On Fri, 16 May 1997, Todd Moody wrote:

> I sent this short reply and thought others might be interested.
>         Animal fat is not the nutrition equivalent of fats
>         derived from plants.  Audette's arguments that humans are
>         innately meat eaters is contradicted by human dentition
>         and the human digestive system, which are not those of
>         carnivores.
>
> I'm not sure what "innately" means in this context.  Audetted
> does not rely only on arguments from physiology but also on
> evidence from paleoanthropology as to what paleolithic people did
> in fact eat.  And he does not claim that humans were or are
> exclusively carnivorous, but only that we have been omnivorous
> for a long time, deriving a substantial portion of our food from
> animal sources.  If you know of evidence that contradicts that,
> I'd like to know about it.

        All right, something the historian can answer.  If you look at
the teeth in the skull of a pre-agrocultural human you will find teeth
that are adapted to eat the five things that are listed as "do eats" in
NeanderThin: meat, vegatables, fruits, nuts and berries.  When you look
at humans who have used technology to eat grain, you find two problems
with their dentation.  One is cracks from eating uncooked grain, which is
much to hard for humans to chew.  (Try unpoper pocorn as an experement).
The other is pits from bacteria which love to feast on the residue of
mashed and heated grains.  The result in both cases is the same, a
lifetime of constant pain.



>         His choice of Neanderthals as a model is unfortunate.
>         Neanderthals were probably not direct ancestors of ours,
>         but a specialized adaptation to Ice Age Europe who died
>         out - an evolutionary dead cul de sac.

> He doesn't really use Neanderthals as a model, but I agree that
> the title "Neanderthin," though catchy, is perhaps unfortunate.
> Still, there is much more to this little book than you have given
> your readers reason to suspect.  Audette includes a fine
> bibliography of scientific and popular writings on the subject of
> paleolithic nutrition and its theoretical underpinnings.  That
> bibliography alone is worth the price of the book.  His reasoning
> is considerably more sophisticated than you have represented it
> to be in this review.

        Now, I have no data to refer to, but this is what I have heard.
Endomorphs (fat people) are chemically much different from other humans.
They also put on weight quite easy, which is a cold adaptation.  Also, the
vestigal brow ridge is more common in endomorphs then all other body types
combined.  This may be the result of neanderthal DNA introduced in the
remote past.  It's also an aquatic adaptation, so don't call me a cul du
sac when I am far more evolved than ectomorhps who resemble chimps much
more than me in regards to distribution of body mass.
        Still, the actual model (as I understand the book) is native
Alaskans and other modern nomadic hunter gatherers.  The Neanderthal is a
self-image that is projected by the person loosing weight, along with the
psuedo-religious style, as a ward against eating things on the proscripted
list.
        The advantage is that fat people are made to feal that being fat
is their fault.  In an ideal world, no one would be sizist in the first
place.  But even though I am not loosing weight to please those who hate
fat people, there are certain advantages to being thin.  This diet takes
the burdon of guilt off of the dieter and puts it on the food.

        But the basic thrust is not psychological, it is physical
anthropaleological fact.  Humans were not meant to eat certain foods.  Cut
out these foods and you cut out the body's defence against them:  obesity.

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Karl Alexis McKinnon|I live as the beasts in the fields, rejoicing in the
SP2                 |fleshly life. I favor the edible and curse the inedible.
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