Paul Getty <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Whenever evolutionary changes are discussed here, it is always about the
>changes that may or may not have taken place after the beginning of
>agriculture.

Because 5-10,000 years is a very short time. And for those of us descended
from Northern Europe it is only the 5,000 years.

>        It wasn't all that long, maybe a million years, before that
hominids were
>mostly vegitarian like other primates, and only ate occassional bugs and
>worms and such.

Try two million years.

> The diet consisted of roots, leaves, berries, seeds, nuts,
>flowers, etc.

Right. But not members of the grass family which didn't exist on earth two
million years ago.

> The vegitable matter he injested was
>nothing like the refined domesticated plant foods at the supermarket today,
>which has been selected for with lower fiber and more sugar and starch and
>fat in mind.

Generally things are selected to maintain shelf life.

>        Isn't it likely that as man evolved the mental capacity and physical
>characteristics to be able to hunt animals that before were elusive to him,
>that his body evolved to not only be able to utilize meat, but also
>retained the ability to utilize all those foods that made up his diet
>before?  Surely he could have just added those enzymes and processes
>necessary to metabolize meat, with losing the ability to live off a plant
>diet.  So when agriculture began, man already had the metabolic means to
>live well off a diet in an agricultural economy.

No one here is saying not to eat foods that were eaten prior to our
beginning to use tools and eat animal flesh, but only foods that can be
eaten without technology. Most beans, for example, are inedible raw,
without doing something to remove the toxins. Have you read NeanderThin?

>        I don't think there is any question that man had only incompletely
evolved
>into a carnivore.  His teeth are not very different from vegitarian apes.
>They have none of the characteristics of carnivores.

Since we developed tools there is no need for our teeth to evolve to being
able to catch and kill animals.

> And for all the talk
>here about the relative size of brain to digestive system length, the
>length of the intestines of man is more like those of vegitarian primates
>than those of canines or felines.

Actually it is in between. This implies that it has been shortening over
the past two million years that we've been eating meat. Our stomachs have
no resemblance to a true herbivore like a cow.

>  He still retained the attraction for
>sugars and starches.  Try feeding an apple to a lion....the lion doesn't
>think of it as food.  But plant foods are attractive to man.

No one has said to stop eating plant foods.

> The first
>enzymes to work on our food is amylase to start carbohydrate breakdown in
>the mouth.

But not enough is produced to keep us from getting cavities when we eat
these foods.

>  In fact
>it seems we retain a requirement for a lot of fiber, and if we don't get it
>there are definitely health consequences.

The evidence for needing fiber is for someone eating cereal grains, dairy,
cooked foods, and other things not in a Paleolithic diet. There is no
evidence that this emphasis on fiber is necessary for someone on a
Paleolithic diet.

> We don't get enough, and without
>supplemental fiber a diet high in modern animal protein is almost surely
>low in fiber.  Supplemental fiber, with all other things staying the same,
>lowers cholesterol, lowers triglycerides, lowers LDL, raises HDL, decreases
>colo-rectal cancer, decreases breast cancer, decreases pancreatic cancer,
>and helps in constipation and loose bowels and irritable bowel sydrome.

But none of these ills exist for a person on a hunter/gather diet!

>Clearly we don't get enough fiber in our diets.  Our digestive system, on
>it's way to evolving ways to utilize more meat, did not lose it's need for
>plant foods.

Again I don't think you have read NeanderThin. It is not an all meat diet,
though evidence has been shown that a diet of raw meat and fat can be
healthy, at least for some people like the Intuit. But even they eat some
plant matter in the summer.

Don.