Steve Meyers wrote:
>
>Given that levels of insoluble fiber (which promotes bowel
>transit time) would be rather low in the diets of
>HGers relying heavily on animal foods (and here we could
>include Cro Magnon man), one wonders if they had any troubles
>with constipation.

We have just completed a review of the nutritional composition of
Australian Aboriginal plants foods in which we generated an average figure
for fibre per 100 g plant foods (Brand Miller and Holt. Nutritional
Research Reviews, in press).   This figure turned out to be 11 ± 11(SD) g
fibre per 100g.

The data enable us to calculate the absolute contribution of plant foods to
total food and nutrient intake of traditional living AA.  If plants
provided 20-40% of the energy in the diet (the most likely range), then
plants would have contributed 22-44 g protein, 18-36 g fat, 101-202 g
carbohydrate, 40-80 g fibre and 90-180 mg vitamin C in a 12,500 kJ (3000
Cal) diet.

Thus fibre intake would have been very high by our standards even when
plant food intake was relatively low.


Best wishes Jennie



Jennie Brand Miller  PhD
Associate Professor in Human Nutrition
Department of Biochemistry  G08
University of Sydney
NSW 2006  Australia
Phone: (61 2) 9351 3759
Fax: (61 2) 9351 6022