Gary Jackson writes:

>This macadamia discussion raises more questions for me. Working on the
>theory of foods that are alien to the ancestory of our species, is it
>not fair to say that this goes far beyond what is available without
>technology? How did a person from Northern European stock ever develop a
>tolerance for the brazil nut, for example? Is this a unreasonable
>complication or is there some other explanation?

I have wondered this for a long time myself. Particularly when you consider
that possibly (though I do not know) most foods we eat today have been
selectively bred for considerably different characteristics than they would
exhibit in their wild state, ie.., ease of harvest, sweetness, tendency to
spoil or not, etc. (This might well include almost all the "natural" fruits
and vegetables we eat today, I have no idea.) Just how much change is
necessary before the food becomes "foreign" enough to our evolutionary
adaptation so to speak to become a problem? To me the question seems to
boil down to: Are evolutionary food adaptations specific as to particular
*species* of foods? Or is the adaptation more general than that--say, to
other basic characteristics of foods (in terms of their macronutrient
composition, and nutrient profile, that don't necessary have anything to do
with their specific species ancestry?

So does it really make any difference if brazil nuts were not eaten by
certain humans? If they ate lots of other kinds of nuts, couldn't one
expect they would be adapted to brazils, too? You would think so, but maybe
not. Or is it something that can only be determined on a case-by-case
basis? It would not seem to me to be very evolutionary advantageous to be
adapted only to specific species of foods. That would not leave much
flexibility, and evolution is often a process of compromise rather than
perfect adaptation anyway. But I don't know. Does anybody?

--Ward Nicholson <[log in to unmask]>