The hunters

Have you heard about the trendy new Paleo diet?  It's based on the idea that prehistoric people were healthy until agriculture and grain-based diets came along. The average Homo Sapien back then was tall, muscular, agile and athletic. Now the average Homo Sapien is out of shape, stressed, sad, sleep deprived and prone to all sorts of preventable diseases.

Basically, the Paleo diet turns the FDA recommended food pyramid on its head. Elizabeth Kolbert wrote a humorous article in the July 21 New Yorker magazine about sticking to this diet for a week:

The first day I put my family on a Paleolithic diet, I made my kids fried eggs and sausage for breakfast. If they were still hungry, I told them, they could help themselves to more sausage, but they were not allowed to grab a slice of bread, or toast an English muffin, or pour themselves a bowl of cereal. This represented a reversal of the usual strictures, and they were happy to oblige. 

Her husband and boys loved the caveman cuisine.  Of course many people don't eat meat, but in hunter-gatherer societies, sociologists say humans have a tremendous desire to eat flesh. If the hunters come home empty-handed, there's porridge for dinner and they would much rather have roasted monkey.  I suppose the chore of shopping at Costco is the modern equivalent of hunting and gathering, which might explain why I eat too much of that delicious rotisserie chicken when I finally get it home.

So, meat eaters rejoice. The Paleo diet goes like this:

IN
Vegetables, except for peas and green beans
Fruit (but only a little)
Grass-fed meat
Game meat
Free-range pork (?)
Fish
Eggs
Nuts
Seeds
Herbal infusions
Certain "ancient" insects

Which seems like a pretty good selection, until you realize what you can't have:

OUT
Dairy products including milk, cheese, butter and yogurt
Wheat and flour (that means bread and pasta!)
Rice and oats
Beans and peanuts
Potatoes (sweet potatoes are OK)
Sugar (honey and maple syrup are OK)
Processed foods of any kind
Alcohol (What! No wine?)
Coffee and tea (Super sad)

Well, no one claims that cavemen were civilized...but this diet isn't much different from that low-carb craze that "worked" because eating just became so boring.

Speaking of hunter-gathers, here's a wonderful old photo I found in the family collection.

Grammy made pot pie with the rabbits and squirrels the men folk brought home. The man with a tie on the left is Dr. Bean, who delivered all the kids and was also a good family friend.  The boy on the far right is Uncle Clarence, dad's older brother.  The young man next to Dr. Bean looks like Uncle Howard, and I'm not sure about the other two gentlemen.

I don't know much about guns, but one of the shotguns in the picture is the elegant, double-barrelled A.H. Fox.  It was an unbelievably generous gift in the 1930's when Dr. Bean gave it to young Clarence.  Oh yes-- Dad remembers their dog's name was "Punch," and said he was the finest rabbit hunting dog ever.

OK, no Paleo diet in this house. John thinks bread and pasta are essential for life. I'm off to hunt up some cottage cheese and peaches for breakfast.