On Sat, 13 Jul 2002, Phosphor wrote:

> well yes the O'dea study shows a severe reduction in carbohydrates helped
> tham greatly. this is not news to me, since aborigines never had much
> carbohydrate in their diet.

The diet of the inland aborigines was about 33% carbohydrate.

> >Why does Jill bother digging up yams at all?
> in case Jack didn't get an emu.

I guess the point is this.  We now have two sources indicating
that the aborigines, with the exception of those on the coast,
make substantial use of plant foods, either 23% or 36% of energy.
In addition, Cordain lists other known hunter-gatherer
populations, and the average plant food use was 20-something
percent.  The nearly plantless diets of the Inuit and the coastal
aborigines are the exception, not the rule.  They are outliers,
in relation to the hunter-gatherer norm.

You appear to favor basing one's implementation of paleodiet on
those outliers.  While I agree that that is one way to do it, it
seems to me that it is far from the only reasonable approach.
And evidence is lacking that it is the healthiest approach.

Todd Moody
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