Simple Paleo: Lamb chops, artichokes, and broccoli

Looking for a simple yet delicious paleo meal? Try lamb chops with artichokes and broccoli.

“Mother hen” steamed the broccoli in the microwave. The artichokes, with their base sectioned, were steamed on the stove. The lamb chops, spiced with rosemary and Limnos Lamb Rub, were roasted in the oven at 375 degrees for 43 minutes.

That’s it! Simple, yet paleo delicious!

Run 2,800 miles in 64 days - loose muscle, fat, and brain!

Course of a previous race, the Transeurope-Footrace 2003On April 19, 2009, 45 ultra-endurance runners (39 men and 6 women) took off from southern Italy to run to North Cape, Norway, a distance of 2,800 miles in 64 days!! Why? “Because its there” doesn’t cut it. Certainly only a few can do this; congratulations to runners. But this is extreme. Persitence hunters in the Paleolithic covered a lot of ground chasing down an antelope but they did not run such distances in such a short time. The Trans Europe Footrace is possible only because of the large supporting cast. (The results of the 2009 race can be found here.)

Dr. Uwe Schutz and colleagues from the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at the University Hospital of Ulm in Germany decided to tag along with the runners and periodically study the anatomical and physiological impact of this ultra-endurance event. Their findings were presented at the Radiological Society of North America annual meeting on November 29, 2010.

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Paleolithic & hunter-gatherer sleep

Poor sleep is a major barrier to good health. Before we consider ways to improve our sleep, we need to look back to the Paleolithic and to hunter-gatherer societies. Paleo-anatomists studying fossilized skeletons of Australopithecus and Homo habilis note they were well adapted to climbing. Although they probably spent much of daytime on the ground, they likely slept in trees. Sleeping on the ground probably began with the control of fire, which, in addition to improving nutrition, provided safety.

The first hominid to control fire may have been late Homo habilis, or Homo ergaster. Cooking provided a higher quality and more digestible diet, which led to a smaller gut and a larger brain (the expensive tissue hypothesis). Both day and night could be spent on the ground and hominid anatomy slowly became more human-like. The resulting hominid, Homo erectus, was tall and well adapted for migration over land. Their vestibular anatomy also indicates a primarily ground-based existence.

Richard Wrangham, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard, in his book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, writes:

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Monthly Finds 11.2010

Environmental Toxin May Play Important Role in Multiple Sclerosis: Hypertension Drug Possible Treatment - ScienceDaily, Nov. 23
Is MS a modern disease due to tobacco smoke and auto exhaust? Initial study in mice.

LA 2010: Toyota RAV4 EV, powered by Tesla, hits the stage - Autoblog Green, Nov. 17
Electric RAV4 100 miles per charge coming in 2012.

Nighttime lights linked to depression - MSNBC, Nov. 17
Nighttime lights inhibit melatonin, but do they also shrink the hippocampus?

The dramatic decline of the modern man - Salon, Nov. 14
Salon’s Thomas Rogers interviews author of Manthropology: The Science of Why the Modern Male Is Not the Man He Used to Be (via Mark Sisson’s post).

Doing S.P.E.E.D.: A Paleo-Friendly Weight Loss Manual - Primal Wisdom, Nov. 12
Don reviews new weight loss book based on a bio-psycho-social model.

Origins of first European farmers revealed - The Environment Institute (The University of Adelaide), Nov. 10
Did the first European farmers arise from local hunter-gatherers or where they invaders?

Mark Sisson’s longevity series - Mark’s Daily Apple

Why Did Grok Live So Long? - Nov 10

Just How Long Did Grok Live, Really? – Part 2 - Nov 3

Just How Long Did Grok Live, Really? - Oct 28

Born to Run the Marathon? - New York Times, Nov. 4
Reflections on marathons from author of Born to Run

Indoor Gardening in 5 Steps - NRDC SimpleSteps, Nov. 1
Begin with your sunniest window.

The end of night

Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893 - the dawn of the age of light. Image: PBS.orgOver 60 million Americans have problems sleeping. While insomnia has many causes, one is the use of electric lighting.  Our circadian rhythms developed from the 24-hour rotation of the Earth. At the end of the day, the slowly fading sunlight allowed the brains of our hominid ancestors to prepare for sleep. Around 1 million years ago, hominids began to use fire and congregate around campfires for warmth and safety. Socialization increased. Eventually cooking developed and led to further brain evolution.

