--- On Sat, 1/31/09, steve <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


> 
> I read somewhere, and I cannot recall exactly were, that
> paleo man got about 11,500 mg/day of potassium....


Winter or summer? Europe or Africa? Male or female? Extrapolated from modern or historic hg bands or from archeology? Any relation to the infamous Ethnographic Atlas figure of 65% of the diet consisting of plants? Whose handaxe is being ground? (Or chipped? Weren't ground or polished tools Neolithic?)
> 
> While the Inuit diet can teach us something, it isn't
> representative of a paleo diet


True. I was taking it as one extreme, since presumably the Inuit got adequate potassium on their very low-plant diet. 


 since paleo diets got 20-40
> percent of their calories from carbs, usually low density
> very high fiber types.  The Austrian Aboriginal diet which
> has been studied in detail is more representative.

Is it? I remember reading that because all the large land animals were killed off shortly after man arrived in Australia, the data is not relevant to, say, Pleistocene Europe. (The AUSTRIAN Aboriginals, otoh, were herders, and if their medieval descendants in Ireland and Wales are any indication, ate much meat and little or no bread, but also a great deal of dairy. Okay, I realize they were actually Neolithic but couldn't resist. Sorry.)

From what I have read, there is still a great deal of discussion, not to say arguments, over exactly what a representative Paleo diet is, not so much the foods themselves as the proportions.  Furthermore, the researchers don't even seem to agree whether we are talking tropical Africa or Ice Age Europe.

I'm even skeptical of my skepticism, but appreciate your comments nonetheless, Steve. 

Andrea