Gather

One of the most interesting conversation I've had about food was with a Pirahã. It occurred when I ate a salad in the village for the first time.

Rice, beans, fish, and wild game, smothered under copious amount of Tabasco sauce, can keep one's culinary drive satisfied up to a point. But if you like the crunch of fresh lettuce, then after a few months you might begin to dream about eating a salad.

The missionary plane visited us every eight weeks in the jungle to bring mail and supplies. It was our only contact with the world outside the Pirahãs. On one trip, I sent out a note to a fellow missionary and asked if he would do me the tremendous favor of sending some salad makings on the next flight. Two months later, our salad arrived.

That evening I sat down to my first taste of lettuce, tomatoes, and cabbage in six months. Xahopati walked up to watch me eat. He looked bemused.

"Why are you eating leaves?" he asked. "Don't you have any meat?"

The Pirahãs are very particular about foods, and they believe, as we do to some degree, that the foods you eat determine the person you become.

"Yes. I have a lot of canned meat," I assured him. "But I like these leaves! I have not had any for many moons."

My Pirahã friend looked at me, then at the leaves, then back at me. "Pirahãs don't eat leaves," he informed me. "This is why you don't speak our language well. We Pirahãs speak our language well and we don't eat leaves."

This is from Daniel Everett's Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes. I first heard about him through this New Yorker article. He was sent as a missionary to convert the Pirahã tribe in the Amazon by learning their seemingly-impossible language. In the process he was turned from a pious missionary to non-theist linguistics professor. To a linguist, the Pirahã are fascinating because they have no numbers or recursion in their language. To anthropologists they are also fascinating because their culture values immediacy and first-hand experience above everything. They are resistant to Christianity because they do not believe in anything that they themselves have not experienced. They have no formalized religion or religious rituals, but they firmly believe in spirits and often consort with them.

The Pirahã are no longer hunter-gatherers, though they were until very recently. Their diet is still mainly wild fish and game, but it's amazing how far foods of civilization have traveled into the depths of the Amazon. Wheat, sugar, and whiskey in particular seem to have had a large negative effect on this tribe. Socially they have some elements of the tribe in The Continuum Concept, but Everett seems less prone to romanticization, though some is definitely present. I personally find it strange that he would describe the tribe's social structure as being non-coercive when there are mentions of murder, gang-rape, and marginalization of women. It's impossible to say much about whether those are "natural" for humans based on this tribe and other tribes that represent the last of the world's foragers. Almost all such tribes have been removed from their original homelands, pushed into the world's harshest habitats, and subject to the negative effects of trade for things like alcohol.

But that doesn't mean they should be dismissed. Everett recognizes negative aspects of their culture, but is eternally grateful for what he learned about life from the Pirahã.

Reading the book, I took away most lessons about what we don't need. The title itself is what Pirahã say as a greeting at night and alludes to the fact that for them a good night's sleep is a dangerous thing. People sleep lightly at night and there is always someone awake by the fire, sometimes many talking and laughing. People in the US act like a good night's sleep is essential, but perhaps it's not. However, one major difference is that the Pirahã have the ability to nap whenever they want during the day.

The Pirahã also scoff at the idea of regular meals. They have no food preservation methods and simply eat when they have made a kill. Apparently being hungry is no obstacle to exerting themselves: "I have seen people dance for three days with only brief breaks, not hunting, not fishing, or gathering -- and without stockpiled foods."

Children are kept close to their mothers during the nursing period, but after weaning they are treated as full members of the community. According to studies by psychologists, the Pirahã spend more time than any other known culture laughing and smiling. This is despite the fact that loss and hardship are a daily part of life. A breech birth or an infected wound is a death sentence.

Reading this book and its descriptions of how different the Pirahã mindset is from the Western, it reminded me that paleolithic hunter-gatherer cultures would have been more diverse than we give them credit for. We have these stereotypes of chieftains, ritualized dances with painted faces, elaborate myths, trading using shells... the Pirahã have none of these things.

In a world of homogenizing agents like trade and monotheistic religion, the fact that the Pirahã exist is amazing. Most such tribes have simply been wiped out. The paleolithic was a world of fairly isolated tribes that may have had cultures completely different from anything around today.

Really easy to find at your local garden shop or next to your sofa!

I don't understand why so many paleo dieters neglect to consume cycads. They have been a part of our diet since the stone age and numerous hunter-gatherer tribes enjoy them. I hear that their starch goes really well in a puree of herbs with salmon. Making them is REALLY simple too! First you take the pith from the trunk, roots, and seeds and grind them into a coarse flour in your Vitamix. Then you soak it for five days and wash it out carefully several times to remove toxic chemicals. Finally, bake it on some hot rocks or ferment for several days. If tribal people in the jungle can do it, you can too.

Scientists don't recommend eating this, as some nerve toxin and other assorted natural chemicals could remain, but we paleo dieters know that it's a perfectly good food that people have eaten for hundreds of thousands of years! In fact, it's so valuable to hunter-gatherers that women will spend hours and hours preparing it.

Unlike potatoes, which they did not eat and therefore they are really bad. I can't find any studies that show that potatoes cause arthiritis or anything, but if Grok didn't eat it, then it doesn't belong. Who knows what it could do it you? 