The first lamps, made from moss or other plant material and animal fat placed in a natural stone recesses, are tens of thousands of years old. Portable lamps fueled by animal fat, and later oil, were carried by Cro-Magnon into the deep recesses of the Lascaux and Altamira caves where they painted remarkable images of ice age fauna 13,000-18,000 years ago.

First used around 400 AD, candles were an important form of lighting for 1,500 years until the development of gas lighting at the end of the eighteenth century. As noted in A History of Light and Lighting, candles could be linked together to create a spectacle:

In 1761, at the coronation of George III, groups of 3000 candles were connected together with threads of gun cotton, and lit in half a minute. Those clustered below were showered with hot wax and burning thread.

Campfires, oil lamps, candles and gas lamps cast a dim light and

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Jeans made with less water

Looking for a new pair of jeans? Want to save water?  In January 2011, Levi Strauss will introduce a line of Levi's® brand jeans that requires much less water to manufacture. According to the company's website:

The Levi's® brand today announced its new Water<Less jeans – made using significantly less water. The average pair of jeans uses 42 litres of water in the finishing process. The Water<Less collection reduces the water consumption by an average of 28% and up to 96% for some new products in the line.

Not interested in saving water? Then try this on from Sustaining Life:

Despite the fact that rivers, lakes, and wetlands cover less than 1 percent of the Earth’s surface and hold only about 0.01 percent of its water, they harbor extraordinary concentrations of biodiversity.

… as much as one-third of all vertebrate species are confined to freshwater habitats.

Freshwater habitats are among the most endangered in the world, and decline of freshwater biodiversity outpaces that in both terrestrial and marine systems.

Or, maybe you are one of the “30 million people in seven US states and Mexico” dependent on the dwindling Colorado River. Or, you live in one of the top ten U.S. cities running out of water.

If you are in the market for a pair of jeans next year, buy used. If you are buying new, these may just work for you. 

Are tilapia inflammatory?

Image: Michael Rupert HayesSo, you started eating Paleo? You’re browsing the blogs trying to figure out just what the Paleo diet is. But one thing you know for sure, fish is Paleo. Indeed, 70 to 80 thousand years ago our ancestors living  in Blombos Cave, South Africa were catching fish in the Indian Ocean. They also created the first clear symbolic image, a block of ochre engraved with cross-hatched lines bordered above and below by parallel lines. This stunning find suggests the importance of fish to the development of the human mind. After all, seafood has plenty of omega-3 fatty acids, right?  

At the fish counter of your grocery store you pick up a couple of tilapia. The fish are small, bland, and can easily be incorporated into a variety of meals. They are just the right size to serve as the main course. Only one problem - well, probably more than one - tilapia have minimal, if any, omega-3 fatty acids (n-fatty acids) and are high in omega-6 fatty acids: a recipe for inflammation. (We need both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids; what is important is the ratio of the two.) As a primarily vegetarian fish, tilapia, even wild-caught as in the image above, are very low in omega-3. Unfortunately,

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October 2010 finds

Primal Holiday Desserts - Mark’s Daily Apple, Oct 30
Yummy!

Oldest Modern Human Outside of Africa Found - National Geographic Daily News, Oct 25
Did Homo sapiens reach Asia 60,000 years earlier than previously thought?

How Grok got Milk - Mark’s Daily Apple, Oct 26
Herding settlers versus hunter-gathers.     

Marathons Affect Heart, but Runners Bounce Back - MedlinePlus, Oct 25
Unraveling the effects of marathoning on the heart.

Tough Mudder: Dirty, Adventurous Fun! - Modern Paleo, Oct 25
Are you tough enough! Richly illustrated all-day modern Paleolithic fitness fest.

From China, The Future of Fish - Bloomberg Businessweek, Oct 21
Fish farming won’t improve until we make better choices.

The Catail's Outta of the Bag - Mark’s Daily Apple, Oct 21
Controversy over grain consumption 30,000 years ago.

Fun with headlines: Did Paleolithic people eat grains? - Hunt.Gather.Love, Oct 20
Response to research finding human use of grains 30,000 years ago.

Is Samwise Gamgee Right About Potatoes? - Mark’s Daily Apple, Oct 19
Who was right about potatoes in The Lord of the Rings? Also see Part Deux.

Thank you for an amazing inaugural New York City Barefoot Run - Hunter-Gatherer, Oct 13
Great review of a milestone event in paleo fitness.

Barefooting - Paleo Playbook, Oct 12
Great post on persistence hunting and barefoot running, with video. (Interestingly the persistence hunter wears shoes, the modern paleoterran is barefoot.)

