It Was the End of the World as We Knew It

How old is the zoo? Many others claim or insinuate that Homo sapiens left our true nature behind with the advent of agriculture. I don’t think that this is totally accurate. In some ways our ability to control, or perhaps better stated, our unprecedented attempts to manipulate our environment are innately human. So while it is tempting to link the beginning of agriculture to the end of humanity in the wild, it is probably more accurate to say that the zoo is as old as our species. That statement may seem counterintuitive to the whole idea of a Paleolithic principle, but it is important to remember that almost all creatures interact with their surroundings and make changes. Bears dig dens, birds build nests, and farmer ants, well, farm.

What I am concerned with most when I think Paleo thoughts is not when did we begin altering our habitat, like say selecting for certain plants, but when did those alterations cease being beneficial in the long-term and why do we still cling to them? As I wrote in a previous post, I no longer see the practice of agriculture as some sort of choice our ancestors made but more of an accidental course of action embarked upon by necessity. Now I like to think of at least commodity agriculture as a wobbly stepping stone that kept us alive long enough to find a better way to sustain our existence.

So in my understanding, the zoo is as old as humanity and not the product of the beginning of agriculture, but somewhere along the way things went awry with zoo management. That is to say that I see agriculture and other detrimental Neolithic structures as effects, not the causes. Furthermore, if I want to understand life in the zoo, before the caretakers seemed to go a little crazy, it is probably important to understand what caused said craziness.

Somewhere around 12,000 years ago, the Pleistocene epoch came to an end. Its passing was marked by the disappearance of what is called mega fauna throughout most of the world. Mega fauna were large, often herbivorous, animals that roamed the many grasslands around the globe at the time. What exactly caused this disappearance is still the subject of some debate. I believe it was largely due to an invasive species, Homo sapiens, because as others have pointed out, the climate variations that are sometimes blamed for the extinctions of this time had been routine throughout the epoch. I speculate that the removal of these large creatures was what threw the zoo into turmoil. A turmoil out of which we are still working.

If one believes, as I do, that the world as we knew it came to an end with the Pleistocene, every living arrangement that humanity has devised since then is suspect. I know this will be an unpopular idea among many in the Paleosphere who want to look at the remaining hunter-gatherer tribes as a model for what the life of our ancestors was like. The truth is we can probably not deduce much about the lives of pre-historic humans from the surviving hunter-gatherers. Rather, as Jared Diamond suggests in his latest book, we can see them as experiments in organizing human society.

One mistake that I feel some Paleo bloggers make with some regularity is trying to search for information about a good human diet by studying what these people with a more primitive lifestyle are eating. I have a friend who once told me that he hoped we soon find a way to clone mammoths. When I inquired as to why, he informed me that he believed that they must be extremely tasty because we chased them into extinction! While this may seem silly, it still makes a lot of sense in some ways. Some detractors of the Paleo diet often point out that current “game” animals do not provide the high levels of fat that followers of the diet claim would have been normal during our evolution. While the argument has been countered by including the high fat content of some organ meats, I ask this question, how much saturated fat is on a mammoth? I tried to find some nutritional information on elephant meat because I think it might give some indication as to what one might expect from a mammoth or mastodon, but I was unsuccessful. If anyone out there has that data, I would be very interested to see it.

If we cannot rely on any recorded models to try to understand how our ancestors lived, then how do we decide what is Paleo and what is not and how do we build a better zoo? Paleoanthropology is a field I find amazingly interesting. but it will probably find more questions than it can answer. Ultimately I believe the best way to understand our past is by studying our current biology and psychology, then applying what I call a Paleo filter.

For instance, if you told me that table sugar was an excellent food source for humans, I could look at our biology and say that doesn’t seem right. Then I run it through the Paleo filter: did prehistoric humans and their evolutionary predecessors have access to table sugar. No! So this claim can be dismissed as nonsense. This is a very simplified example, but I think it helps get the point across.

The same thing is true for things more psychological in nature. For example, if someone asserted that it was unhealthy for adolescent boys to see women’s breasts, I could point out that there is no real evidence for this and then ask if there is any chance that young men in the Pleistocene ever went more than a few hours between viewing breasts. I think we all can figure out the answer to that one.

I started this blog because I feel that the diet is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things that a Paleolithic view can help teach us. It is important that we keep in mind as we go about our education that the world to which even the most ancient societies still around today are adapted differs greatly from the one in which humanity was raised up. So you will find that I don’t care if tribes around the world eat lots of starch, or are extremely peaceful or warlike. Instead I want to use the tools of science to gain a better understanding of how we can best serve ourselves. The book of Paleo is written in our DNA, our anatomy, our neurons, our chemical pathways, and our emotions. Now we just have to learn how to read.

