Phosphor wrote:

>you're getting silly again Todd, it's a bad habit. remember that paleo
>tribes organise their calendar round the prize food of the period. one fat
>emu gives  say 100,000 calories. one dugong probably 500,000.  one salmon
>several thousand. how many yams do you have to dig up to get these amounts?
>

There are worse habits than silliness, I suppose.  At any rate, your
argument above, if it is an argument, is a straw man.  I'm not arguing
that yams or other wild plant foods have a caloric yield in these
amounts.  I am arguing against the claim that *unless* they do, they are
ignored.

>>You claimed that yams are a famine food, i.e., a food that >would be
>>
>>
>ignored except when animal foods are unavailable.
>but i resiled from this when I remembered that if women dont go hunting they
>can collect yams while they are looking for eggs etc. if the calories
>yielded exceeds input it makes sense to do so.
>

What you said was, rather illogically, that women engaged in gathering
eggs and grubs might also gather yams, etc.  "Beats doing nothing."
 It's illogical since if they are gathering eggs and grubs then they
aren't doing nothing.  Your point seems to have been that they might as
well gather yams if they have nothing better to do.  In the present
message, you concede that it might well make sense for them to do so.
 The point of disagreement between us appears to be fading.


>>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.
>>
>>
>I'm glad you raised this. these are the same people who live on the edge of
>starvation due to lack of animal proteins? who forage for spiders in
>desparation? the same papuans with rust red hair from deficiencies?
>
>

I don't think so.  At least, Diamond doesn't mention any shortage of
animal proteins, and his description of their foraging practices doesn't
imply one.

You claimed that carbohydrate-rich foods are not available to the
aborigines.  I have provided a source that indicates that your claim is
false.  I am not, however, arguing that the aborigines have anything
approaching a "high carb diet," which by my way of thinking would be
anything over about 150g/day.  My guess is that they average 100g a day
or less, but probably not all that much less.  Given the foods available
to them, it doesn't seem that it would be that difficult to get 100g in
the form of roots, tubers, fruits, berries, saps, etc.  There is
certainly no evidence that carb consumption of this sort would be
conducive to diabetes.  You may find this figure on the high side, and
in fact we have no way to resolve that disagreement.  My main point is
that there is nothing to suggest that hunter-gatherers would not bother
gathering these carbs unless the supply of meat were running out.

Todd Moody
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