CJ,
I watched the film last night. First off, thanks for making this information available! I do, however, have a few problems with some of the things that were mentioned in this film:
Lean meat. Cordain was the first to promote what is now known as the 'Paleo Diet'. In his book and in your film he mentions early man ate 'lean meat'. This is repeated by some of the other people you interview in the movie. Thus there's a very strong message in the movie to eat 'lean meat'.
You do, however, also have David Getoff of the PPNF in the film, although, sadly, the work of Weston Price is barely touched upon. Price came to the conclusion that ALL 14 indigenous populations he studied ate AT LEAST 10 times more fat-soluble vitamins, which are vitamins A, D, E and K. Of these, three (A, D, K) are of animal origin. In order to have that many fat-soluble vitamins in your diet you need to eat A LOT of animal fats, which blows the idea of 'lean meat' straight out of the water.
Yes, early man did eat some lean meat, but a close study of indigenous food patterns worldwide reveals that we all savored fatty and nutritious organ meats. In fact, you need look only at pre-war generations in western countries (or study old cookbooks) to know that organ meats were regularly on the menu before the second half of the previous century. How come Cordain and others overlooked this very important fact and why did you not set this straight in your film?
Exercise. In your film, you mention a study of modernized Australian Aboriginees, who participated in a study where they were asked to return to a traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle for a period of time. All participants healed from whatever was ailing them, plus they lost weight. And here comes the most interesting fact, mentioned only in passing: they were LESS PHYSICALLY ACTIVE as hunter-gatherers than as modern humans. Clearly it was the DIET that cured them and exercise had very little to do with it. Yet later on in the film you have people stating repeatedly that early man was 'very physically active' and hammering the 'exercise more' mantra into our brains.
You can choose to exercise for social, fashionable and psychological reasons (ripped abs and biceps, endorphins), but it won't do you much good healthwise (it may even promote unhealthy stress levels). You need to change the DIET first and foremost. The Aboriginal study clearly shows that a hunter-gatherer lifestyle causes you to be physically active ONLY when following and chasing your prey, but that's pretty much as far as it goes. Like wild animals, we stalked our prey and tried to get as close as possible, to get within striking distance, something we have been very successful at. No jogging, cardio or power lifting required, just short sprints and a fair amount of walking in nature.
Milk. Cordain's message is that, like grains, milk is a neolithic food that, in evolutionary terms, came into our sights only yesterday. Yes, it's true that we started agricultural and livestock practices only as early as 10,000 years ago, due to the melting of ice and snow caused by global warming (without the aid of factories and SUV's, I might add). And yes, we did take a wrong evolutionary turn when we started consuming grains (even when properly soaked and fermented) and plant proteins. All of this is rightly pointed out in your film, including the shrinking of the brain and other skeletal problems due to mineral shortages, so no argument there.
But milk is a different story. Milk consists largely of animal fats and proteins, which, despite it being a new food, is a CONTINUATION of our evolutionary food staple, being animals fats and proteins from meat and fish. What's more, the sugars in milk (lactose and galactose) have been shown by the Weston A. Price Foundation to be the BEST and BEST ABSORBABLE sources of glucose of any food source, not in the least because this is a liquid food and therefore requires little or no digestion.
Instead, the tired old 'milk is for babies' message gets repeated. There's one guy stating that humans shouldn't be drinking milk beyond the age of two and certainly not milk from another species. From a nutritional perspective, that argument holds no water whatsoever. Domesticating animals and consuming their meat and milk gave us a huge evolutionary advantage, because now we no longer had to lead a nomadic lifestyle and follow large herds of herbivorous animals.
We only started processing raw milk (and thus depriving it from its rich nutritional content) less than 200 years ago, so for the most part of the last 10,000 years we consumed the milk RAW. Hippocrates prescribed raw milk diets as a cure for almost anything and for the past 10,000 years the raw milk cure has been hugely successful in curing a wide variety of ailments. Of course it has, it's a complete food, you could live on it exclusively in good health for the rest of your life! Weston Price described how nomadic tribes AS WELL AS THEIR HORSES in North Africa were able to survive the harsh desert conditions (caused by depletion of the soil as a result of ORGANIC agricultural practices, BTW) on nothing but raw camel milk. Raw milk certainly also worked for the Masai that Price visited and studied.
In fact, it's only because we developed the inventive brain power to milk these animals that we were able to benefit from the most mineral rich plant source on the planet: grass. We humans can't digest plant fiber, but ruminants, with their complicated digestive tract and multiple stomachs, can, so we can eat the meat and drink the milk. Milk is liquid grass and this is one of the reasons why cows are holy in India and their lives are spared.
And animals know it too. There's not a single animal that will turn down raw milk or cream or butter or yogurt. Not just cats, I've heard accounts of pigeons, squirrels, dogs, horses, pigs, chickens, you name it. In fact, if animals had evolved to milk ruminants there'd be a lot more dairy-consuming organisms on the planet, so we could finally do away with that old chestnut of 'humans are the only species that drink milk after nursing...'.
Humans just happen to be very creative in finding food sources, which is why we're the ONLY MAMMALS that eat lobsters, crabs, shrimps, snails, clams and oysters. You never hear that argument being used against humans! Even the Paleo crowd is starting to recognize the benefits of raw milk consumption. I guess that puts me in the 'Lacto Paleo' category, for what it's worth.
Nuts. I'm actually in a class all of my own, because I'm not a big fan of nut consumption either, which is actually very popular in Paleo circles. In your film you have this guy taking you thru the supermarket aisles. About bread and cereals he rightly states that they prevent mineral absorption. The substance responsible for this is an antinutrient in grains called phytic acid. Well, I hate to break this to the Paleo crowd, but nuts contain it too. In fact, any seed that hasn't yet germinated contains phytic acid to contain the life force (minerals, enzymes) for many thousands of years, if necessary, until the circumstances for germination are right (water and heat).
What's more, all these seeds evolved to be completely indigestible, so that other organisms can transport them in their gut for hundreds, maybe thousands of miles and then drop them elsewhere in a nice pile of manure. Why would you want to avoid indigestible, wood-like fiber and phytic acid in grains and yet eat these same substances in nuts?
In your movie, there's talk about how omega-3 fatty acids contributed to our large brain size, yet nuts are loaded with omega-6 fatty acids. The only nut that actually benefits us is the coconut and that's because the flesh and milk almost completely consist of saturated fat and minerals. How come a large portion of the Paleo crowd fails to see this, yet chooses to demonize grassfed raw milk, which contains no indigestible fiber, lots of healthy, brain-building fats, proteins, enzymes and minerals?
Although on the whole your film is a welcome alternative to the official food 'guidelines' (do you think early humans had a government telling them what and what not to eat?), there are some serious flaws, which I have described above and which will hopefully be corrected in an updated edition.
Mike