On Tue, 22 Sep 1998 18:01:10 -0500, Kent Multer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>>But it is a rather small the place on the earth
>>where our genes have formed.
>>(and spread therefrom as the successfull Cro Magnon human).
>>And there - in Africa - was a tropical rainforest for many millions
>>of years, our anchestors were fruitarians (with little insects),
>>and vegetarian nutrition *is* possible there year-round,
>>as gorillas show.
>
>I think that considering gorillas as our "ancestors" is not useful, because
>they are biologically very different from humans.
Kent, I'd never call a Gorilla one of our anchestors!
We may have common anchestors at about 5 million years ago.

I just address the gorilla as an example that it is possible
to live year round on a fruitatian diet in tropics.


I don't think ther is a discussion that these common anchestors
and likewise our own anchestors up to the beginning of the ice age
about 2 mio years ago lived there on a primarily fruitarian
diet.

Afterwords gorilla line changed to herbivores.

An hominids changed to eating more denser foods.
This by an increase of eating meats, roots, seeds.
We only seem to disagree here how long and to which extent
which food type was choosen.
Where Ray Audette seems to portray a very long time of pure
meat-eating hominids - doing was his falcon does for him now-
some other (including me) would assume a only moderate
increase in meat consumption similar to that of present
gatherer/hunter societies as the !Kung.

as an example a citation from..
http://wings.buffalo.edu/fnsm Fbio-sci/courses/bio119/19x2f97.html

What did human ancestors evolve eating?
... B) that which was available
      i) when a giraffe was killed, they ate meat
         until it was "coming out their ears".
      ii) when locust invasions came, they ate
          locusts until locust flew out their ears.
      iii) mostly they gathered "fruits, nuts, seeds,
           tubers, roots, berries, beans and grains and made
           meals ... out of complex carbohydrates - starchy
           foods - and fresh fruits and vegetables, with
           occassional feasts of meat when (the hunters were)
           lucky enough to bag a mole or lizard."
            (from Jane Brody's "Good Food Book")
       a) 4 mya - fossilized teeth indicated human
           ancestors were primarily fruit eaters
       b) North American human fecal fossils to 300,000ya

   1. primarily vegetable diet
          2. >100 different varieties of plants
          3. Most considered weeds now.
       c) modern hunter-gatherer tribes, 58 studied,
          including !Kung
          1. 60-80% of diet from plant foods
          2. hunting -> 100 food calories/hour
          3. gathering -> 240 food calories/hour
....citation end


>  In particular, their
>digestive system is quite different from ours:  it has abilities to get
>nutrients out of plant matter, in ways that humans can't.
Could you point out where the difference is?
Anatomically? Or in digestive acids or secrets?
(I just have also read the opposite)

>A better way to look at our real ancestors would be to study the small
>groups of hunter-gatherers, who still live and eat today the way they did
>millions of years ago.
Agree.
>  I believe that, among these cult
ures, there are
>*no* vegetarians:  they all eat at least a little meat, and some live
>almost entirely on animal foods.
Yes, no vegetarians, but many with a overwhelmingly
part of plant food.

I do speak for a dominating plant food part.

regards

Amadeus