On Sun, 2 Jun 2002 07:32:24 +1000, Phosphor <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>If you are genuinely interested to discuss this issue, let me ask a simple
>question...
>what plant food did the aborigines use to provide bulk calories? give me
>the
>full scientific name, don't just say 'tubers.'

Andrew, as you live down under, you seem to feel competent on the question
on what the aboriginals subsided on. You even have talked to one aboriginal
man who didn't like "plant food". (australian aboriginals are not "blacks",
they are their own people - have you ever seen blonde blacks?)

So it will be easy for you to meet my challenge:
Please specify the *animal* foods aboriginals derived 77% of their calories
from. This should be easy, as you even attack the 23% of plant food.

I hope to find the amount of muscle-meat, fat, organs, fish in your claims.

>Or did Cordain provide such
>information [no, of course not].

Of course Cordain provided a lot of best quality refenrence with the
"Australian aboriginal plant food data" by Jenny Brand Miller and Susanne
Holt.
You can read exactely which kind of plants, which families,
which fruit, roots, tubers, bulbs, nuts, seeds and acacia seeds (which are
legumes) autralian aboriginals have at their disposition,
800 species of them.
Including the latin names in the case you prefer them.
Read about the caloric value of the various items.
I'll be curious how on the world a even much lower caloric value than the
70% could be reached. In terms of kangaroos, or maggots if you like.
At the same time  it would be easy to achieve any percentage of plant food
calories with adequate amounts of protein, vitamins, fiber.
See in Table 4 how plant food percentages from 20% energy to 80% energy will
work out in terms of protein, fat, carb, fibre and vitamin C.

Mrs Brand Miller tends to assume a very *high* animal part in the diet
("likely": 60 to 80 percent). The highest assumption I've read about are 70%
from animals, derived from a group of aboriginals who spent a few weeks in
the outback after leaving the urban environment for that while.
However, what's possible for some weeks isn't possible on the long run, we
shouldn't forget.

As we know the 60% or 80% from animals depend on the amount of animal fat
available. I'm looking forward particularly for you to specify where all the
animal fat came from, since I know that kangaroos are rather low in fat.
I hope your aboriginal friend can tell you which parts of a kangaroo are
eaten and how fatty they are.

best regards

Amadeus Schmidt-Philipp