On Wed, 23 Sep 1998 07:22:25 -0400, Todd Moody <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>On Wed, 23 Sep 1998, Amadeus Schmidt wrote:
>>        c) modern hunter-gatherer tribes, 58 studied,
>>           including !Kung
>>           1. 60-80% of diet from plant foods
>>           2. hunting -> 100 food calories/hour
>>           3. gathering -> 240 food calories/hour
>There is nothing to disagree about here.  I thought we were
>discussing vegetarians.  A person who gets even as little as 20%
>of food from animals is no vegetarian......
>The above figures support the point that a HG diet will make
>*considerable* (i.e., non-trivial) use of meat, as well as
>vege
tables.  The point is that a reconstructed paleo diet will
>also make considerable use of meat. It should not be a
>vegetarian diet.  Perhaps a case could be made that a pre-hominid
>diet would be largely vegetarian.

Todd, I felt that I owe you an answer on this thread, why I'd
consider a vegetarian diet a valid option in reconstructing a paleodiet.
The figures we did agree at showed that for a very long time (until
beginning of ice-age) a kind of fruitarian diet was primates/hominid's
diet. With very low animal parts of about 2% from animals.
In the course of the last 2mio years that changed somewhere to the numbers
mentioned above - about 30% from animal food.

But what does such an amout -you call considerable- mean for the metabolism
of a hominid body? Could it for example create any dependencies? IMO it didn't.
Where were it's advandages or, maybe even pitfalls/drawbacks compared to the
ma
inly fruitarian diet.

If, for example, meat becomes available for cows (they get it presently as "meat flour")
even such grass specialists *can* use it, and indeed use it for a quicker
growth of their bodies. But are such effects leading to a goal
*we* could want to achieve? May it be Health? Longevity? mental sharpness?

Such changes in the diet can have its drawbacks.
- a quicker aging.
- emerging new (long term) deseases, e.g.: BSE. Cows were not ready for meat.
  What did the neanderthals die out from?

In the case of the hominid, it appears as if a (almost) fruitarian
beeing - the hominid - suddenly got the possibility to access a new
food resource - meat.
They used it, and the new lifestyle and technology resulting
from it enabled us to spread over the world, in areas not
availabe to fruitarians.
Same thing as happened with the grain agriculture later.
But I can
't see that that had brought any health advantages to them.

In attempting to reconstruct a paleolithic diet,
or better a diet _our_genes_are_optimal_fit_for_,
I see much more important things than to include meat.

At first I see the need to include the formerly at least 70% of plants
in an comparable quality as it was.

Studying purslane and "weed" eating, connects us to 40 millions of years
of our history, and to at least 70% of our hunting time history.
Studying how to eat meats of domesticated animals connects us to a history
of 50 *years* - that's the time since when meat is "produced" in the "quality"
in that it is available to 95% at the market now.
Studying how to get and eat wild game connects us to a
maybe 1 or 2 million year old history of a dietary add on.

There is no meat component I can see a dependency on or special advantage from.
One sole advantage of meats is men
tioned over and over - a higher protein
content. But it's equally available from plants,even if you assume high demands.

Maybe beeing strictly vegetarian is unusual for hominids in a certain time frame.
But the same applies to other *dietary experiments* (in paleolithic terms)
that some people here test:  For example
- eating *more* than 40% cals from meat,
- reducing the fiber in food below paleolithic levels
- including fish in the diet
- frying (whatever)
- eating fats from domesticated animals
- eating a food composition that offers a reduced vitamin content compared
  to paleolithic times per day (vitamins *are* essentials)

So why shouldn't one go a vegetarian way. It's close to early homind times.
It's still close to later homind's times.
I think there isn't one sole paleolithic nutrition, we still have options.

regards

Amadeus