> >Don't lions (resp. cows) eat meat (resp. grass) for years and every
> >week in big amounts?

Jean-Claude:

> I don't know much about carnivorous animals but i doubt that they will
stay
> on one species, my cat doesn't, there is days for mice, and days for
> birds...

Sure. For humans, there are days for beef, others for chicken, etc.

The current trend of instincto, with which I disagree, is to totally
exclude meat from the diet on certain weeks. "Meat" is not a single
food, but a food category (like "tubers", or "fruits"). Why then not
exclude fruits on certain weeks? I think Burger justifies his position
on the grounds that, for pre-fire man, meat wasn't available every day
and/or humans weren't attracted to meat every day (since wild animals
are much leaner than domesticated ones). While these arguments sound
logical, they overlook two facts:

1. Hunting in today's "primitive" societies is efficient enough to
   provide meat on most days. According to Loren Cordain, animal foods
   represent on average 65% of their diet by calories. (Note that
   animal foods are usually cooked in these societies.)

2. Humans prefer fattier portions (organs, bone marrow, portions
   with a lot of subcutaneous fat...)

In addition, Burger's arguments on meat also apply to fruit:

1. (Sweet) fruit was not necessarily available all year long. Fruits
   ripen only seasonally. In today's world, when none of the local
   fruits are in season, one can import fruits from Asia, Africa, from
   the Southern hemisphere... One can cultivate fruits that originate
   from other continents. Primitive humans couldn't do that, and may
   not have eaten sweet fruit every day.

2. Even if fruit is available, it doesn't mean one is attracted
   to it every day: "stops" are stronger with wild fruits than with
   cultivated ones. From Jane Goodall's book, it looks like chimps
   were much more attracted to the (domestic) bananas they were given
   than to their natural diet.

--Jean-Louis Tu <[log in to unmask]>