Is juicing paleo? What about alcoholic fruits?

[surfsteve]

I made some cherry juice from fresh cherries last night thinking it was paleo but when I woke up this morning I was thinking about it and there obviously wasn't any practical way to juice fruit in paleo times. Ok maybe from fruits like fresh squeezed orange juice in the tropics or just a couple of drops from squeezing a cherry or some other fruit but by and large I don't see any way it could have been a significant part of their diets.

More than likely most of the excess fruit that existed in those days was left on the trees and vines till it fell off and/or rotted. I remember a video one time of monkeys eating fruit that rotted and turned to alcohol and actually getting drunk from it. I've tasted fruit myself that had gone bad and had a slight alcoholic taste. This makes me think that alcohol from fruit is paleo. Though it was only available in low concentration, for a short time when it was in season. It wasn't till man had made vessels that things like grain were fermented so I don't believe all alcohol is paleo. Only under rare conditions in low concentrations.

I suppose grain could have been fermented in an animal bladder or something before pottery so I could be wrong. But then grain isn't really paleo either. Is it?

Any thoughts?

[TylerDurden]

Prepared alcohol is certainly not Palaeo but Neolithic/agricultural in origin. Indeed, some scientists claim that agriculture only got started so that intensive farming could produce lots of fermented plant foods which could be turned into alcohol. Now, elephants and monkeys and many other animals do indeed go in for fermented fruit, sometimes in large quantities:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50tlF3kGbT4

I would say that it's OK to try out such fare in small amounts rarely(as in "hormesis") but hardly on a regular basis.

[Iguana]

I made some cherry juice from fresh cherries last night thinking it was paleo but when I woke up this morning I was thinking about it and there obviously wasn't any practical way to juice fruit in paleo times. Ok maybe from fruits like fresh squeezed orange juice in the tropics or just a couple of drops from squeezing a cherry or some other fruit but by and large I don't see any way it could have been a significant part of their diets.

More than likely most of the excess fruit that existed in those days was left on the trees and vines till it fell off and/or rotted. I remember a video one time of monkeys eating fruit that rotted and turned to alcohol and actually getting drunk from it. I've tasted fruit myself that had gone bad and had a slight alcoholic taste. This makes me think that alcohol from fruit is paleo. Though it was only available in low concentration, for a short time when it was in season. It wasn't till man had made vessels that things like grain were fermented so I don't believe all alcohol is paleo. Only under rare conditions in low concentrations.

I suppose grain could have been fermented in an animal bladder or something before pottery so I could be wrong. But then grain isn't really paleo either. Is it?

Any thoughts?

Yes, juicing isn't "paleo".