I can’t say that it’s cheaper in the U.S. per se. But on a volume basis, it’s cheaper to buy whole foods for paleo eating than it is to buy processed food. It’s also cheaper to buy grass-fed beef in bulk than it is to buy junk beef at the grocery store. I picked up 1/4 of a grass-fed cow from the butcher about 10 days ago, and paid less for the steaks than random ground beef at the store. Local pastured eggs are a lot cheaper, but I can’t always get more than a dozen a week.

But… the “elitist” thing persists. Coincidentally, here are a few terms that people searched for to find my blog just today! Check out the 4th one…

This is something I plan on writing about in the near future, but I may meander through a couple other posts to get there.

Oh, and thanks for you comment over on Mark’s blog. I already commented on that thread quite a bit and didn’t want to dominate it even more.

In New Zealand I have been able to selectively eat free-range (eggs & bacon) and some organic fruit items (all our meat is grassfed with no cost penalty), AT LOWER COST than pre-paleo… because I generally need to eat less. Add in the associated lower costs of healthcare, and it is anything but elitist. Hearing that it is elitist or too expensive (again, in New Zealand at least), does not hold true and becomes a tiresome counter-argument.

I agree whole-heartedly! Everything we have, good and bad, is downstream from agriculture. When we discovered that I can grow enough food for all of us, then you can make clothing and David can make pottery and Angela can build houses. Eventually there are enough specialists, and therefore enough "stuff", for some to amass more than others and gain power and influence. Then decisions must be made about laws and such, so we turn to the smartest, strongest, or most ambitious among us to make these dicisions while we toil away, and government is born. Obviously this is a gross oversimplification, but the "agriculture is the root of all evil" theory is not tough to graph.

And yet somehow, I’m not a Luddite.

Population control by the inability of an environment to support population X in any species has been a constant adaptive pressure since forever. There is a fundamental flaw in the assumption humans are exempt from this. Environmental collapse is the Dawrinian solution to species who evolve in a way that ignores (usually non-consciously, but the result is the same if it's conscious) this fact.

The "we have to support the biggest population possible" argument seems strange to me. It's almost as if those making it consider it unethical and suggest future humans that are mathematically possible, yet don't exist, have rights to exist.

As a side note: did you see my post that briefly mentions commodity trading related to gluten? It’s indirectly related, but this is all stuff I think about.

On your two points, which I think are inextricably linked… It’s not the fault of the paleo community that the world’s food supply is based on a grain-centric, monoculture, CAFO nightmare. Within a capitalist system, the more momentum paleo gains, the closer it will get to effecting positive change. Damning it as an elitist movement is too cynical for me, and seems only to state the temporary truth of today rather than consider the future implications. That seems rather short-sighted. Ironically, the poor, many of which are forced to subsist on grains, perhaps stand to benefit from paleo more than anyone.

The notion of efficiency and requisite consumption levels is only true if we continue to assume that the current methods of farming (of plants and animals) are the most efficient. I’d say that assumption is flat wrong.

[youtube guxA3PQ1jv0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guxA3PQ1jv0 youtube]

Your rejection of my thesis and argument, while certainly your prerogative, seems like a non sequitur. The issues you mention are in no way mutually exclusive of mine. Rather, they seem quite compatible, if not symbiotic. So… I’m going to go ahead and continue to include both in my thinking. 🙂

I hope you’ll subscribe via RSS or email as it’s always been my intention to address the things you’re concerned with. It’s just that this blog has only been online for 5 1/2 weeks… 2 of which were spent with me unable to type due to a broken bone in my shoulder. But I’ll get there…

Oh, and if you’re looking for someone else who’s thinking along these same lines, check out Kevin at <a href="http://www.paleoplaybook.com” target=”_blank”> <a href="http://www.paleoplaybook.com” target=”_blank”>www.paleoplaybook.com

My recent post The Myth of Food

However the recent emergence of the Paleo diet is disturbs me on two fronts that nobody seems to be addressing. The first is that the Paleo diet is an elitist diet. Most of the world cannot afford to eat this way. Now that’s fine and all but it needs to be acknowledged.

The second, related and most important is that meat production is not efficient. The conversion of grains to meat is not sustainable in today’s world and certainly North American consumption levels could not be adopted in the poorer 80% of the planet without causing massive famines.

Now I agree that many of the points in your previous post, including corporate interests in wheat/corn negatively impacting world diets and that this fellow McClellan may be a crock are valid, but the first opens up the whole giant issue of commodities trading and its negative affect on the worlds poor and the second just reinforces the truth that the world is full of loud obnoxious narcissists. Now, I think on an individual level the Paleo diet has its attraction and makes sense in many ways.

Also, almost every post I read also advocates free range and organic meat which I agree is a great movement and the more demand, the more pressure on meat producers to improve their health standards, the better, but this remains a diet for rich North Americans, (I exclude Europeans as for some reason they are able to smoke, drink, eat crepes and roast duck, and exude health and longevity into old age). For these reasons I ignore your thesis and argument almost completely as I feel it addresses an irrelevant argument and ignores the obvious. I do enjoy your writing immensely and please continue engaging us with your often thought provoking material.