>From the live-food list: Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 13:29:44 -0700 From: caltura <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Meat and Vegetable Toxins Hi everyone, I just came across an article called "Meat-eating was essential for human evolution, says UC Berkeley anthropologist specializing in diet" and found this passage particularly fascinating: "Buffered against nutritional deficiency by meat, human ancestors also could intensify their use of plant foods with toxic compounds such as cyanogenic glycosides, foods other primates would have avoided, said Milton. These compounds can produce deadly cyanide in the body, but are neutralized by methionine and cystine, sulfur-containing amino acids present in meat. Sufficient methionine is difficult to find in plants." from: http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/99legacy/6-14-1999a.html This seems to offer support for Aajonus' assertion that vegetable toxins are not a problem on the primal diet since eating all the meat would neutralize the toxic elements in plants. I wonder if cooking the meat would change its ability to detoxify the toxins in plants. The journal article (from evolutionary anthropology) that this article is referring to is quite interesting overall. It discusses Katherine Milton's theory that meat eating was the major catalyst in the evolution of our genus, partly because the extreme nutrient density of meat allowed humans to rely on nutrient poor plant foods (tubers) for energy (for our brains). I like this theory because it really brings together the two major competing theories (meat eating vs. tuber eating) on the role of meat eating in human evolution, although I am still hesitant to believe that tubers were an especially significant food item overall (for the evolution of our lineage). Anthropologist/primatologist Margeret Shoeninger argues that wild tubers are so fibrous that they couldn't have provided a significant energy source. -Charles I am trying the SteakLover's diet. William