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Date: | Thu, 7 May 1998 11:39:33 -0400 |
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A question to Loren Cordain:
The mean subsistence percentage for animal based foods for all 181 world
wide hunter gatherer societies is 56-65% - does that imply that this is
the percentage of animal based foods we are adapted to? Is this the
percentage of meat and fish (+organ meat, bone marrow, blood....) we should
recommend our patients?
Modern man, his digestive tract and metabolism evolved in Africa. There
have been some adaptations (to higher latitudes, to agriculture,..) in some
populations in the last 100.000 - 200.000 years, but the human genetic
constitution has changed relatively little since humans have diverged and
migrated from Africa. The differences between us and our last African
ancestor cannot exceed the differences between modern Europeans and
Africans. Isn't there still an African gut under our fair skin?
In modern hunter gatherer societies plant food increases with decreasing
latitude. Can mean percentages for all hunter-gatherer societies
(including Eskimos and other populations with nearly 100 % calories derived
from animal food) provide a model for the diet of today=B4s Africans and
Mediterraneans? If the mean percentage for animal foods in African
hunter-gatherers is less than 56-65% and if they are representatives of our
ancestors, what's a reasonable percentage for modern humans? An approach to
Boyd Eatons values?
Ruediger Hoeflechner
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