On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, Amadeus Schmidt wrote:

> I think this is the time I should add a few sentences.

I thought you might.

> The Neanderthin style paleo diet does reflect our anchestry in the
> upper paleolithicum, this is the time from about 40000 bc to 10000 bc,
> in northern climates.
> There are no changes in the genetics, teeth shape etc. to expect in such a
> short time, like also not in the last 12000 years.

It's not clear, Amadeus.  As you know there are some recent
theories that suggest that all modern humans are descended from a
relatively small African breeding population that lived (in
Africa) about 60.000 years ago.  That population dispersed and
was subject to the climatic extremes of the last glaciation,
which was a major environmental stress.  If this "bottleneck"
theory is correct, that stress may indeed have caused a
significant genetic shift.

Note that I'm *not* saying that the Ice Age caused mutations in
the genetic stock, which is absurd.  But if there was a
sufficiently wide range of pre-existing variation in the ability
to thrive on meat, with little plant food, that last bottleneck
may have done a lot of "weeding out".

The basic idea is that those strains of humans who don't do well
on a lot of meat mostly didn't make it through the Upper
Paleolithic.

> Then there was a time of many million years in our common anchestry with
> other primates when our anchestry was near-vegetarian.

I agree.  But some of the distinctively *human* primate
adaptations definitely favor more meat.

> I see a slight gut size reduction and teeth size reduction which indicates
> the switch from more voluminous food to more dense food.
> Such denser foods will have been nuts, roots, tubers and carrion.

I agree.  And there would still have been the small hunted
animals: rodents, turtles, monkeys, etc.  There's no reason to
think that the first hominids were *worse* hunters than chimps.

> The ingenious and manual capabilities will have allowed humans to exploit
> new food resources, including to hunt without claws and fangs.
> However the history of weapons among humans doesn't reach over the full 2
> mio years. The first tools, "hand axes" are small sharp stones well suited
> for a lot of work, including to open carrion, but hardly to hunt.

Right.  I agree that the earliest meat was from carrion and very
small prey.  After that, there is a slow but steady trajectory
toward increased hunting, reaching its zenith in the Upper
Paleolithic.

> Chimps eat some termites, and austropithecines will have too, plus maybe
> some small animals.
> To what extent this justifies to rely ones nutrition in big parts on meats
> only, like Eskimo do, or Neanderthal and late paleolithical cavemen did
> is a question I definitely answer in the negative.

I think this question cannot be answered in anthropological terms
but must be the result of personal experimentation, buttressed by
scientific studies when they are available.  I believe that the
10,000 years or so since the end of the Upper Paleolithic has
resulted in real metabolic divergence.  Some people do the
meat-heavy Neanderthin approach and feel like crap.  Some feel
great and enjoy wonderful health.

> Alas you can feel it's written with an ex-vegetarians intent.

I chose Loren Cordain's contributions at beyondveg.com in part
because he is *not* an ex-vegetarian on a mission.  He is a
scientist who makes every effort to document his assertions.

> >Loren Cordain's summary of the issues in
> >http://beyondveg.com/cordain-l/metab-carn/metabolic-carnivory-1a.shtml
>
> Loren Cordain is an impressive source of information to read.
> This article, which enumerates some food properties available exclusive or
> best from animals, relies on selected single studies (like "Salem et al.
> 1994"). Which suppose, that certain ingredients like long chain fatty acids
> might be inefficient for humans to make in our own system.
> Which in this example ignores the millions of vegetarians *and* meat eaters
> who never eat such animal sources, like brain/marrow/fatty fish.
> And still have a brain.

It doesn't ignore them, but we have discussed this sort of thing
before.  I think, for example, that the following is reasonable:
The more SFA you eat, the more important it is to get your
omega-3 fat as pre-formed EPA and DHA, because the SFA may
prevent the conversion of LNA.  On the other hand, on a diet low
in SFA, the conversion of LNA is more efficient.  What this means
is that it's probably a bad idea to eat lots of animal fat and
then supplement with something like flax oil for omega-3 fats.

In any case, I think Cordain's comments about vitamin A and
taurine tend to support his point that the human trajectory has
been in the direction of increasing meat consumption.

> This all doesn't forbid and didn't prevent that grass seeds and other
> seeds (like acorns) actually have been processed and eaten by paleolithic
> humans.

I agree with this, too.

Todd Moody
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