From: Ramez Naam (mez@apexnano.com)
Date: Tue Apr 15 2003 - 18:16:33 MDT
From: gts [mailto:gts_2000@yahoo.com]
> On the other hand I do know some paleodiet purists who are
> willing to risk infectious disease by eating raw meat.
> Evidence that we are not adapted to cooked meat: meat
> produces carcinogenic heterocyclic amines when cooked over a
> fire.
This sounds like nonsense to me. Humans have been cooking food for
hundreds of thousands of years. We've been using fire to cook food
for roughly 10 times as long as we've had grammatical language.
That cooked meet contains carcinogens is not evidence that we aren't
adapted to it. The risk from these carcinogens was likely trivial
compared to the risk of death from food-borne pathogens or from
missing out on the calories because the food rotted before you could
eat it. (Note to mention that the impact of these carcinogens would
never have been felt in ancient times, because no one lived long
enough to contract cancer.)
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