Kirt wrote:
>> >There's no all-raw culture either. Hmmm...

Doug:
>> Yeah, this may now be true, but was it always true for our species,
>> the only one which is not all-raw?  How is it that every animal in
>> nature can do just fine without eating any cooked food, but we need
>> it?  I don't buy it.

>What about eskimos?  It doesn't seem like they would have much wood to
>cook things with.

>Mike

My understanding is that much, if not most, of the Eskimo diet was frozen
and thawed during the dark winter months, so at best we could call it a
raw/thawed diet, but even so frozen foods were sometimes warmed (over a
seal-oil flame). I would say that traditional Eskimos were as close to
all-raw as a culture has ever got, unless we go way back, and there is no
conclusive data about our formative years as a species about cooking
(though there is about the % of animal foods and even whether they were
seafood or land animals). Unfortunately they had very limited access to
fruit and other plant foods, and their 90+% animal food diet was probably
unbalanced to a degree. I think they had a life expectancy of about 60
years, but by all reports they lived a fine fine life in those 60 years.

Cheers,
Kirt