Chocolate and sweet potatoes

[misswoo]

I have seen some paleo recipes that use chocolate and sweet potatoes but it is my understanding from reading that these are not paleo based foods...

also i plan on cutting out cheese today woo hoo the goal is to be 100% paleo only

thanks to all who reply on this i just want confirmation of some sort also is there a recipes section on this forum?

[TylerDurden]

Those sort of recipes are not found on this forum as this is a RAWpalaeo forum. Other rather lax cooked-paleodiet forums might have some recipes which allow some non-palaeo foods but that is all.

All such topics should only go into the hot topics forum. Moved there now.

[cliff]

Tubers are a paleo food.

Chocolate could be considered paleo as well, its a fruit seed.

[ForTheHunt]

Tubers are a paleo food.

Chocolate could be considered paleo as well, its a fruit seed.

No it wouldn't my friend

The cocoa bean yes, but not processed chocolate.

[TylerDurden]

Plus, most tubers have to be cooked in order to become edible and were anyway only a tiny part of a cooked-palaeolithic diet. Plus tubers are commonly full of antinutrients(such  as cassava).

[cliff]

No it wouldn't my friend

The cocoa bean yes, but not processed chocolate.

By chocolate I meant cocoa beans, they sell cacao paste here which is nothing more then fermented cacao beans smashed together.

[cliff]

Plus, most tubers have to be cooked in order to becole edible and were anyway only a tiny part of a cooked-palaeolithic diet. Plus tubers are commonly full of antinutrients(such  as cassava).

Cassava and potatoes are the only tubers that contain harmful amounts of antinutrients.  Yams and sweet potatoes are as close to anti nutrient free as you can get in the plant world.

I agree cooked tubers do not fit into the raw paleo paradigm but that doesn't make them not paleo as we have plenty of evidence that paleo has eaten tubers for a very long time.  Apes eat raw tubers so I don't see any reason why we wouldn't, we have the adaptation for starch digestion as well(which apes do not have)

[djr_81]

By chocolate I meant cocoa beans, they sell cacao paste here which is nothing more then fermented cacao beans smashed together.

They roast them therefore definitely not raw paleo.

[TylerDurden]

Cassava and potatoes are the only tubers that contain harmful amounts of antinutrients.  Yams and sweet potatoes are as close to anti nutrient free as you can get in the plant world.

I agree cooked tubers do not fit into the raw paleo paradigm but that doesn't make them not paleo as we have plenty of evidence that paleo has eaten tubers for a very long time.  Apes eat raw tubers so I don't see any reason why we wouldn't, we have the adaptation for starch digestion as well(which apes do not have)

  Hmm, that's not what I have heard on cooked-palaeo groups. The general impression I got was that most tubers had to be cooked before they were edible with several being toxic even when cooked unless specially treated. Certainly Wrangham's main point is that he claims that tubers were eaten in great quantities and that cooking had to exist a million years ago as tubers usually need to be cooked. Cooked-palaeodiet gurus, however, point to the fact that tubers were only a minor part of the diet and that when starchy foods became a significant part of the diet during the Neolithic era, that hominid brain-size dropped by 8 percent.

[KD]

There are ways to ferment and/or eat both raw. I'm sure they could function somehow into your diet if they prove helpful. As a caveat, even the relatively unprocessed whole cacao beans I've tried are basically impossible to eat IMO and most sources do in fact use heat, not to mention carry some dubious natural chemicals. If the tubers are not fermented, I would recommend eating no more than some grated pieces with some other kind of plant food, as the raw starch is too difficult to process. As for cooked tubers, whether they are completely paleolithic or not, they might function better in someones diet then high fructose (equally not paleolithic raw fruits) fruits. Mark Sisson wrote a pretty good article on such recently.

[yuli]

OK, its pretty easy to find raw unheated cocoa in health food store.
And sweet potatoes do not need to be cooked at all, they are actually delicious raw, bananas seem worse to me then sweet potatoes.
No less paleo or raw then a cow steak IMO

[KD]

OK, its pretty easy to find raw unheated cocoa in health food store.

this argument has been carried out incessantly on every raw food site I've ever been a part of..pretty much all of the major raw food gurus and all the distributors selling all types of cacao products have finally had to admit that their products are heat treated. like honey, its possible to eat in nature, but usually not economically feasible to make a profit without using some type of processing. just like 'raw' honey, raw cacao can be sold as such.

[yuli]

OK, Here is a little of their info...
"
- Our raw Cacao Beans are hand peeled, never machine processed.
- retains its natural qualities through a sun drying process, opposed to heating or roasting.
"
some more info...
"
Our farmers nurture the trees, hand pick the cacao pods, and separate the beans for fermenting. After a carefully controlled fermentation process, the cacao beans are sun dried. Unfortunately, many companies have been known to dry their beans in ovens in order to reduce their costs. After this detrimental process, you end up with beans that incur a disappointing "acid flavor" that most consumers confuse with a "fermented" type flavor.
"
That sounds pretty raw to me, sun drying is not bad, and they don't use any ovens, its a pretty good raw food brand, and I think to make it economically feasible they just jacked up the price and there we are, you pay for what you get...lol

By the way this cacao has a very lovely flavor.

I think if "raw" coconut butter can be acceptable then so can these beans...

[KD]

I never said they were unacceptable, only that they used heat to process it.

I agree that sun drying is an acceptable (and usually only) way of making a 'raw' product, but my understanding is that when actual investigations were undergone on many of these operations, much of what you quoted here was not accurate. The same thing pops up again and again with honey manufacturers claims and wordings.

as for coconut butter, I would say this is equally or more-so not raw, but like sweet potato, could be useful for someone I suppose. I agree its possible its not greatly detrimental...as I believe you are trying to point out, other then the unprocessed coconut/fat being considered by some to be an ideal food, whereas the others not so much. Of course that part is rather relative/subjective.

[TylerDurden]

Claims like these are usually meaningless. I find so-called raw honey all over the place and UK law allows honey to be labelled raw as long as it is only heated up to 80 degrees Centigrade for a short time.

[yuli]

Yes they could be lying, but looking at that brand and their products, their prices, their website....sigh....for the meanwhile I'll just take their word for it until I investigate them myself. There is also a phone number I can actually call them and ask I guess (too lazy now), but then they can lie to me on the phone and to all their customers, LOL.
But then anyone can lie about any of their products even meats, so eventually you have to find who to trust and who to not, ya know what I mean.
I have no doubt many "raw" things are not raw, but that doesn't mean there aren't ANY real raw products out there either.

As for the honey you can call the bee farm and ask them (assuming you're buying local), or some you can even visit I think, some do not heat their honey at all, but they do filter it. Sometimes its sold with the honey comb, then you can be sure! 

[PaleoPhil]

  Hmm, that's not what I have heard on cooked-palaeo groups. The general impression I got was that most tubers had to be cooked before they were edible with several being toxic even when cooked unless specially treated. Certainly Wrangham's main point is that he claims that tubers were eaten in great quantities and that cooking had to exist a million years ago as tubers usually need to be cooked. Cooked-palaeodiet gurus, however, point to the fact that tubers were only a minor part of the diet and that when starchy foods became a significant part of the diet during the Neolithic era, that hominid brain-size dropped by 8 percent.

By coincidence I recently saw a Ray Mears video that talked about Australian tubers that are edible raw (though they are tastier cooked) and I skimmed an article that said that chimps dig up and eat raw tubers. It said they chew them and spit out the fiber, which is like juicing--so maybe there is more precedent for juicing tubers than for greens and fruits?