Is Bread Paleo?

[Robert J Berkowitz]

http://news.discovery.com/archaeolog...mkcpgn=rssnws1 (WFS)

Well, maybe cattail flour crackers might be!

[Meghan Reid]

If the only bread people ate was made of flour that they hand-ground from wild grasses and mixed with water, I feel like our general issue with overconsumption of processed carbs would be moot.

[Rebecca Roth]

Woo, I'm going to head straight down to my local market for some cattails and moonworts! </sarcasm>

[Veronica Carpenter]

Hmm, I'll bet that paleo bread tastes nothing like Wonderbread. :-/

[Spencer James]

Originally Posted by Meghan Waldeck

If the only bread people ate was made of flour that they hand-ground from wild grasses and mixed with water, I feel like our general issue with overconsumption of processed carbs would be moot.

I love this point. I remember this story from when I was a child --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Hen (definitely WFS, haha). It has definitely crossed my mind a number of times as I've started to eat mostly paleo:

Plot summary

In the tale, the little red hen finds a grain of wheat, and asks for help from the other farmyard animals to plant it. However, no animal will volunteer to help her.

At each further stage (harvest, threshing, milling the wheat into flour, and baking the flour into bread), the hen again asks for help from the other animals, but again she gets no assistance.

Finally, the hen has completed her task, and asks who will help her eat the bread. This time, all the previous non-participants eagerly volunteer. However, she declines their help, stating that no one aided her in the preparation work, and eats it with her chicks, leaving none for anyone else.

In other versions sometimes the bread is substituted with a cake, and is also said from that day forward when the red hen worked on food, she found volunteers and thus this time shared with all those who aided her.

The moral of the story is that those who show no will to contribute to an end product do not deserve to enjoy the end product, or "if a man does not work, let him not eat."

[Allen Tluczek]

Found the same article on Wired, Here (WFS)

If lizards can do it(WFS) in thirty years, I don't get the argument that humans couldn't have done it in 30,000.

[Shane Skowron]

Originally Posted by Allen Tluczek

If lizards can do it(WFS) in thirty years, I don't get the argument that humans couldn't have done it in 30,000.

And what do you base this on? An exception does not prove a rule.

I mean, if we're talking about other species, dogs can't eat onions, coffee, or chocolate, but nearly all humans can. Similarly, I don't really trust studies that show that rats die, get fat, or show incredible strength when eating X food. Why? Because you just can't make generalizations like that across species.

[Allen Tluczek]

Saying it's possible. You can't say 30,000 years is not enough time to adapt to an entirely different diet if it has been shown in other species it can take as little as 30 years. I'm not saying it has happened, or that it is likely to happen, only that it CAN happen, and HAS happened.

Put another way, it is within the realm of possibility that humans could have evolved adaptions to subsist on a grain-based diet.

[Meghan Reid]

Yes, but there's a difference between the grains described in the study and the "grain based diet" we enjoy today. My earlier post was facetious, obviously. Flat "breadlike" food made from wild, naturally occurring grasses mixed with water is not the same thing as

"Whole wheat flour, water, wheat gluten, high fructose corn syrup, contains 2% of less of: soybean oil, salt, molasses, yeast, mono and diglycerides, exthoxylated mono and diglycerides, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium iodate, calcium dioxide), datem, calcium sulfate, vinegar, yeast nutrient (ammonium sulfate), extracts of malted barley and corn, dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, calcium propionate (to retain freshness)" [Wonder Bread]

or "Enriched Wheat Flour (enriched with ferrous sulfate (iron), B vitamins (niacin, thiamine mononitrate [B1], riboflavin [B2] and folic acid))
Sugar
Corn syrup
Water
High fructose corn syrup
Vegetable and/or animal shortening (containing one or more of partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed or canola oil, and beef fat)
Dextrose
Whole eggs
2% or less of:
Modified corn starch
Cellulose gum
Whey
Leavenings (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate)
Salt
Cornstarch
Corn flour
Corn syrup solids
Mono and diglycerides
Soy lecithin
Polysorbate 60
Dextrin
Calcium caseinate
Sodium stearol lactylate
Wheat gluten
Calcium sulfate
Natural and artificial flavors
Caramel color
Sorbic acid (to retain freshness)
Artificial color (yellow 5, red 40)" [ Twinkies]


What drives me nuts about studies like this is what people use it to justify.

[Eric Montgomery]

Crude oil, gravel, and dog turds are Paleo--that doesn't mean they're good for you.