Pancakes and Paleos.

Ahhh... Pancakes.

For years I have been vaguely suspicious of wheat. What is wheat? It rhymes with feet. Should we be eating something like this? If Fleetwood Mac had been Wheatwood Mac, would they be famous? Would Rhiannon be about a pancake?
I think we can say, unequivocally, yes.

Wheat is all around us. Possibly it has some sort of vaguely devilish agenda. Possibly not. However, it is safe to say, that I distrust it entirely. Who are you wheat? Why are you in my meat product? Why are you in my delicious sauce? Who am I? Confusion and panic ensues.
Luckily, there is an answer.

Years ago, when I was merely a moderately joyful nutritionist, I thought to myself, why pancakes?

Here is why:

- It is a cake at breakfast

- It is a cake you make in a pan

- It is actually a long-guarded secret passed onto me by the excited nutritionists of the misty mountains, but, anything can go in a pancake. 

And this is true. Anything. My special (no, not "special, just special) pancake consists of baking powder, eggs, milk and... things! Grated apple. Banana. Wheatgerm. Oats. Often they don't really function as flat inanimate objects that are able to be flipped but, you may have lost that particular battle, but you can still cover it in syrup and eat it, so really; You 1: Pancake 0. Win.

But yes. What gets me onto this is this. A story.

Betty was having a good day. She had found a whole pouchful of berries to share, and was sitting with the others by the fire cooking a small bird that had been shot down on their walk that day. They had walked from sun-up to just before sun-down that day, because the weather was changing and they had to get down from the hills, so the bird and the berries were welcome in the cold.

Next to her, Pam looked sunk in concentration. The oldest one of all, at 27 years, Pam didn't have enough teeth left to chew the stringy bird, so had extra berries and four large green leaves that had been growing under a rock near a river, but she didn't look well. She was the second oldest person that most of them had ever known, after Dave, who reached 32 before dying of hypothermia one winter. Pam looked up, and smiled. Her thin skin pressed against her sunken cheekbones. She wouldn't have too many winters left in the hills.

Tomorrow they had to continue down, towards the sea. The next few weeks they would spend walking, picking their way across the swampy areas until they reached the sea and a good place to camp for the wet season. When they got there, they could have a fish. Betty liked fish, and knew they help her try for a child. Her last three hadn't made their first year, but maybe born earlier in the year, this one would have a better chance. She was already 21, old, and wanted to spend some years with her child before heading off to the big cave in the sky.

A sad, but (plausibly) true story. 

When people tell me they plan to do this I feel so sad. Why would you eat so little and walk so much? Would your job be fine with this lifestyle? Where will you hunt your game? What will you wear tramping everyday? How do you plan to deal with the elements? Do you really like watercress this much?

However, so be it. Anybody who would like to receive prehistoric tips, please come my way. I will give you a sharp stone and a sack, and point towards the mountains.