The Neandertals of Mount Doom - john hawks weblog, Oct 11
Did volcanoes or “death-rays” knock off Neandertal? Or neither?

43,000-year-old assemblages from Highland New Guinea - john hawks weblog, Oct 1
Pandanus nut roasting and other foods 43,000 years ago.

Controversy: Is cancer man-made?

Recently, a press release on the scarcity of cancer in Egyptian mummies caused a stir on some news sites. As Tom Chivers, of Telegraph.com.uk, writes:

Egyptian mummy undergoing a CT scan. (Not part of the study). CyberMed, LLC Images

Now, I want to make it clear, we – and other papers – are not over-reporting this, at least in one sense. The press release from the University of Manchester is fairly unambiguous: “Scientists suggest that cancer is purely man-made“, says the headline.

While not a surprising conclusion to some, apparently, according to Andy Coghlan, cancer charities and cancer research organizations “are not happy”. The article in question, Cancer: an old disease, a new disease or something in between? by A. Rosalie David and Michael R. Zimmerman, was published this October in Nature Reviews. Dr. David summarizes their conclusions in the press release:

Yet again extensive ancient Egyptian data, along with other data from across the millennia, has given modern society a clear message – cancer is man-made and something that we can and should address.

So, is cancer “purely man-made?” Did the authors overstate

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Mt. Bierstadt trip report

One thing we know about human migration in the Paleolithic: humankind walked a lot. While it took countless generations for our ancestors to the reach France, Spain and Britain from Africa, the bottom line, they walked. Around 13,000 years ago, they walked into Colorado. While it is not known when Native Americans first climbed a Colorado peak, it is believed Mt. Beirstadt was one of them. For paleoterran fitness and rejuvenation, a summer climb was in order.

Mt. Bierstadt, rising to 14,060 feet, is Colorado’s 38th highest peak. Located in the Front Range and within easy access from Denver, the mountain is ideal for an August ascent. For my son, it would be his second Bierstadt climb; for me, my first 14er.

Departing Denver at 5:07 am, we drove south on Colorado Blvd and turned west on Hampden Avenue (Highway-285). At Grant, forty miles outside of Denver, we turned right on the Guanella Scenic and Historic Byway, a gravel and paved two-lane road also known as Guanella Pass Road and County Road 62.

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Paleo parenting

Image adapted from Notra Dame Symposium poster.Are you a Paleo parent? Do you frequently carry your infant, provide hours of unstructured play, positive touch, and spread child rearing among caregivers in your family group?  Does this type of child rearing develop better-adjusted and more empathetic children? Darcia F. Narvaez, Associate Professor of Psychology at University of Notra Dame and specialist on the moral development of children, thinks so. At a recent symposium, Human Nature and Early Experience: Addressing the “Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness,” Dr. Narvaez presented her and co-author Tracy Gleason’s views in the presentation Early Experience, Moral Development and Human Nature.

As Joan Raymond writes for MSNBC: 

While our hunter-gatherer ancestors may not have been big on dental hygiene, they did get it right when it came to raising well-adjusted, empathetic children, says lead researcher Darcia Narvaez.

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Welcome to PaleoTerran

Recently, a friend asked me about Paleo. It was the stimulus that after sitting on the sidelines for about a year, nudged me to contribute my voice. My initial introduction to Paleo was in 2003 and my participation has become more serious over time. This past January, I had hoped to launch a website to join the paleo conversation, but life has its way presenting other priorities. By May, the name selected for the blog had been taken and, more recently, the byline was at risk. Finally, it was time to launch or be silent.

From a review of the many paleo websites and publications, the paleo lifestyle appears well covered. Sites include the sophisticated Marks Daily Apple by Mark Sisson, the playful yet serious Hunter-Gatherer by John Durant, and many others. There are also a number of books on the subject. Still, the paleo perspective is in its formative stages and there is much yet to learn and discuss. Thus, I introduce PALEOTERRAN: Original health for a modern world. 

Paleo is the organizing principle of this site and several other sites, although other terms such as primal, hunter-gatherer, and caveman are used. The Paleolithic era spans the time from development of the first stone tools 2.6 million years ago, to the introduction of agriculture about 10,000 years ago. As a physician, it is readily apparent the health of our population is slowly deteriorating. Heart disease, diabetes, stroke, dementia and other modern diseases are rampant. Are we causing these disorders? Have we sufficiently tampered with our original diet and physical health and put our children’s and our future at risk? These, and other questions, will be explored.

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