Yo, Tech Answer Guy,
A couple of years ago, I read a book that changed my life. But, that's between me and my tailor's proctologist. The volume I wanted to talk to you about was Bill Gibbon's The Paleo Diet Cookbook: Bringing Out the Caveman in You. The basic idea is that our bodies evolved to eat what our ancestors in the Paleolithic Era must have eaten. This means meat, mostly. Yes, meat, meat and more meat. So much meat, you could swim in it (which was actually the theme of Gibbon's follow-up book: Is There Nothing Meat Cannot Do?).
I've been eating nothing but meat, with the occasional nut and berry for colour, ever since. And, except for the shortness of breath, random chest paina, near constant fatigue and gout, I have never felt better in my life!
Oddly, my wife, Jujubean, refuses to follow the diet. Not only that, but when I suggest that we have 15 children as part of our new lifestyle, she just rolls her eyes and tells me that modern women are not brood mares and that, much as she would love to talk about it, she's late for her shift at the maternity ward. Something about the way she always runs out of the house when I bring up the subject suggests that when she says that she would love to talk about this with me she is being somewhat less than sincere.
Can you advise me on how I can convince Jujubean to join me in my new diet?
Sincerely,Yo,Oggie,
Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat!
Sorry. I'm a guy. I had to get that out of meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat!
Okay, enough of...enough of that.
I know what you mean. When our ancestors were hunkered down in caves selling computer games, they had to worry about being crushed by the stone tablets the code was written on. A diet consisting of bacon for breakfast with a side of bacon, a ham sandwich (minus bread, lettuce, mustard and, depending upon one's taste, mayonnaise) for lunch and ribs, ribs, ribs and ribs for dinner would be necessary to keep them on (and stone tablets off) their toes.
You should keep in mind, though, that our ancestors didn't have to worry about a depressed housing market (caves pretty much always sold themselves) dragging the value of their IRAs down, and you don't have to worry about a lion jumping out of a taxi and eating you. Put more simply, WE DON'T LIVE THE SAME LIVES THAT OUR ANCESTORS DID, so why would anybody think that our diet should be the same?
Before you go all fur suits and clubs on my ass, I should probably point out that this is not a bad thing. The life expectancy of the average cave-dweller was eleven years, six months, one week, three days, sixteen hours and forty-four minutes, give or take seven seconds or so. If they were lucky enough to not fall into a tar pit and die, get eaten by a lion and die, starve to death and die, get hit on the head with a large rock by one of the Fergusons two caves down in order to steal their food and die or fall out of a tree where they had taken refuge from a ravenous lion and die, their arteries would clog faster and more permanently than the Gardiner Expressway during rush hour.
And, they would die.
That's not the only problem with caveman diets. When you go hunting and gathering at your local Loblaws, most of the meats you will encounter contain things like Monosodium Glutamate, steroids and antibiotics. (Our bodies may have evolved, but our shopping centres certainly haven't. (Because they had a faster metabolism, the bodies of cavemen were better suited to escorting these and myriad other chemicals through their digestive systems and out their sewage plants. Because our bodies are different, the chemicals found naturally in meats tend to accumulate in our system and cause us to grow feathers on our lungs, third eyes on our right earlobes and shit like that.
And, die.
Far be it from me to discourage anybody from eating meeeeeeee - you know. I'm just saying that even real men need to eat it in moderation and supplement our diet with other foods. Except bacon. With that, go nuts.
The Tech Answer Guy
If you are a dude with a question about the latest technology, ask The Tech Answer Guy by sending it to questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Just remember: the world is a strange place with lots of inexplicable facets. For example: why did we name a retirement plan after an Irish terrorist organization?