Texas Primal Chili

This is a picture of some chili I made the other evening. I got the recipe from Mark's Daily Apple. If you are not familiar with Mark's work, you should definitely check out his website. It is on my links list.

Gaming the Biome

When I try to discuss or think about the Paleo-ness of something, I find it easier to categorize something as being not Paleo than it is to say something is Paleo.  The eight-hour work day, fluorescent lighting, sexual monogamy and many other things can be quickly dismissed as un-Paleo, but outside of very simple things, say walking, I find it hard to describe what I think makes up a Paleo lifestyle; afterall, looking for “what is Paleo” is the point of this blog.  One human construct that I believe is, almost by definition, un-Paleo is agriculture and yet it is how, to use a ridiculous Neolithic phrase, I have chosen to make a living.

If I wanted to be poetic I could say something like farming is in my blood.  My grandfather owned a small farm in Berks County, Pennsylvania.  Before I was born, it had been a dairy operation but my grandfather got tired of ever-changing government regulation and gave that up.  So in my early childhood the farm animals consisted of sheep for wool, and pigs and fowl for the table.  My grandmother had a large garden and an even bigger “truck” patch.  There were also many fruit trees and vines growing around the property. Often I helped my grandfather bale hay and harvest corn. It is hard to say if my fondness of them lead to a fascination with farming, or whether my interest in farming lead to a fondness of them; either way I have always felt the pull of a small farm lifestyle.

I did try other professions.  Well, I almost tried other professions.  In college I took an internship with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.  It was my task for the summer to collect mosquitoes and send them to be checked for the West Nile virus. It was an eye-opening experience.  I had always known that science and government had a hard time mixing but never before did I realize how great the difficulties really were. That experience ended with my boss telling me that he would not be taking me back next summer and me breathing a sigh of relief.  Having previously given up on the idea of teaching in the public school system, I had no real idea what I was going to do for a career anymore.  I thought about law school and a few other things but mostly I continued through college because it felt like the only option I had at the time.

After college we moved out to North Dakota mostly on a whim and for awhile I bounced from job to job.  It was in these jobs that I realized the way we structure our work environments is completely unhealthy and after my wife went through some very difficult times with her job, I knew that something had to change. Luckily a friend of ours had some land and he offered it up for us to manage, asking very little in return. So last spring at the age of 32 I landed, perhaps emergency landed would be a better description, in the first place that I have ever felt at home and longed for while away from it.  We call it Happy Landings Farm.

Even though I always thought a farm was in my future, my views on the idea of agriculture have changed a good deal.  When I started considering Paleolithic principles, I saw farming as some sort of choice humanity had made, a very bad choice.  For a time I would dream up ways we, as a species, could return to a hunting-gathering type of existence while maintaining most of the beneficial technologies we have today.  More recently, through the writings of Jared Diamond and others, I have come to believe that the inception of agriculture was probably accidental and partly from necessity.  However it came to be that humanity’s existence would be dependant upon our ability to manipulate the ecosystem, it is now the only path left for us to walk.

While deciding to engage in the un-Paleo practice of agriculture is something that I have come to terms with, trying to use Paleo principles while farming is a battle that still rages in my mind.  One particularly vexing issue for me is crop selection.  Of course our farm doesn’t grow any of the commodity crops as I feel they are not part of a healthy diet, but what to do about potatoes, melons, sweet corn and such.  I feel like I should grow them and then label them as farm stand junk food. Or maybe I shouldn’t raise them at all; it is a tough call.  Currently we plan to raise all three because we need the income that they can provide, but perhaps someday I will cut them out.  In the longer term I want to be raising more animals and have that become the crux of our livelihood, but it will take time.

As for the actual processes we use on the farm, I have tried to keep them as Paleo as possible.  We use all hand tools, with the exception of the lawn mower I borrow from a neighbor, because the noise and vibration of agricultural equipment, even the small scale stuff, seems appallingly un-Paleo.  Keeping the types of work and movements we are doing varied is particularly important, even though it does sacrifice some efficiency. When it gets too hot, we stop working and go find a shady spot where we can lounge around naked, or in extreme cases we turn the AC on in the camper that serves as our house. Always, we try to stay focused on our current and future wellbeing.

Mark Twain wrote once (I think he was quoting someone else) "You tell me whar a man gits his corn-pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is."   As almost everything Twain bothered to write, this seems true.  So perhaps the world could or would be better if we had never found ourselves tilling the soil, and I am just rationalizing my “job”, but I am not sure that it matters.  What does matter is that when we farm we keep in mind what is Paleo for the plants and animals for which we care. Joel Salatin puts this as the “cowness of the cow, and the chickenness of the chicken.” It is also important as we go about farming that we remember the humanness of the human.

