On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, Ken Stuart wrote:

> On Mon, 22 Jul 2002 07:48:25 -0400, The Getty's <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > We know, just by the fact
> >that grains were domesticated, that wild grains were utilized for a long
> >time before domestication and complex processing, by people that were only
> >occassionally using them.
>
> I would question this, based solely on the low yield of grain.
>
> Consider who many wheat plants must be cultivated to produce the same amount of
> food as an apple tree.
>
> This is why grain cultivation = agriculture.

I agree that grain cultivation = agriculture, but I think it's
insanity to believe that people would cultivate crops that they
didn't previously eat at all.

I think the general principle is that before people ate cultivars
they ate wild varieties of the same food.  This is the only way
to make sense of the appearance of cultivars.  I don't argue that
the paleolithic diet was anything remotely resembling a
grain-based diet, only that grains must have been among the wide
variety of foods that they exploited when it was feasible to do
so.  Like berries.  Also like berries, they are something that
could be harvested by children.  They wouldn't leave much of a
trace behind either, since uneaten grains that fell to the ground
would be quickly scavenged by birds and rodents.  I reject the
idea that paleo people were too dim to figure out the simplest
techniques for making grains edible: soaking or parching.

This isn't an argument for or against eating grains, a
proposition to which I am indifferent.  It is an argument against
the proposition that we shouldn't eat them because paleo people
never did.  I am skeptical of that proposition.

Todd Moody
[log in to unmask]