In his post of 26 May, Loren Cordain stated that
"pre-agric. eating patterns show that fat and protein
were generally eaten together whereas carbohydrate meals
were eaten separately" (no citation).

In their reply to Loren Cordain of June 29, Sally Fallon and
Mary Enig question this claim.

In his reply of Oct. 9, Prof Cordain again states that
"Hunter gatherers quite often would eat only the animal killed for a
meal without added plant courses.   Thus, protein/fat macronutrient
mixtures were the norm.  Carbohydrates generally were consumed as they
were collected or separate from animal based meals."

Presumably there is considerable data on this issue with respect
to 20th C. hunter-gatherers. I thought that it has been not uncommon
for a main meal to consist of both meat/fish from the hunt and plant
foods that had been gathered that day or before.
Could anyone who is up on the literature comment?

For Paleolithic peoples living in climates with minimal
plant food (or in winter), of course, one would imagine that
the pattern suggested by Prof. Cordain would have been common.
But this situation corresponds to a relatively short part of the ~2
million year evolutionary period of Homo sapiens, does it not?


Stephen Meyers
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
E-mail: [log in to unmask]