>If, on the other hand, 40,000 years is time enough to "adapt" to new
foods,
>as in the case of Australia, then it must be so for the New World as well.

>I am looking for some consistancy in what is said about "new" foods on
this
>list.

Tom, read the (very lengthy) interview with Ward Nicholsen at
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview1a.shtml.

I'll quote a passage, 'Where the fossil record is concerned, Niles
Eldredge, along with Stephen Jay Gould, two of the most well-known modern
evolutionary theorists, estimated the time span required for "speciation
events" (the time required for a new species to arise in response to
evolutionary selection pressures) to be somewhere within the range of "five
to 50,000 years." Since this rough figure is based on the fossil record, it
makes it difficult to be much more precise than that range. Eldredge also
comments that "some evolutionary geneticists have said that the estimate of
five to 50,000 years is, if anything, overly generous.'

If we are conservative and use the 50,000 figure, then we are *not* adapted
to New World foods in general (assuming a potential maximum period of
exposure being approximately 25,000 years -- for Native Americans only).
However, I think we are probably *more* adapted to New World foods that may
be somewhat similer to their Old World counterparts, than we are to grains
in general. (Lesser of two evils? :)

Personally, I don't think we really need to look back much further than
50,000 years ago. But, that's just my opinion.