Oregon Coast is that it’s often safe to eat the shellfish. Another great thing is that there’s a handy website with current updates on the safety of various shellfish. I peek at it at regular intervals just in case I happen to run into an opportunity. On this day, opportunity abounded. So I took to the water and sliced a large clump of mussels from the rocks and had an impromptu snack.

Mussels are pretty easy to procure if you can get to the rocks they’re fond of. They adhere directly to the rocks, but not enough to prevent you from pulling them off. They’re often connected together in big masses of stringy fibers that, if left intact, makes them easy to carry in a pre-arranged bunch. I just cut the stringy stuff around a big bunch, then pry them off individually without breaking the stringies holding them together. If you have a blade that you don’t mind prying them off the rocks with, this may be a little easier.

A note on mussels… the size of the shell doesn’t necessarily indicate the amount of meat inside. Of course, the tiny ones have very little meat, but the huge shelled monsters seem to have about the same amount of meat as the medium ones. When harvesting them, I try to get a patch that are all medium-huge and leave the tiny ones. You’ll typically notice they’re clustered in similar sizes based on their location on the rocks. If anyone knows the most sustainable pattern for harvesting, please let me know…. unless your answer is “go vegan”. Yeah vegans… I know you’re smart-asses, but you’re adorable all the same.

Cooking

Cooking mussels is pretty simple. They can be boiled, steamed, baked, grilled, et cetera. Just like cooking clams, they need to be cooked until they open up a bit. If they don’t open, they’re probably dead and it’s best to skip those. If you’re pulling them straight off the rocks, they’re probably not going to be dead. I didn’t have any cookware with me. All I did was start up a fire with the fire-starter I keep in my pack, then find something to hold them out of the fire while they cooked. In this case, I roamed the beach a bit and found a shipwrecked crab pot. I simply positioned the mesh metal grate lid over a fire and propped it in place with some rocks. At other times, I’ve cooked them on rocks placed in the middle of the fire, or even with sticks (very green wood) spanning the fire in a crossing pattern. In the latter case, the mussels cooked before the sticks burned.

I keep forgetting to add some salt and tiny bottles of white wine to my pack. Those can easily be tossed in and forgotten about until the moment they’re needed.

I estimate this amount of mussels would cost approximately $11,543,456,034.05 at a restaurant. Because of the bulk of the shells, they had to weigh over 10 pounds total. Yum!

The gallery below includes pictures from the paleo snackeo and the trail/beach that day. It’s from the Evolvify.com Facebook Page.

From Evolvify (Showing 34 of 101 items)

Generated by Facebook Photo Fetcher

jQuery(document).ready(function(){ jQuery(function(){
jQuery(“.gallery-icon a”).lightBox({
imageBlank:”http://evolvify.com/wp-content/plugins/facebook-photo-fetcher/jquery-lightbox/images/lightbox-blank.gif”,
imageBtnClose:”http://evolvify.com/wp-content/plugins/facebook-photo-fetcher/jquery-lightbox/images/lightbox-btn-close.gif”,
imageBtnNext:”http://evolvify.com/wp-content/plugins/facebook-photo-fetcher/jquery-lightbox/images/lightbox-btn-next.gif”,
imageBtnPrev:”http://evolvify.com/wp-content/plugins/facebook-photo-fetcher/jquery-lightbox/images/lightbox-btn-prev.gif”,
imageLoading:”http://evolvify.com/wp-content/plugins/facebook-photo-fetcher/jquery-lightbox/images/lightbox-ico-loading.gif”
}); }); });

For context, I’ve also added some of the “great” moments in agricultural history. This is followed up by a chronological links of the major books related to the paleo diet and its aliases. I’m working on making this list more detailed and potentially adding a list of scholarly articles. It would be cool to be able to visualize the relative time periods as well. In a text list, it’s easy to lose perspective of how little time humans have been eating grains.

Pre-Homo Species

-6,000,000 Divergence from other ape species

-3,750,000 Australopithecus afarensis (staples: fruit, leaves, pith, seeds)

Paleolithic Era

-2,600,000 Lower Paleolithic (first stone tools)
-1,900,000 Homo rudolfensis (staples: leaves, seeds, tubers opportunistic: fruits, large insects, small vertebrates)
-1,900,000 Homo erectus (staples: fruit, meat opportunistic: small vertebrates, insects)
-1,830,000 Homo habilis (staples: fruit, leaves, herbs opportunistic: meat from large vertebrates)
-1,810,000 Homo georgicus (staples: tubers, roots, seeds, herbs, opportunistic: fruit, meat)
-1,600,000 Homo ergaster (staples: meat, small vertebrates, tubers, fruits, seeds, nuts, insects)
-700,000 Homo antecessor (staples: herbs, seeds, tubers, roots seasonal: nuts, fruits, mushrooms, meat)
-600,000 Homo rhodensiensis (80% plant sources, 20% animal sources)
-420,000 Homo pekinensis (staples: herbs, seeds, nuts, roots, tubers seasonal: meat, fruit, berries)
-400,000 Homo heidelbergensis (80% plant sources, 20% animal sources)
-250,000 Middle Paleolithic (stone scrapers, points, backed knives, etc.)
-200,000 Homo sapiens (modern human species)
-175,000 Homo neanderthalensis (staples: large game, bone marrow, cannibalism opportunistic: plants)
-40,000 Upper Paleolithic (musical instruments, blade tools, spear-throwers, bows and arrows)
-10,000 (BCE) End of Pleistocene

Neolithic Era

-9,500 (BCE) Earliest Agriculture
-8,800 (BCE) Earliest archaeological evidence of harvested emmer wheat
-7800 (BCE) Earliest archaeological evidence of harvested eikorn wheat
-7500 (BCE) Domestication of Maize/Corn
-7000 (BCE) Neolithic Agricultural Revolution (emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, barley, lentil, pea, chickpea, bitter vetch, flax)
-7000 (BCE) Humans breed durum (pasta) wheat by artificial selection of emmer wheat
-7000 (BCE) Average human height shrinks by 5 to 6″ (An Edible History of Humanity)

Paleolithic Era Part II: The Return

1975 – The Stone Age Diet by Walter L. Voegtlin

1989 – The Paleolithic Prescription by S. Boyd Eaton, Marjorie Shostak, and Melvin Konner

1995 – NeanderThin: A Caveman’s Guide to Nutrition by Ray Audette, Troy Gilchrist, and Alan S Brown

2002 – The Paleo Diet, Cordain

2005 – The Evolution Diet by Joseph Stephen Breese Morse

2005 – The Paleo Diet for Athletes By Loren Cordain and Joe Friel

2006 –  Evolution of the Human Diet: The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable by Peter S. Ungar

2009 – The Original Diet: The Omnivore’s Solution by Roy Mankovitz

2009 – Primal Body-Primal Mind by Nora Teresa Gedgaudas

2009 – The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson

2009 – Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham

2010 – The Paleo Solution, by Robb Wolf

2010 – ‘The New Evolution Diet: What Our Paleolithic Ancestors Can Teach Us about Weight Loss, Fitness, and Aging by Arthur De Vany

2011 – ‘Everyday Paleo‘ by Sarah Fragoso (Foreword by Robb Wolf)