On Tue, 22 Aug 2000 11:23:24 -0400, Todd Moody <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>Yes, it appears that you were right about this.  A substantial
>amount of carbohydrate would be needed to make up the energy
>deficity in a diet that also depended upon hunting animals such
>as kangaroos.  Either that or a lot of kangaroos were left half
>uneaten.  Or both.

Leave the half?
Or more.

I've added two columns to Condaine's table.
Counting 4 kcal per g protein and 9 kcal per g fat.
(the  energy from the 22kg protein in muscle:
 muscle       protein     kcal from protein
 22000*.22 =  4840.00*4  = 19360.00)
                                                kcal    kcal
                                                from    from
 Tissue          Organ wt. (g)   %fat   fat(g)  fat   protein
 muscle          22,000          0.02    440    4180    19390
 bones            5720            .03    172
 liver, organs    3300           0.04    132
 washed GI tract  2640           0.02     53
 blood             526           0.02     11
 marrow            176           0.51     90
 brain              62            .093     6
 skin             5720           0.10    572
 storage fat       114           0.82     94      89
 GI contents,
 hair,nails etc   3740            na      na
 Total           44000           na      1568  14890   >19390

Lets assume, you were able to extract all fat from blood bones ...
and lets for simplicity not look at all the non muscle protein.
If you go to the limit of protein toxicity (35% of protein)
then you can eat for the 14890 kcal from fat only
about the half (35%) kcal from protein = 7500 kcal.
7500/19390 = 0.38. You use 35%, leave 62% of the muscles of the animal.

Provided you could extract the fat from the rest of the muscles, which
are to be left. Which i doubt (I doubt eating fat from bones too).

Thus again this 62% of the muscles subtracted from the muscle fat
subtracts 4180*.62 =  2591.60 kcal from fat calories.

Next (more realistic) iteration:
14890-2591 = 12299/2= 6149.5/19390 = 0.31 usable muscles,rest discarded.
And all simplified in favour of fat calories.

Of the 44kg kangaroo only 44-(.69*22) = 28 kg-5kg bones =
23 kg could be eaten and only .31*22  = 6.8 kg of it muscle meat.
Or can you find an error?

No wonder that the aboriginals didn't even transport the
kangaroo, if not fat enough.
No wonder how the "fatty parts" are valued.
No wonder that Ray Audette can't live from his rabbits.

Equaling out the missing energy:
To eat the whole kangaroo you would need at least 19390*2 = 38780
28780-14890 = 13890  kcal from other sources, lets assume tubers.
This are from carots 13890/270 = 51  kg
or from salsify      13890/645 = 21  kg

These carots already had =  510*1   = 510 g protein
or from salsify             210*1.4 = 294 g protein.

Would have to be added to the protein in the computation. And is comparable
to the protein of the left 6.8 kg muscle meat(1.496g)!!

Conclusion: it's hard to equal out the missing energy by plant foods.
Even from energy rich tubers you needed an equal amount in weight.
And the plants themselves have a lot of protein.

I hope I've made clear, why i consider meat as a paleolithic food (out of
the arctis and apart from some fatty exemptions)
as more emergency or not very interesting.

Amadeus Schmidt