Next time you are craving potatos, reach for your nearest house plants and start processing! Stone age foods are always good and neolithic foods are always bad! 

*just kidding. There is nothing wrong with modeling your diet on evolutionary principles that posit that the stone age was when we were eating food we evolved to eat, but it's fairly shallow to think that everything that is neolithic is bad. Almost ALL our food is technically neolithic. We should evaluate each food scientifically in light of our evolution.

Wouldn't it be nice if avoiding gluten, sugar, and other foods you are sensitive to cured EVERYTHING? It can make a difference in the quality of your life, but it's not magical.

The very minor bane of my paleo years has been keratosis pilaris, which I've had on my upper arms and thighs for as long as I can remember. Actually, 40% of adults have it and women are most commonly affected. It manifests as small red knobby bumps, which are caused by the body producing excess keratin. Since I am very light skinned, it always looked kind of stark on me and my first boyfriend often remarked how rough my skin was.

Going paleo seemed to make it slightly better, probably because of increased retinol and DHA in my diet, but it still affected me. I decided to think about what a paleolithic woman would have done to her skin. We don't know exactly- it's possible women used minerals, fats, and herbs on their skin, as plenty of modern hunter-gatherers do. There is even some evidence neanderthals wore "makeup."

But what can we infer about paleolithic woman's skin treatment?

• Lots of sunlight
• Probably bathed in cold water and probably didn't bath every day

I first linked it these things when I worked on a farm where we didn't have hot water, except for if you wanted to build a fire a boil it yourself. Not surprisingly, I bathed pretty sparingly, mostly just using a wash cloth. We also had a sauna that we used sometimes. I can definitely understand why people invented saunas- it's much less work than bathing in hot water because it uses relatively little water, just as steam. If you are hauling water yourself, you aren't going to want to use it liberally. Also, being on a farm I was out in the sun all the time.

No, I didn't smell bad, and yes, my skin looked and felt awesome.

How can I apply this to the real world? I've tried all kinds of skin creams and they haven't worked. Unfortunately, I've always LOVED really hot showers and this has been a hard habit to break. I'm now taking lukewarm showers that I do not enjoy, but my skin looks much better. I'm also sun bathing, which also isn't fun in the cold.

I think the lesson here is that there are three factors we have to take into account: cultural, environmental, and biological. Most people doing the paleo diet do their best to have a biologically appropriate diet and exercise regimen, but I live in a culture where I must be clothed most of the time and an environment where we have hot showers and spend our days in dark offices. I can only do so much to change these things, but by questioning them, I can more effectively apply evolutionary thinking to improving my well-being.

Surprisingly enough, many people write to me asking what I eat and where I get it. I think it's boring, but I guess it's useful for many people, especially if you live in NYC. I haven't been good at posting the rest of my week, but here are some things I've been eating!

• Delicious salad with argula, iceberg lettuce, and beets. The most important thing was the calorie-loaded tangy paleo green goddess dressing. I had the real stuff at a restaurant recently and couldn't get enough. I made mine with fresh scallions, mayo, basil, lemon, garlic, salt, and pepper. I used this recipe as a base and just left out the sour cream, but if you can eat that and you have a good source...it's really good. The only questionable ingredient was the anchovy paste, but I left it in because I was feeling great and it's only a small amount. I bought all the ingredients at Whole Foods, which I only go to occasionally because it's expensive and inconsistant.
• More shrimp poached in butter, but this time I also added virgin coconut oil, cilantro, and basil. I poured the whole thing on top of cubed mango for a delicious fruity shrimp salad. The shrimp were from the Park Slope Co-op, which is also inconsistant, but fortunately at least they are relatively cheap...
• A roasted cornish hen from Bobo sold at the Park Slope Co-op. I spatchcocked it and cooked it in the toaster oven because it's so much quicker. I seasoned it with garlic and oregano. Spatchcocking might seem scary, but since the chicken lies flat it cooks pretty fast. The main point is just to remove the spine. Once you have that out, you can figure out how to cut to lie it flat without much technical direction. When I first tried it I just confused myself watching Youtube videos.
• Simple grassfed ground buffalo from the Park Slope co-op sauteed with coconut oil and herbs is a staple of mine. You'll notice most of these items are from the Co-op. I go there at the beginning of the week and sometimes it will feed me until Thursday. If not, I sometimes order Freshdirect or go to Whole Foods. The co-op is good for some things, bad for others. Seafood is particularly bad there. I like the frozen wild salmon filets, but they don't have too much else and you can only eat so much of those before you get sick of them. On Saturday I try to go to the Farmer's Market at Union Square. I like the fish and the variety of meats, but everything really is very expensive, so I definitely don't get very much there.
• Kale salad with some REALLY good sauteed mushrooms from the co-op. Most of the produce there is good, except for the Thai Young Coconuts, which are frequently spoiled.
• I made some pastured local lamb (also from the co-op) in homemade coconut milk with herbs, ginger, and garlic. Making coconut milk from a brown coconut took me nearly an hour and I probably won't do it again anytime soon. I'm trying to avoid canned things, but it probably would have been easier to get a thai coconut (Freshdirect has the best)and make the curry from the flesh, which is very soft and easy to work with.

What delicious foods have you been eating lately? Where are you getting your ingredients?