Weekend Recommendation

If you are at all familiar with the popular paleo blogs you are probably aware of who Gary Taubes is.  While I had been familiar with other low carbohydrate literature before reading this book, this book changed my life.  It is a long book and will take you some time to get through but it is definitely need- to-know information.  

My ideas on how to improve the nutritional content of a meat loaf. Start with a naked meat loaf.

Then add some clothing which will make it look fat.

Cook it for a while and then broil to finish it off.

It seems there is a tradition of posting pictures of attractive food on paleo blog sites. It is one I plan to continue.

What's in a Name?

I do not remember when it was that I was first exposed to the idea of a Paleolithic or primal diet, other than to say it was some years ago. What I do remember is why I fell in love with the idea. Even though I feel that there is still some unresolved science to be worked out about the actual diet, paleo for me, and it seems for at least a few others, is an all-encompassing ideal that can lead to an all around better, happier life.

My educational background, which includes degrees in both Biology and English, led to a familiarity with the idea of evolution, but I had never really thought about its implications for currently existing species. I only saw it as a mechanism through which those species came to be on the earth. Once I began to really focus on what being an evolved entity meant, all kinds of new ideas and notions began to pop into my head.

The fact that humans must learn that we, as well as every other creature, are subject to the biological and physical laws of the universe is something that I think I understood from a very young age even if I did not recognize that I understood it. I believe this is one of the reasons religion has always been suspect to me, and why I have now grown to despise it. Even though I, figuratively speaking, instinctually figured out that the continued existence and happiness of Homo sapiens required us to come to terms with the way life in the universe works, I never contemplated it at the individual level.

Then came the notion of a Paleolithic principle, which I define as the idea that, if we are to maintain our well being, we must consider greatly the environment in which we evolved before creating a new one. So like a good number of people who find themselves contemplating this notion, I delved into all the literature that I could find on the subject. The more I read the more excited I got. “These ideas could lead to a real change in the social paradigm,” I thought. It was a new lens through which we could view everything from religion to environmental issues, to food and agriculture, to sex and marriage, and even our political and monetary systems. While there are a few good books on the science most commentary on the attempts to apply this idea to modern day was and still is taking place on the Internet in the form of blogs.

One blogger whom I follow, and is fairly well known it seems in what has been referred to as the paleosphere, is Richard Nikoley. In his blog entitled Free the Animal, Richard talks about things along the same idea thread that I hope to discuss here. I came up with the title of this blog while I was reflecting on what I believe was meant to be an insult, when Richard referred to a group of people as being “zoo humans.” I do not want to give the impression that I agree with everything Richard says or that Richard agrees with everything I will say. I did seek his approval to use an idea of his as my title and he seemed happy to give it, but I am going to talk about paleo in very different ways than I feel has been done to date.
Blogging is something I have considered doing for awhile. I have tried the traditional writing business and found it horribly enslaved by advertising and editors with God complexes, but I wasn’t sure blogging had a future. I feared it was a fad and maybe it will prove to be in the long run, but it seems that it will stick around for a little while. Once I decided to blog, it was then that I needed to find a subject and motivation.

Sometime ago I settled on the Paleolithic Principle but I could not find the motivation to get started. That motivation came in the form of a tragedy. After the recent shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary I found the public discourse on the issue of gun control abhorrent, incoherent and tremendously over simplified. Also, I discovered it lacking in a paleo perspective.

This type of issue and many others, some less controversial some more, are what I plan to discuss here. I have clicked on the adult content button so that I can assume everyone reading this is an adult and I will write and post pictures accordingly. I hope not all my posts will be overly controversial but if you choose to follow along we are definitely going to find ourselves in what some would consider socially unacceptable or even XXX territory from time to time. So please remember that I’m in the business of extracting a new set of morals from a Paleolithic Principle. To do this all the old morals are subject to scrutiny, so try to keep an open mind.

I once read a book on the wildlife management of wolves in Montana. At the opening of this book the author expressed that it was important not to anthropomorphize when dealing with wildlife. I feel we need to figure out what it means to do so. It seems we have no problem assigning human traits to other creatures but are often freaked out when someone suggests we apply human traits to actual humans. Through this blog I hope to form a community, or a tribe, however dispersed it might be, where we can talk about what it means to be human by looking at scientific and experimental evidence.

We will be forevermore in the zoo. There is no going back to the ways of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and I am good with that, most days. As unhealthy as this world seems to me, at times I am still amazed at the things science has enabled us to do and I would not want to give them up. I believe we need to think very differently about the ways in which we use our technologies and capabilities. So while I surrender myself to the zoo, I will not be a passive inhabitant. I hope you will join me in this.