On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, Elsie Steinwachs wrote:

> My interest in the paleofood list was caused by my hope of seeing diets
> that had adequate calories without exhorbitant amounts of either fatty
> mammalian meats or carbohydrates.  What I find here is people arguing over
> the number of Cro-Magnons on the head of a pin (to twist a metaphor).

You'll find that the authors of Neanderthin and many others on
this list tend to take to late Pleistocene era -- the period of
large-scale hunting of large mammals -- as representative of
paleolithic diet in general, even though this period may
represent a relatively brief and recent interval in the evolution
of human beings.  The possibility that the human race did not
emerge *uniformly* adapted to such a diet is heavily discounted.
In part, this is why we argue about Cro-Magnons and the like.

> Does anyone here have information about a general gathering/hunting type of
> diet that includes fish, small prey, greens, root vegetables and nuts?
> This esoteric stuff is fine intellectually, but isn't doing my body any good.

This is rather like my own diet.  I consider chicken, turkey,
Cornish hens, etc. to count as "small prey."  I do make use of
lean beef.  A diet of this sort must get most of its calories
from nuts or root vegetables, depending on whether you want fuel
from carb or fats.  I prefer nuts, which are mostly
monounsaturated fat, low in carbs, very low glycemic index, but
reasonably high in nutrients.

For what it's worth, my serum cholesterol soared on the mammalian
fat-based diet but normalized on the lean meat, nuts, and greens
type of diet.

Todd Moody
[log in to unmask]