On Sun, 22 Oct 2000 16:04:50 -1000, Secola/Nieft <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>Could you point out which food Lucy was eating that enabled the brain size
>explosion witnessed in homo sapien?

As I mentioned, i dan't believe that some variation of food could have
*caused* the brain enlargement. Not of Lucy or of homo anything.

There must have been other driving forces for the brain enlargement,
i think, and it's a interesting story.
Personally at the moment i find as a probable approach the
brain-enlargement
through the advantages of increased redundancy.
Memory is stored somehow "holographic" (means redundant) in several
parts of
the brain.
If someone is running around in a savannah, due to the heat a certain
percentage of brain cells starts to cease working. A big brain would
keep
its functionality longer in the heat. Humans can remain active active
while
lions, leopards and hyenas sleep in the shadow. Also humans have very
good
cooled bodies (but all that are just guesses).
Later on the increased count of brain cells had the at last deciding
advantage of enabling a much bigger intellectual capability
(when not running).

However the bigger brain certainly has some additional food
requirements in
the follow up. The most striking one is the increased energy
consumption of
the brain. Now it is 20-25% of the whole body. The strongest demand
caused
by this is a steady supply of carbohydrates.
Particularly in the absence of a high fruit diet like in the savanna.

There's also the idea that it would be of advantage to spare some
energy by
maintaining only the smaller gut, humans have developped.
But even the whole gut still uses a much smaller part of the resting
energy
as the brain enlarged  needed more.
I think the smaller gut just shows the increased density of the food
items
consumed in the evolving time.
This could be meat or nuts (as the very densest) or other seeds or
tubers.
These all are significantly denser as fruit.

Or thinking more functionally: the gut may shrink if there's less need
to
process cellulose (e.g. from tree bark) to be digested into
carbohydrate.
Momentarily i can only think of one food than can replace this
carbohydrate
source successfully: tubers. Readily available many are edible raw,
and the
starches from other seeds (mainly cereals) I would not consider as a
paleo-staple.

Sorry this part is so long.
I hope someone took care to think about it.

>>I will concentrate on maintaining the
>>functionality
>> of my few neurons already existing. With appropiate food.
>
Kirt:
>What exactly is that supposed to mean? Unless you are willing to experiment
>with a higher animal food diet you simply will not have any personal
>subjective information about its utility for you.

I once tried a brain.....but

What would you think is the best food to support brain functionality?
I think at first hand it's energy supply must be secured.
That means a *usable* source of glucose. This is brain fuel.
Glucose is usable only if the energy processing structures can use it.
Ribosomes and appropiate enzymes and co-enzymes, some of which are
essentialy required to come from the food.
Particularly thiamin, riboflavin and niacin.
Meat is a proper source of this (glucose and vitamins b1-b3) but a
very low
dense (big amounts necessary to derive glucose out of).
Tubers and fruit are very good and dense in terms of glucose and
co-enzymes.

A second important compound for brain functionality are transmitter
substances and long chain fatty acids.
Transmitter substances are made mostly of amino acids, like serotonin
of
tryptophan.
A high protein diet (as usual in a paleodiet with or without meat)
would
have plenty of them. In the case of tryptophan/serotonin the absence
of
*competing* amino acids is necessary for effective transport through
the
blood/brain barrier. Therefore the relative occurence of this amino
acid
will also be important
(I posted a table with relative tryptophan occurence for that reason).
One link for this:
http://www.earthpulse.com/flanagan/pharmacy.html

Long chain fatty acids - are found only in some animal foods but are
not
essential (humans synthesize it). After I haven't eaten any LC-FA for
15
years my blood test prooved my DHA-level to be in the upper quarter,
for
example. I should mention that I am fond of EFAs and am avoiding
deleterious
fatty acids eat few competing fatty acids.

>Looking forward to you not continuously skirting the issue of animal
>foods/fats.

As i deliberately use to restrict my diet to a subset of what would be
edible and what was usual also in paleo-times I am interested about
benefits of animal foods or fats (to not miss them). What i found are
some
benefits, but nothing real essential (except vitamin b12 which i am in
doubt
about now).

However it shouldn't be a mistake for a meat eater to look at the
benefits
inherent to plant foods and not to miss these. Particularly in the
paleo point of view.

Cheers,
Amadeus