In a message dated 5/11/01 10:57:59 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<<  Charles - do you know if the Pima diet was "rich in grains"
 as they claim in the story? >>

I couldn't pull up the piece, but from what I know of the natives of that
area, they would probably have cultivated maize (indian corn). I doubt that
this is the same as what we know as sweet corn. But it is always wrong, IMO,
to say that any native diet is high in any one thing. They ate all and
everything they could lay their hands on. "Grains" is a modern concept, and
means agricultural crops. This is not the right term to use for the
relatively small amount of cultivation that these tribes practiced. Their
diet would also have consisted of the usual animals (deer, small rodents,
birds, insects, grubs), and also pinyon nuts, many different wild grass
seeds, berries, etc.

There is one story about the Hopi, who did cultivate Indian corn. Their
fields were 40 miles (yes, 40 miles) away from their village. They would run
there in the morning, take care of the fields, and run back the same day! Try
doing that on a modern diet.

I was told that Alan Alda did a Scientific American Frontiers program on this
topic recently- of putting one of these tribes (it probably was the Pima)
back on their original diet to attempt to cure their health problems. You are
right, though. The aim always seems to be to make these low fat diets, when
they weren't that. All they were were low sugar and starch diets.

Charles