In a message dated 10/12/02 8:18:46 PM, [log in to unmask] writes:

> what
>
>i found for myself after looking at aboriginal diets for a couple of weeks
>
>is that they guided themselves round the calendar according to the best
>time
>
>to hunt for the animal in season, ie when it was fattest.  they knew
>
>[dammit, those savages knew something after all!] that a fat animal provided
>
>more nourishment than a lean one.  I'll rest with that at the moment.
>
>some vocab for you: depot fat, subcuteneous fat, organ fat, marrow.

Absolutely. That's was Weston A Price observed among the Aborigines of 
Australia. Heres are quote illustrating what Price saw : (from the 
westonaprice.org site: 
http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/australian_aborigines.html)

The great challenge for the Aborigine was to obtain enough dietary fat. They 
were close observers of nature and knew just when certain animals were at 
their fattest. For example, kangaroos were fat when the fern leaf wattle was 
in flower; possums when the apple tree was in bloom. Other signs indicated 
when the carpet snake, kangaroo rat, mussels, oysters, turtles and eels were 
fat and at their best.11 Except in times of drought or famine, the Aborigine 
rejected kangaroos that were too lean – they were not worth carrying back to 
camp.1 During periods of abundance “animals were slaughtered ruthlessly, and 
only the best and fattest parts of the killed game were eaten.”7 Favorite 
foods were fat from the intestines of marsupials and from emus.7 Highly 
saturated kidney fat from the possum was often eaten raw.5 The dugong, a 
large seagoing mammal, was another source of fat available to natives on the 
coasts. 
Other sources of fat included eggs – from both birds and reptiles – and a 
great variety of insects. Chief among them was the witchety grub, or moth 
larva, found in rotting trunks of trees. These succulent treats – often over 
six inches long – were eaten both raw and cooked. Fat content of the dried 
grub is as high as 67%. The green tree ant was another source of valuable 
fat, with a fat-to-protein ration of about 12 to one. Another important 
seasonal food in some parts of the country was the begong moth. The moths 
were knocked off rock walls on which they gathered in large numbers, or 
smoked out of caves or crevices. They were roasted on the spot or ground up 
for future use. Moth abdomens are the size of a small peanut and are rich in 
fat.4 
Weston Price consistently found that healthy primitive peoples consumed a 
diet containing at least ten times the fat-soluble activators – vitamins 
found only in animal fat – compared to the typical American diet of his day. 
These would be supplied in the Aboriginal diet by animal fat, organ meats of 
game animals (the entire animal was consumed, even the entrails) as well as 
insects, fish and especially shellfish, including lobster, crab, crayfish, 
prawns, snails, oysters, mussels, mud whelk, abalone, scallops, sea urchins 
and periwinkles. Shellfish are typically ten times richer in vitamin D than 
organ meats. Shellfish feeding on algae and insects feeding on green plants 
also would have supplied the Price Factor or Activator X, a potent catalyst 
for mineral absorption.10 

Namaste, Liz
<A HREF="http://www.csun.edu/~ecm59556/Healthycarb/index.html">
http://www.csun.edu/~ecm59556/Healthycarb/index.html</A>