Do you mean you personally, or as a guideline for everyone? If it's a guideline for everyone it would seem kind of arbitrary, unless you wanted to exclude all new-world foods. But then you would also eliminate squash, cranberries, turkey, etc.


They're a fruit, so on my ok-list.


I do love green beans. *sigh* Yeah I think there's no question the AS have to go.

I would include coconut oil. I was watching one of those Man Vs Wild shows, and the host was able to produce coconut oil just by cracking open a coconut and mashing it up with a sharp stick. Then he used the oil for sunscreen. Olive oil I'm willing to concede.

I would accept that on a normal paleo diet, but not for a pure experiment. I don't think that eating anything too far from Old World foodstuff would be ok.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut
Similarly tomatoes and peppers would off the list. For normal diet, sure. But not for the experiment.

I have to agree, oils, other than what is found naturally in whole foods probably isn't going to cut it. No artificial sweeteners. We'll discuss the status of stevia.

BTW, I have set up a wiki for us to use. It will allow us to all make edits to the same document online. Please, if you have strong, solid and logical ideas about this, I encourage you to PM me and I'll give you the password. I realize this WILL BE MESSY AT FIRST, but I think that some basic forms will emerge soon enough.

I'll go in there this evening and make a few headers and tables to get us started, and then I'll provide the password through the PM service here.

Sorry, I edited my previous post. This could be interesting!
I would suggest that anything disputed - with reasonable cause - be off the menu.

Alright, if we're going to exclude new-world foods, here's a list of some of the veggies that I know of:

avocados
nopales (cactus pads)
corn (off-limits anyway)
peppers
potatoes
all summer and winter squashes
tomatillos
tomatoes
sweet potatoes
sunchokes (aka jerusalem artichokes)
jicama

I also know that cranberries and turkey are new-world, but I'm not sure about other fruits/animals.

It's only a week, I can live without them for a week.

I'm not inclined to remove New World Foods, so long as they don't "have" to be cooked or processed before eating. Some estimates have the new world being populated down to Tierra Del Fuego as far back as 40,000 years ago. Either way, it was a long time ago, and I'm sure they ate what they could.

I personally will give up nightshades then, simply to see if they affect me in any way (God, I hope not! I love my peppers!)

But it would not be in my European ancestry, nor I suspect most of us here.

This opens up all kinds of questions I have about an evolutionary based diet. Clearly if we were going to be entirely pure we would only eat uncultivated vegetation indigenous to Africa. I don't think that is going to happen! So where do we draw the line? Personally, I'll accept European foods which are pre-agricultural or can still be eaten without cooking.

For the purpose of the experiment I'd suggest that - just for the week - we keep it as simple as possible.

If we're going no veggie oil at all and no processed meats at all I'm in for a rough time (not to mention the strict no dairy)! There goes butter, olive oil, coconut oil, and bacon grease. Maybe this will kick my butt in gear enough to seek out that farm near hubby's work and hit them up for some grassfed suet...

What is the thought on chicken/beef/whatever stock? It requires boiling, and I'm not sure if paleoman had containers fit for that. Pottery is only about 6k years old I think. I'm sure that paleoman could have fashioned him/herself a waterskin out of animal hide, but I just dunno about the boiling thing - unless anyone else has any other bright ideas!

Man this is getting more strict than I had envisioned upon my initial read.

I'm just going to make a big pot roast or something, have some veggies with it. Eggs in the morning for breakfast. I can eat the same thing many days in a row and be happy.

Nancy, you are funny!

Well, do share the joke? I wasn't trying to be funny!

I suppose my olives for breakfast wouldn't be paleo, but the Macs should be ok.

I think my coconut soup might pass the paleo muster, if I leave out the hot peppers, then I can use my mystery herb.


I intend to use chicken stock. I don't plan to adhere to THAT level of strictness that I have to simulate their cooking methods too.

Sounds like cooking methods should take a lower rung on the ladder. But deep frying? I think that one may be out.