On Fri, 28 Dec 2001 20:23:20 -0500, Wally Ballou <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

(fire...)
>Still not early enough to propose that the dietary needs the human animal
>have changed significantly since then.
If dietary needs of humans and hominids haven't changed since 1.9 MYA
(from australopithecus to h.erectus) then we were still >50% fruitarian.
You have "The raw and the stolen" don't you?
Fire would be a prerequisite for increasing the meat intake.

> Another thing you avoid dealing
>with is the fact that "paleo" as proposed by Ray, WORKS as he predicts
>for many people.  Yes, it does seem that some populations or individuals
>have developed a grea
ter tolerance to "modern" foods, but many find that
>a diet of "meat" (animal flesh), non-starchy vegetables, with some nuts
>and fruits provides a great health benefit.

I see than (here on the list) many do very well on Ray's style diet.
I looks that the nutrition Ray suggest is only a kind of north and late
paleolithicum nutrition. Nothing's wrong with that.
The success I would attribute to
1. avoidance of allergens and
2. switch to lower glycemic foods (particularly without isolated sugars)

Some 15% of all people have allergy against wheat, annother 15% against
milk. I predict that a similar alargen and sugar avoiding diet would have
similar success.

>> I can't imagine the erectines sitting togetherer in the evening on
>> the
>> floor, just with wooden sticks and stones in the presence of lions
>> and sabbertooth tigers.
>
>Pure obfuscatio
n...  You constantly spin yarns to "prove" that early
>humans had no ability to protect themselves, and no ability to catch
>"large game."

Africa is loaded with dangerous predators.
Without fire, without arrows, without knifes, without spearheads,
only with wooden spears and stones... would you feel happy and safe
in the savannah - when the sabbertooth tiger is hungry?
I do see fire as a major protection tool.


>You also have repeatedly
>ignored, dismissed, and ridiculed the idea that smaller game and insects
>would have been (and still are) abundant food sources, which alone could
>eliminate any need to even consider "big game" as a primary prey for
>early humans.

Of course smaller prey was hunted or collected.
Even chimps fish termites and enjoy. Was it a need?

>No, Amadeus... you have NEVER made it clear...

So, now I have.
I supp
ose a diet based on
vegetables,tubers,fruit, nuts,meat (if sorted by volume)
or tubers,nuts, fruit, meat, vegetables if sorted by caloric value.

>You toss out a bunch of
>foods, some of which may or may not have been edible without fire.  Worse
>than that, you NEVER take into account AVAILABILITY of these foods.

Availability is what exactely my focus is on.
1 ha (5 or so acres) in the open woodland, environment of homo erectus,
bear 40 tons of USOs (tubers...), roughly half of them edible raw.
Furthermore many of the processible even without fire, like Australian
aboriginals do with their favourite tuber "prey".
These items are available year round - no shortages no bad luck.

>...you have yet to propose a realistic environment which could have
>provided the necessary foods throughout a typical year.

Round the year there are the fruit of bushes and trees.
E
very plant produces some seeds. In some season they are available.
Sometimes fruit - where our more earlier anchestors lives from year round.
In open woodlands more often nuts (tree seeds).
Mongongo nuts like harvested by the koisan (african savanah) are available
most of the year.

>What you MUST do in order to give your theories ANY validity, is come up
>with a realistic environment, or even a reasonable range of environments
>for (assuming nomadic habits or seasonal migrations), account for the
>types of vegetation present, and then map what foods would be available
>THROUGHOUT THE YEAR.  Adding up the nutritional contents of your list of
>foods is useless unless an appropriate combination would actually have
>been available, and in the appropriate ratios, and that they happened to
>be eaten that way...

I think over supplying such a list.
Actually most of the work has been done by Brand
 Miller (et al)
in "Aboriginal Plant Food Data".

She predicts a larger aninal food intake of 65% as opposed to 20 or 10%.
But 80 or 90 or even 100% plants *would* be easily possible.

>Oh come now, Amadeus... you know this answer as well as I do...  The
>"possible upper limit" of animal food intake is virtually 100%.

That's correct and has been actual history for some percents of humans
in the late paleolithicum.
It's limited by the availability of fat.

>I know that you always try to make it into a joke, but many insects have
>a significant fat content.

Insects are no joke.
I don't see a shortage of low volume animal supply.
I also don't suppose a vegetarian diet to have occured for large timeframes
in the paleolithicum. It's my choice, but not for paleolithical
considerations (more like you not eating insects).
In many aspects I think it brings me cl
oser to actual paleolithical diets
as may other approaches.

>My understanding of the purpose of this list is that it's for
>the discussion of the practice of a "paleo" diet along the lines of
>"Neanderthin," and not particularly for the constant debate of the merits
>of that kind of plan.

I happen to prefer a "other approach in the spirit of the hunter and
gatherer" as Neanderthin. The ladder specializes on late paleolithicum.
I prefer savannah food considerations.

>I do suggest that you'd fit
>in here better if you stopped the constant debate, and just joined in as
>someone who wants to follow vegetarian diet as close to "paleo" as
>possible.

Actually that's my intention.
The debate I find valuable. *Not* for debunking the other approaches.
I find them obviously valuable. But for achieving a better understanding.

A peacefull and prosperous new year for al
l

Amadeus S.