Maddy Mason wrote:

>In a message dated 10/13/02 11:03:13 AM, Todd Moody <[log in to unmask] writes:
>
><< After all, we store
>excess fat as an energy store for when we need it.  "When we need it"
>would certainly be times when dietary fat is scarce -- so paleo man
>would not normally be burning up large amount of  body fat at the same
>time as eating lots of animal fat -- right? >>
>
>I'm not so sure about that. According to Wiley and Formby in the book, Lights
>Out, we (back then) gobbled up large amounts of available high carbohydrates
>fruits in the summer, putting weight on for the coming scarcity of winter. In
>winter, when there were no high carb fruits around, we lived on still
>available high fat megafauna, and lost weight.
>

What, then, was the point of putting on weight "for the scarcity of
winter"?  What scarcity?  If fat was plentiful in the winter then there
was no scarcity, and no need to prepare for it by putting on weight.
 Remember, in gobbling up those fruits we could not store more than a
day's worth of glucose as glycogen.  The rest had to be stored as fat,
and used as fat.

A more plausible interpretation, to my mind, is that the "scarcity of
winter" refers to food in general -- protein, fat, and carbohydrate.

Todd Moody
[log in to unmask]