NB: From time to time, I’ll write about issues that affect us as readers under this new category, “Caveat Lector.”
Not that any of you do this, but I read the New York Times Sunday Styles section first. I learn so much! I believe, for example, that the front-page bottom Gucci ad banner can predict that state of our fiscal mindset. When times are good and things are flush, that ad might display a whimsically oversized bag in some kind of luxury pelt or skin; when wallets are lighter and belts get tighter, then you see, for example, this week’s so-taupe-it’s-nearly-beige practical platform sandal.
This week I also learned that at least three (three’s a story!) young men and one woman in the metro NYC area are trying to live the “paleo lifestyle,” meaning they eat “large quantities of meat” and believe in “fasting between meals to approximate the lean times that his distant ancestors faced between hunts.” According to the article, they radiate rude good health and have “glowing skin.” The diet and exercise regime (based on something called “CrossFit”) can supposedly make extreme physical fitness possible. I won’t even go into the group’s arguments about nightshades…they seem to have forgotten that the “hunter-gatherer” didn’t have meat all the time, but often existed for long stretches on nuts and berries.
What interested me once I’d finished the piece was the fact that the paleo thing seems to be all about strength and physical health. As any 21st-century human knows, what we eat and how we exercise also affects our brains — and how we think and relate and solve problems has changed over the many centuries since the “paleo lifestyle” was common. We know that certain foods have certain effects on our organs (oysters! chocolate!) — do we know enough, yet, about which foods promote intellectual activity (Mom always said fish was “brain food”) to advocate heading back a way of gathering and consuming that was last used by people who hadn’t yet created the wheel, let alone the platform sandal?
It’s — how shall I put it? — food for thought.
