On Fri, 10 Jul 1998, Ray Audette wrote:

> All domesticated plants and animal are neotinized versions of wild plants
> and animals.  Neoteny is a type of mutation in which juvenale traits are
> retained into adulthood.  Dogs are wolves who never grow up.  Grains are
> grasses that never fully mature.  Domestic legumes are far different than
> those found in Nature.  In a recent article in Current Anthropology
> "Hominid Food Selection Before Fire" it is pointed out that they are
> almost never eaten by Primates in the wild.

And then again, I doubt that mammoths and, for that matter, beef
are often eaten by non-human primates in the wild either, so I'm
not sure where that comment gets us.  The question is whether
*humans* ate these things.  Yes, domesticated legumes are bred to
improve their edibility and palatability.  It does not follow
that immature wild legumes and sprouts were not gathered and
eaten.  They would have been only intermittently available, and
only for certain populations of paleolithic people, but exactly
the same thing is true of fruits and other vegetation.

Todd Moody
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