Potatoes are poisonous

[mellonmellow]

I stumbled across this article written by a family physician about human's evolved diet: http://www.earth360.com/diet_paleodiet_balzer.html. He claims that potatoes and grains are not natural to our diet and can be harmful. What is everyone's opinion on this? Are we still inherently cavemen?

[Seahorse]

Interesting.

I would definitely agree that an excess of refined sugars, high salt intake etc isn't ideal but I think my biggest gripe against the theory is that few of us have a 'Paleolithic' lifestyle! If you're extremely active and living on your wits, the Paleolithic Diet may be ideal. Perhaps less so if the majority of your life is spent sitting on your b*m! Human diet involved because of need and practicality (at least until extremely recently, in evolutionary terms).

Claire

[Birdie Wife]

Interestingly he says not all the toxins are removed by cooking - but doesn't say which ones - cultures all around the world have managed to turn toxic plants into edible ones by processing in some way. Did anyone see that Ray Mears programme recently about how our diet evolved? It was fascinating. He visited aborigines in Australia who were still using the same processing techniques as their ancestors had done thousands of years ago - the mind-boggling bit is how on earth they worked out the process of taking something poisonous and making it edible. My point is that I don't think this is anything new, we've been cooking our food for thousands of years!

[kirsty b]

Started reading it, made my head hurt. I'll try again later!

The Ray Mears prog was excellent, really very interesting. Don't see enough of him on the box IMHO

[PAULW]

Potatoes are related to deadly nightshade

[rustylady]

So what does he suggest we eat? Dinosaurs? As I understand it man was originally a hunter/gatherer and ate whatever was available, including wild plants and roots as well as meat. At some later stage we discovered that we could manage crops by planting the good (edible) ones in controlled space (fields, gardens etc)

[Peter]

Point one the title should really have had a question mark at the end rather than being presented as a statement.

Point two, yes green potatoes are poisonous, I am unsure how many you would need to eat to be affected.

Point three, potatoes have formed part of the south american diet for centuries and part of the western european diet since Elizabeth the first was on the throne.

Point four, heard of people with "a bee in their bonnet"?

[Alice]

Humans are omnivores - that means we do best eating a bit of everything. So if we give up eating potatoes does that mean we will live to be 110. And would we want to ? Lets not be daft. I say eat in a sensible manner that sits right with you.

[terrier]

Pre Elizabethan times...imagine the Sunday roast without spuds...

[Alice]

Mellonmelllow, I've just read all that stuff in the link, and I've 3 words to say - RUBBISH, RUBBISH, RUBBISH !

[Snadger]

Pre Elizabethan times...imagine the Sunday roast without spuds...

Ah......But the Sunday roast would be Venison if you came from the right side of town and Rabbit if not!
With a few parsnips and neeps, carrots,peas, mangels,worzels I think I could have forgone the spuds!

Would miss the earlies mind with butter and mint!

[SimonCole]

What a load of rubbish. The site is odd also.

[mellonmellow]

So what does he suggest we eat? Dinosaurs? As I understand it man was originally a hunter/gatherer and ate whatever was available, including wild plants and roots as well as meat. At some later stage we discovered that we could manage crops by planting the good (edible) ones in controlled space (fields, gardens etc)

LOL, I agree. Our diet evolves with our civilization.

[mellonmellow]

Mellonmelllow, I've just read all that stuff in the link, and I've 3 words to say - RUBBISH, RUBBISH, RUBBISH !

He IS a family physician... I thought that could lead to some legitimacy.

[mellonmellow]

Here, I found someone who is applying this paleolithic diet: http://cavemanpower.com/food/caveman_power_diet.html