On Wed, 21 Jun 2000 03:33:23 -0500, Ray Audette <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>From: Amadeus Schmidt
>> So where is the real million year long lasting energy source?
>> Rich in fat animals are a arctic or "northern" ecological niche.
>> Rich in fats in african savannah were nuts and some seeds.
>
>For 95% of the last 2 million years, most of Africa was a temperate
>climate. The southern portion of the continent was dominated by an ice
>sheet bordered by steepe-tundra.
>
>Grass lands predominated almost everywhere.
> The Africa that we see today
>scarcely resembles the much cooler continent of the Pleistocene.

Hello Ray,
I don't see the pleistocene climate as simple, as you describe it
but the differences in our view don't make much of a difference on the
subject (nutrition).
As a clarification a short climate description, as i learned it:
Primates lived from the beginning up to 2 mio years back in a
forest environment. For constant 50 million years.
Then came the climate change, which lasted the last 2 mio years.
In this time the rainforest changed slowly towards other vegetations like
 . Tropical semi-desert (sparse scrub or sparse grassland)
 . Tropical grassland (fairly closed grassland without many trees or shrubs)
 . Savannah
Not because of cooling, but more because of dryness.
In all this 2 mio years ice age a constant change between glaciation
(like above) and thermals (with climate like today) occured.
About 1/4 of the time like today, and the rest glaciacion or between.
The last (current) thermal lasted now for 12000 years, others similar.
So far so good. I think, you could agree with this.

> Likewise,
>the animals that are hunted today scarcely resembles the Pleistocene
>Megafauna that lived in this animal dense enviroment.

I think, you mean animals hunted today in temperate climates (like USA)
like described in Loren Cordaine's papers.
Today there are similar grasslands in africa or australia as we seem to
agree that pleistocene grassland was.
I remember animals that live there, like gazelle, gnu, kangoroo.
Would you expect *these* to have more fat than a deer?

>Grassland humans in recent times ( including the Souix of the American
>Plains and Tutsi Tribesmen of Africa) consume almost nothing but meat
>...

Tutsi aren't h/g as far a i know, but have animal husbandry.
So they get their fat from the *milk* (which is a complete mammal food).
I venture to doubt the exclusive meat diet for Sioux for more than part
of the year. Can you give references for Sioux?
(i found just: http://indy4.fdl.cc.mn.us/~isk/food/foodmenu.html )

>..because other Primates foods do not exist in this enviroment for most of
>the year.

That appears not to be true. To the opposite:
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA/journal/issues/v40n5/995001/995001.html
notes:
"..., underground storage organs occur at higher biomass in drier sites
because they  store food and/or water during periods of climatic stress
(Andersen 1987). In Tanzanian savanna woodland, for example, Vincent (1984)
found densities of edible tubers averaging 40,000 kg per km2, compared with
only 100 kg per km2 found by Hladik and Hladik(..) in a rain forest.. ".

>  When consuming such a diet, one must eat at least 70% of calories
>from animal fats to avoid "rabbit starvation" and death.

This is why i doubt that our various hominid anchestors
(not dead end species) had a desire for "rabbit starvation" like
out of the arctic or glaciated areas.
For the latter time meat and fat i consider perfectely ok
and to have happened.
For significant timeframes in human evolution this was not the case.

>The only enviroment where paleo vegetable foods are available all year long
>is the modern supermarket.
Unfortunately it's not so easy to hunt and gather paleo vegetable food
in a supermarket. And i think it'd be a good effort to promote that.
I hunt for dark greens, sweet potatoe,  raddish, pumpkins, salads ...
And like you i go out hunting (for me wild greens) and I'm happy that
some trees and bushes in my small garden presently provide plenty berries
(amelanchier!  and quite some more) and cherries.

>  Your vegetarian lifestyle only promotes their
>profit interests.
So it is in our society, and I'm happy that exactely theset people get
money which provide the right products for me.
And that's 90% from organic shops and 10%from supermarkt.

>Bacon is all that lies between a billion pigs ( an example of Pleistocen
>megafauna that survived through domestication) and the endangered species
>list.
Bacon is what makes out of a wild boar (an example of present day woodland
small fauna) a producing machine for fat from industry ,
biotech and agrotech waste.

I'd really be interested to know some books or better web references
which support view of climate and savannah animal fat.

paleo regards

Amadeus Schmidt

my last question with climate references at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?A2=ind0006&L=paleofood&P=R2026