On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 03:44:22 -0600, Ray Audette <[log in to unmask]> wrote
on my question:
>>What's really the reason for the rule "no grains"?

>Domesticated grass seeds ( grains) are not eaten by any primate species..

Of course primates in the wild don't eat commercial grain, as they don't
have access to it. But they eat wild grass seeds.

>Like all grass seeds, grains
>deliver less than 15% of their nutritional content when consumed raw and
>are thus not worth gathering.

"*Wild*
 grains were in fact beginning to be gathered by 17,000 B.C. by people in
 the Levant (Middle East) and being ground into flour with mortar-and-pestle
 at this time, though cultivation did not begin until considerably later as
 Andy states. The Natufians were the successors to the very earliest
 grain-gatherers, and were themselves also gathering wild grains intensively
 (also using grindstones) around 13,000 B.C. prior to the introduction of
 agricultural cultivation."
(from Ward N. at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?A2=ind9705&L=paleodiet&P=R2214 )

About Australian aboriginees at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?A2=ind9706&L=paleodiet&P=R608 :
" Seed gathering activity was a
 major activity for the Bagundji in the Darling River Basin, although in the
 Murray River area, tubers were the main dietary staple.   Early in the last
 century Mitchell (one of the first European explorers of Australia)
 observed as  he travelled down the Darling River that grass had been
 gathered and piled in heaps.  Sometimes the heaped grass (native millet or
 Panicum sp.) was burnt and the seed collected form the ground."

Was it worth gathering the cereal grains, or why did they do it?

>Wild grass seeds also contain far less available
>nutrients than do domesticated ones.

Far less carbohydrate per weight and less food per acre, more labour to
gather them.
More protein per weight, more nutritious per weight.

>Soaking grains makes them a more
>palatable mix of flour, fiber and water ( in French paper mache ) but does
>little to increase bioavailability of nutrients until starches are broken
>down by the action of yeast.

It appears that hominids and primates aren't capable to utilize cellulose to
full extent. But obviously starch *is* digested fully, even by enzymes in
the salvia. To digest the starch of a cereal grain, it's cell wall must
first be broken, milled or bruised. Easily done with the simplest stone
tools.

> Some anthropologists have speculated that beer
>may have been the first food utilizing grain based on residue found in
>ancient pots.

My own thoughts about beer and yeast is, that alcohol is the common way to
predigest glucose- which serves as energy source in absence of sufficient
thiamine. Yeast is doing that predigestion, which enables alcohol drinkers
to get energy supply in absence of natural vitamin-rich food
(unnecessary for ancient grain eaters as grains have a surplus of thimine).

> Until the yeast produces enough alcohol to kill the bacteria
>the resulting mixture is an ideal medium for growing many toxic pathogens.
>For this reason, soaking grains and legumes to induce sprouting had to wait
>for the technology to deliver sterile containers and water.

My own experience with grain sprouting is, that it usually sprouts very well
up to length of 3-4cm plants which are very tasty then.
From time to time (around 20%) the sprouting fails (spoils).

>... no Primates in the Old World or the
>New World eat grass seeds, legumes, potatoes, the milk of another species
>or refined sugars in Nature.

100% d'accord of refined carbohydrates (nature has only unrefined c.h.).

Milk not of other species, but the own drink 100% of all Primates.
The biggest difference of cow bilk to human milk is oversupply of protein.

Legumes, http://www.naturalhub.com/natural_food_guide_grains_beans_seeds.htm
I agree with a basical danger from legumes, which requires processing
(soaking). Soaked legumes (or untoxic ones like peanuts) seem not to
represent a general health problem - they are prooven by many generations.

Potatoes are from the new world, without big apes.
Tubers, roots, underground storage organs are the one reliable food resource
in the savannah.

Baboons eat grass seeds and they are savannah dwellers.

There are many more nutritious seeds as grass seeds.
Trying to explore paleo as vegetarian i learned to love tree seeds (nuts and
chestnuts), sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, buckwheat.
Any plant has seeds. Most are very nutritious, many are a pleasure.

> When you find yourself in a "new world" and are
>trying to figure out what to eat, I suggest you try what the other monkeys
>are having and leave the grass to the herbivores.

Good idea (really).

"In the wild baboons eat leaves, blossoms, seeds, gum, pods from acacia
trees, green grass, roots, flowers, herbs,bushes, roots and small animals."

"Chimpanzees, like humans, eat a wide variety of foods.  The staple of their
diet is plants.  Chimpanzees have been recorded eating over 120 different
species of plant (Goodall, Pusey, Williams, Susman).  Off of these plants
they will eat ripe fruit, young leaves, shoots, and pith (Goodall, Pusey,
Williams, Susman). Contrary to most people's beliefs, chimpanzees do
occasionally eat meat. "

I'd interpret your answer to my question as
"because primates and gatherers didn't eat them".
This appears not to be true, more like "normally not as a staple" and
"not refined".

Regards, Amadeus