On Wed, 2 Sep 1998 22:03:32 -0400, Ilya <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


>You were making two points - that vitamin C must have ALWAYS
>been plentiful simply because it is a vitamin and without it we would die.
Ilya, please don't feel attacked in your statements,
I just want to remain pragmatic.
Ok, the vitamin-dependency developed in a long time when the vitamin
must have been plentiful, and - for shure - there was never a time
when it was absent or under a minimum. Satisfied?

I'd say important for us is - to find out more about
the diet we evolved for, isn't it? (not about rats or one-cellars)

If we speak about vitamins, they can give us strong hints which
food items had *actually* been
our anchestral food.
So much, that body our chemistry afforded the luxury to develope
a total dependency on it - thats the definition of a vitamin.
And that's a real strong point a dependency without an advantage.
As you list, only primates and gunea pigs have it with vitamin-C.

IMO vitamin-c dependency points very much towards a nutrition with
very much fresh vegetables and fruit or whereever it is contained plentiful.
Because we are discussing the food we evolved for, not the food we
could only cope with in unsatisfying circumstances.
Vitamin-dependencies are food adaptions.

The vitamin-B1 dependency for example is very much stronger,
since the body-storages of B1 are listed to last only for some weeks.
If you list then vitamin-b1 containing food items available in
paleolithic times, you'll find: several seeds and nuts or mushrooms
(pine, sesame).
Besides that: grains and pigs which are not consi
dered paleo by most.

IMO vitamin-b1 dependency points towards a constant nutrition with
nuts and seeds in our food adaption time.

B1 is the think-vitamin.
Is THAT the grain-farmers advantage? superious b1-supply?

regards

Amadeus