On Wed, 28 Nov 2001 06:24:14 -0500 Marilyn Harris <[log in to unmask]>
writes:

> Our teeth, however, are mostly that of a vegetarian (and omnivore)
> and not a strict carnivore implying that we have been vegetarian for a
very
> long time.

Sorry...  regardless of how you want to describe our teeth, we still do
not, and cannot eat most of the vegetable foods that Amadeus and his ilk
consider essential.  Whether for reasons of being unable to chew things
like grains in sufficient quantities to gain any significant nutrition,
or for reasons of some vegetable foods being inedible without cooking or
other "technological" processing, they simply could NOT have constituted
any significant part of a pre-technological human diet.

We are, as you say, OMNIVORES.  We can eat a wide variety of foods, and
it gets even wider when we add our techology.  But before that
technology, there were simply foods that we COULD NOT, and therefore DID
NOT eat.  You can play games and try to fiddle with numbers and push back
the widespread use of fire and other food technologies, but the
inescapable fact remains that the human animal has evolved relatively
little in terms of dentition and metabolism since the advent of those
technologies.

Plant yourself in the middle of a wheat field so large that you can't
walk out...  There are small streams, so you can get water...  You're
naked with a sharp stick...  how would you survive?  It sure wouldn't be
by eating the wheat...  insects, small rodents (both feeding on the wheat
plants), and maybe some fish from the stream... Sure, there might be a
little "salad" at the stream too, but you couldn't survive without
consuming the animal  life...  Wheat won't do it, rice won't do it
(especially in their natural states), soybeans won't do it...  but grab
yourself a rat, or a handful of grasshoppers, and you've got yourself a
substantial meal...

These are the most basic concepts behind "paleo."  It's not a game, it's
not fiddling with numbers...  If you can't deal with it, why are you
here?
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