Whenever an article about the paleo diet is published in a major newspaper, at least one commenter expresses dismay that paleo dieters don't realize that humans are adapted to grains and milk. That's a misconception on several levels. First of all, plenty of us are educated enough to know that genetic adaptations can occur rapidly. I remember in high school when I first read The Beak of The Finch, which is about the finches in the Galapagos islands and how their populations genetically respond rapidly to changes in the environment. It takes down the myth that evolution is slow and can't be observed. 

In that case, why are we still talking about what our ancestors eat as if it matters? Well, so far the evidence is that some adaptations have occurred in some populations response to neolithic food. Genetic evidence shows that most of the population in modern societies is descended from agriculturalists who had been farming for several thousand years. Clearly, our ancestors were very much able to survive on diets of grains and dairy. 

I was just reading this scientific paper, Demeter's Legacy, which is free online and a fascinating read. Yes, there are two major genetic adaptations in agriculturalist populations. One improves the digestion of starch and the other of dairy. Great, we can eat these foods and reproduce. Yay, but it doesn't mean that we are completely adapted to them. There are plenty of foods that are digestible for everyday needs, but damaging in the long term. It's up to us to do the research and figure out if foods are really worth it. I ate bread for most of my life and felt OK, but life for me is not just about surviving, but about thriving. It's important to remember that even though adaptations have occurred, the vast majority of our genes were forged before agriculture. 

And for people descended from more recent hunter-gatherers, neolithic foods are even more devastating.

I created a list that I am currently still adding foods to which outlines some pros and cons of various foods from the paleo viewpoint. I think foods should be judged on their merits and there is no "one true" paleo diet...there can't be, since last time I checked I couldn't get wild antelope at the grocery store. It's about learning from the wisdom of the past and choosing food based on those principles, not reenactment. 

If something's worth doing...it's worth doing. A commenter told me that they want to go paleo, but they are post veg*n and still have an aversion to all things fatty. I was there. But any paleo-style diet is going to be beneficial and the great thing about paleo is that it's fairly flexible. On Free The Animal, Erwan Le Corre talked about his original diet, which was fish, tubers, fruits, and vegetables. He now eats all kinds of meat fatty delicacies.

Luckily, I just organized my photo collection in Picasa and I have a great record of my early forays into paleo:

Macadamia nut salad with pickled ginger

Microwaved wild salmon filet with vegetables and feta

Scary mini fridge

No wonder I was often hungry and cheated often, but in retrospect it's possible to do a low-fat paleo diet as long as you load up on the carbs and are careful to get enough calories.

I simply didn't know how to cook, I had never eaten many vegetables before, I had never eaten fish....AND I didn't have a kitchen at all. I just had a minifridge and a microwave. The earliest experience was just trying to eat clean and to expose myself to new foods by taking cooking classes, reading, and going to the farmer's market every Saturday morning. The first time I tried to cook meat I had no idea what to buy. I bought some sausages because that seemed easy to cook, but in the microwave they turned into a greasy mess and I threw them away. I ended up eating out a lot, though I tried to make my meals in restaurants as paleo as possible.

I think what's interesting about my experience was that restaurants played a big role in introducing me to new foods. At a nice restaurant I would try to order many new foods. They were cooked with great expertise, so I had positive experiences from the get-go. I remember pretty vividly my first lamb shank- it was at a small lovely tapas place in Champaign, IL. It was cooked in wine, which is a great way to "cut" the greasy flavor, and it melted tenderly in my mouth. It's been several years since then and 2009 was the first time I attempted lamb shank myself. In NYC I've finally completely embraced fat, but it's the first time I've had things like pork belly or lard. Guess I was finally ready.

If you eat well and expose yourself to new things, your diet will evolve into the direction you need. In did the paleo diet "wrong"- tons of fruit, massive amounts of nuts, and very little fat. My cheat meals were very scary. I sometimes ate whole jars of almond butter. I STILL felt better and was able to eventually remove those habits as my diet broadened. The goodness or badness of a diet is relative. Start with what you know you can do better and move from there. In the meantime, read good food writers like Jeffrey Steingarten, take a class on cooking a new dish, visit or volunteer on some farms, and enjoy a beautiful summer day at a farmer's market near you...or a winter's day at a good indoor food market where things like oysters and ham glow tantalizingly in the glass cases.

Edit: What's in my fridge now? Marrow bones, goat shanks, my farmer friend's homemade pancetta and lardo, wild rabbit, boar flank steak, some lemons, smoked wild salmon, lard, a jar of bones for stock, asparagus, and there are some mangoes on the kitchen table. Plus the herbs and lettuce on the windowsill. I haven't gone to the grocery store much this week, but I did make it to the butcher, so it's been a carnivorous one. I had not idea what any of these things were or how to eat them back when the old pictures were taken, but now I sure do love them! The main things that are gone from my fridge are bagged lettuce/spinach and almond butter.

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.

I'm glad I saw this great post about growing your own "salad bowl." A couple of weeks ago I had bought some lettuce seedlings on a whim and put them in a pot on the windowsill. They weren't doing so awesome and I was thinking of throwing them away, but this video gave me hope. A few days later they recovered and tonight I harvested a small salad. It's not a lot, but it was crisp, fresh, and tasty. The plants should keep yielding for awhile if I just pick a few outer leaves each time. Bonsai lettuce...

I also have a few pots of herbs. In Sweden when I needed herbs they sold the actual plants in the produce section, which would last for a week or more if you took care of them. Here they sell them in cut bundles, already wilting and just as expensive. Good thing growing them yourself is easy, but I guess I'm lucky- some city folk don't have a good South facing window like I do.

Bagged salad isn't much better than those wilted herbs. And who knows where it's from or what kind of fertilizer they used? I took my lettuce leaves, a spring of parleys, and poured melted bone marrow, lemon juice, and capers over them. I sprinkled the salad with salt and pepper...it was delicious!