Phosphor wrote:

>no, just read what i said. the caloric return is far greater for caloric
>input.
>

You have asserted that, but without support.  What specifc information
do you have about the calories involved in hunting and gathering?  We
are looking for a reason to believe your assertion.  You claimed that
yams are a famine food, i.e., a food that would be ignored except when
animal foods are unavailable.  Please offer some evidence for that.  I
supplied a source describing some of the plant foods available to
aborigines, but you called it a "junk source."  But you have so far
provided *no* sources for your claims.

The current discussion is in the context of the foods that
humans/hominids would have eaten during their extended evolutionary stay
in Africa, in tropical and subtropical regions, through various climate
changes.  There are undoubtedly some environments in which the effort
required to obtain plant foods is so great that it is simply not worth
it.  But I see no reason to think that such environments are typical of
paleolithic conditions, nor of conditions for Australian aborigines.
 Even the Inuit obtain plant foods in the form of stomach contents.

>>And you argue that for these reasons paleo people ignore
>>plant foods unless starving from lack of animal foods.
>>
>>
>i think something we have both neglected, and it has just occurred to me, is
>that  in the case of aborigines at least the men did the hunting, and women
>collecting [maybe there were some cultures where women hunted as well, i
>dont know].  so while your collecting grubs, shellfish you can obviously
>collect orchids, berries.
>
You also have children and elders who may not be able to hunt anymore.
 I haven't neglected it.  We've discussed on more than one occasion
Jared Diamond's description of living with hunter-gatherers in New
Guinea, and how the bulk of the food came from plant gathering.

>  so it beats doing nothing. but how many calories
>did they provide in terms of percentages? i doubt more than 5-10%. i
>maintain aborigines had access to no carbohydrate-rich food apart from
>macadamia.
>

Well, the web site I gave lists quite a number of fruits, roots, tubers,
and sweet saps.  The tubers include three different kinds of yams.  The
"toffee" is a sugary sap that can be eaten right off the tree, and is
best harvested in winter.  These all appear to be carbohydrate-rich
foods.  Incidentally, why would you consider the macadamia, which has
only trace amounts of carbohydrate, a carbohydrate-rich food?  Its
energy is almost entirely fat.

> the telling point: no other plant foods here have been
>commercialised.  because the effort to extract any nourishment is steep
>compared to getting hold of animal foods. hence they have not adapted to a
>high carb diet and get diabetes.
>
>

That's not a telling point at all.  The fact that a food has not been
commercialized says nothing about its usefulness to hunter-gatherers.
 It depends upon its marketability, whether it is easily cultivated,
whether it offers a good yield on the value of the land on which it is
raised *compared to other crops that might be raised on that land*.
 There are thousands of plant foods around the world that are not
commercialized because farmers can make more money growing wheat or
soybeans or rice.  This doesn't mean that those foods were not important
for hunter-gatherers.

Nobody, however, has argued that the aborigines had a "high-carb diet,"
unless you define "high-carb" as anything over 10% of calories.  That
would be an idiosyncratic definition, to say the least.

>so, which yam are we talkign about? let's get specific.
>
>

The web site mentions the round yam, the long yam, and the forest yam.
 And a plethora of other carbohydrate sources.

Todd Moody
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