On Mon, 11 Dec 2000, Ken Stuart wrote:

> Hence, my feeling that hunter-gatherers never ate a lot of the "leaf" and "stem"
> vegetables, such as lettuce and celery.    This indicates to me that such
> vegetables were "discovered" only later during the neolithic agricultural era.

From "Hominid Dietary Selection Before Fire":

        Many frugivorous and folivorous nonhuman primates meet
        their amino acid requirements by ingesting a variety of
        leaves.  In general, leaves (especially immature leaves)
        contain relatively high proportions of good-quality
        protein.  As we have seen, immature leaves are
        preferentially selected by the nonhuman primates studied,
        and immature leaves are lower in structural carbohydrates
        (and often in secondary compounds) than mature ones.

She goes on to say, however,

        A question which remains unanswered, however, is to what
        degree a larger primate lacking specialized gut/dental
        adaptations (e.g., a hominid) could rely on leaves as a
        major source of protein.  Given the limits on the amount
        of food which can be processed per unit time, a hominid
        should avoid filling up on foods high in fiber and low in
        protein and soluble carbohydrate content.  It is unknown
        what quantity of immature leaves would be required t5o
        meet the protein needs of a hominid, but it seems
        doubtful that a very large quantity could be sufficiently
        processed by the hominid gut and still allow ingestion of
        foods high in ready energy.

She goes on to make the point that I've already mentioned, that
chimps spend a rather large amount of their foraging time
obtaining a relatively small amount of animal protein.  It seems
reasonable to me to suppose that humans eat salad greens for the
same reason that other primates do, but have an even greater need
to get additional protein from other sources.

Todd Moody
[log in to unmask]