I guess we are all looking for the best place to aim for on the curve. We research to find where we should aim, based upon generalized paleo eating habits. Each individual will also be different, but I'm aiming for the average paleo diet that would have fed my ancestors. I will change my diet whenever I find a compelling reason to.

The main problem is that it will take us many decades to notice any change, as the body is remarkably good at putting up with a dietary deficiencies or toxins without showing too many (if any) signs of distress. We are also pretty bad at picking up some of the signs, especially when we like to ignore the facts that "yummy" foods are causing us problems.

As we only get one real shot at getting it right, all I can do is follow what I believe to be best...

ETA: just realized I use "kya" a lot - it means thousand (kilo) years ago

Well, I visited my parents last week and I picked up some of my old notes and textbooks. I haven't done a ton of reading yet (I've had the flu all this last week ), but I did make a few notes on some paleoanthropological sites to follow up on that show evidence of hominid diet and I found at least a cursory link for each one. I tried to pick all sites that had Homo remains, even if they weren't anatomically modern Homo sapiens (this does include Neanderthals, although of course there is a lot of debate as to whether they were the same species as us or not).

Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in Israel (790kya): http://archaeology.about.com/od/gte...esher_benot.htm

Terra Amata in France (380kya): http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeo...terraamata.html

La Grotte du Lazaret (lazaret cave) in France (150kya): http://www.donsmaps.com/mousterian.html <--- lazaret cave is towards the bottom of the page

Schoningen in Germany (380-400 kya): http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199703/0110.html notable because it's the earliest evidence in the fossil record of actual weapons (all previous stone tools were just tools)

Klasies River Caves in South Africa (125kya): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klasies_River_Caves anatomically modern humans were found here so it should be relevant to us

Tabun Cave in Israel (500-40kya): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabun,_Israel

Vindija Cave in Croatia (28-29kya): http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/ar...cgi?artid=16602

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Other than that I found this about the color vision/fruit eating thing I brought up earlier: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=09...%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L

and this which I just thought was interesting even though you can't read the whole thing: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00...TOR-enlargePage

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So, like I said, I didn't do a ton of reading yet. I haven't touched the textbooks at all, just skimmed through my notes from classes. The impression that I came away with from my notes was that we transitioned from ape-like mostly vegetarian creatures, to bipeds who relied on scavenging during the dry season and foraging during the rest of the year, to increasingly relying on scavenging, to finally at about 400kya actually making weapons to hunt with.

I'll write more later as I read more. Maybe we should spin this off into its own thread.

Thanks again for taking the time for this! That first dig is really interesting, especially given it's lower paleolithic. I'll have to read up in more detail on what they found there.



Neat in the variety of animals it presents as their game choices. Also looks like it's worth reading more about.

There look to be a bunch of good digs in that page.



That is a neat one, I'm amazed they were preserved enough to be able to describe the craftsmanship of their 400,000 year old spears so well.
I'll have to go through the rest later, and start trying to find out more about the digs.

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Agreed, I was thinking we've drifted quite a ways from the original point of this thread. Besides a well researched "What did Paleo peoples really eat." thread almost deserves it's own sticky given the subforum (I'll go start it now).

Thanks again!

Not to beat a dead cow but this link relates nicely to the original conversation: http://www.offalgood.com/site/photo...-cow-slaughter/

Bumping an old ProteusOne thread; this truly sickens me, it makes me think I really should restrict my meat intake to animals I know weren't treated so horribly.

Hidden video shows Ohio cows beaten

P.S.: Sadly, the source of the info is of course pro-vegan. It annoys me twice as much that not only is my food being mistreated like this - but that it's ultimately furthering the cause of the veggie-people.

Here's a worse one... that shows what kind of cows are being slaughtered for beef:... absolutely horrifying:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RNF...feature=channel

As much as possible, everyone should either stop eating dairy products or find a safe source (like me!! lol). At the very least, eat only organic dairy....
I also would not eat grocery store hamburger made from thousands of such CAFO cows...

I agree totally with you, Frankly... I'm torn between wanting to show everyone and not wanting to further PETA-types' agendas, and I sure don't want to convert anyone to veganism!

unfortunately, my income has been cut by 3/5 of what i used to make.
there's no way i can afford organic, free range beef.
i have no choice but to eat CAFO beef.....
there's no way that i can, in good conscience, watch these video's.

I'm with Lynne. I can't afford to buy meat for $17 a pound.

I mentioned consuming organic dairy products, not organic beef in general. I believe most beef cattle are probably okay.... it's CAFO dairy cattle that are a serious problem.

I apologize for the confusion....I should have said "most CAFO dairy cows are slaughtered for hamburger", not beef. Being rather bony, dairy cows don't have good roasts, etc, thus are destined for hamburger. Nowhere did I say anyone should eat only organic beef, and especially not for $17 a pound!! The only thing I said about beef was "I also would not eat grocery store hamburger made from thousands of such CAFO (dairy) cows..."

A much safer, better-tasting, and certainly fresher alternative to grocery store hamburger is to buy a roast of any kind, the cheaper the better, and have the store grind it into hamburger for you.

I've noticed the headlines and read a couple of brief news items, but I cannot bring myself to watch any kind of video on this.

Hate to say it, but I have pretty much ditched ground beef entirely. Haven't bought hamburger in about three years now, but will occasionally buy grass-fed ground bison in place of ground beef if I want a "beef" kind of burger on the grill or something.

Food, Inc. didn't help. Fast Food Nation didn't help either.

I'm probably just a bit too squeamish for this sort of thing.

Ground beef is nasty. However it is easy to grind your own. I've heard 50/50 chuck/sirloin is good.

Why is ground beef nasty? My butcher grinds the meat in front of me and I know that it only contains meat and fat.

Well, prepackaged ground beef is. They treat it with ammonia to kill the beasties. I would think meat ground by the butcher is fine, as long as their equipment is kept beastie free.

I make less than $10,000 a year. I don't eat factory farmed meat. I guess I'm lucky because I at least don't have children to support or anything, but it's doable if you are willing to cowpool and eat offal.

I also hunt...it's nice to get meat for the cost of a bullet or two

Cowpooling is a great idea.. no one should be afraid of it. I sold three quarters of my first steer and kept one quarter for myself because I was afraid it would take me years to get through the whole thing.... I soon regretted not keeping another quarter.

I sold each quarter for $2.75 a pound per hanging weight, or about $300 a quarter packaged, almost two years ago. Final price came to about $4/lb for everything... hamburgers, roasts, T-bones, sirloins, all cuts... and he was grassfed, too. I sure would have liked to charge $17 a pound, and so would every farmer! Only the butcher shops get those prices.

My steer was a Holstein, a dairy breed, and butchered at 13 months old; beef steers are usually bigger than dairy steers and are butchered at 18-20 months. Unfortunately mine kept jumping fences, so he had to go earlier than planned, which meant he wasn't very big, about 500 lbs hanging weight or about 300 lbs packaged weight. Each quarter was about 75 lbs and easily fit into a little chest freezer. The small freezers don't take up much room and are pretty cheap, around $150-200, a good investment.

If you don't want a full quarter, maybe you could find a friend to go eighths with you. I had two people do that with one of the quarters.