Nieft / Secola wrote:
> You still haven't responded specifically to Todd's idea that lactose
> tolerance is also an example of neoteny--or did I miss it?
> Also, what difference does it make whether we are or aren't direct
> decendents of Neanderthals or CroMagnon?

Neoteny is an effcient way to evolve new capabilities.  It's easier to
keep juvinile traits than to develope new ones.  Being able to metabolize
milk sugar is found in all young mammals.  Being able to tolerate
the proteins in milk over an entire lifetime of exposure is not found in
any mammal.

"NeanderThin" is one view of paleolithic nutrition that tries to see the
topic as that of what is the ideal diet for a savannah ape.  Hominids are
a very specialized form of primate.  As I point out in the book they
posses a unique set of physical traits that separate them from other
primates and allow them to live in a unique enviroment, the
grasslands. Like all primates they ate meat, whatever animals were most
efficently harvestable in their enviroment. Just as great apes and
monkeys harvest the insects and small animals of the jungle (in
surprisingly large ammounts according to recent studies, BTW I know from
personel experence that monkeys are better hunters than housecats),
humans evolved to harvest the animals of the grasslands. These grasslands
expanded because of global climatic changes and fostered a unique animal
population, the mega-fauna (which included humans).  Because humans can't
eat grass without readily preserved technological implements and most of
the vegetation in this enviroment is grass, we know these humans depended
on hunting the available game.  With the expansion of the grasslands we
became the most geographically dispersed type of primate.  It was only
the extintion of the megafauna that led to the Neolithic revolution.
Although humans have developed the technology to survive this
catastrophy, we have not changed our bodies to cope with this change.

These types of changes confound simple eugentics and are irrelavant to
finding the ideal diet.  Even if Mexican Hairless dogs have been eating
corn for thousands of generations, they still do better on a wolf diet.
If I were to write a book about feeding dogs, it would be "How to Feed a
Domesticated Wolf" not "Eat Right for Your Pedigree".  Who your ancestors
were a few generations ago is of equal importance as is which side of
Belfast you come from when talking about paleolithic diet.  Caste based
nutritional advise is traditional in some agrairian societies medical
practices and with the recent explosion of "alternative healing" some of
these ideas have become vogue.  For millions of years, hominids ate
specific types of foods.  Recently, other non-primate foods were added
that would not kill us right away but would shorten our lifespan and
increase our reproduction rates.  This has resulted in increased
populations which some mistake for health and prosperity.

"Naked with a sharp stick" is about as general a description of the
natural human diet as I could muster.  It allows for a wide range of
tastes and individual beliefs.  If I seem to emphasize meat eating, it is
intentional to overcome the artificial year-round availability of fruits
and vegetables in the modern supermarket and to reflect my own experences
with the ease of aquiring animal foods through hunting (although
technically, falconry is bird watching/scavenging, not hunting. Hunting
is easier!).  The supermarket does allow me to eat a more natural diet in
that it makes up for the lack of mega fauna and my unwillingness to leave
the city limits in my daily hunting expeditions.

Ray Audette
Author "NeanderThin:A Caveman's Guide to Nutrition"