F : I meant our genes must be realy adapted to these fruits because they are
> >said to be the most ancient ones, the first fruits to appear on Earth. I
> >used to live in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) for some years and there they were my
> >basic and prefered food, along with durian... and sea turtles eggs!
>
Tom :
> Check:
> http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/jackfruit_ars.html
>
> The origin of the jackfruit is uncertain, but it is probably not
> African in origin. Thus if one believes that human evolution took
> place in Africa, then jackfruit is probably not - in the strict sense -
> an evolutionary food.
>
> The champedak is discussed at the end of the URL above. It appears to
> be of Southeast asian origin, hence is not an evolutonary food
> in the strict sense. Similar remarks apply to durians:
>
> http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/durian_ars.html
>
> I'm more than a little busy so probably won't have time to participate
> in followup discussion on this topic. I encourage all to read
> the URLs above.

F : Thank you Tom, it's done. I agree with you. It's an interesting remark
about which I also wonder. Most of our food isn't of African origin but
still our instinct and metabolism work fine with it. That brings the
question of how the food instinct works, how it can handle such a huge
variety of unprocessed original foodstuffs in so many different states of
maturation.

An answer could be that this instinct incorporates the experience of all
the living beings preceding the actual animals and humans. In this sense,
the fact that durians and jackfruits have been eaten by our precursors
perhaps even before the continents drifted completely apart could be an
explanation. Another point is that our cells are still roughly the same as
the first eucaryotic ones appeared on Earth 1 1/2 billions years ago and those cells can select their nutrients. I guess we can admit a kind of interaction between the animal and its food, the senses of smell and taste being able to analyse the biochemical
content of  unprocessed things available in the environment since millions of years. When initialy living structures are destroyed or damaged by heat or other processes, this interaction would be somehow damaged too.

I just suggest this and I would be glad to discuss it.

About durians, the following article is also very interesting:
http://www.sunfood.net/duriandays.html

Best regards,
Francois