Marilyn, I agree that our physiology shows that we are evolved to eat both
vegetable matter and meats.  We differ in that I feel that the changes from
earlier forms of mankind, such as the decrease in molar chewing power, shows
that we were in the process of changing from primarily vegetable eating to
an increasingly greater amount of meat eating.  I feel that the earlier
human types began eating more and more meat as their intelligence increased
and they were more able to utilize larger animals.  During this time, when
we became pretty close to what we are now, our digestive system evolved to
handle meat well.  We retained, of course, our ability to utilize plants
also.  Then, during the last 10,000 years or so we began eating grains and
other cultivated foods...........in the cradles of early civilization at
least, and those people began to evolve greater ability to utilize grains.
All of us are not descended from the earliest grain users, and, so, some of
us do not handle lots of wheat and rice and high carbohydrate intake.  Some
seem to be able to.  I can't.  My pancreas is just about fried from 52 years
of the wrong diet.

Paul
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marilyn Harris" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2001 10:45 PM
Subject: Re: Naked with a .. stick and fire?


> Hi Paul;
>
> >The point being?
>
> You had said that an extended vegetarian diet did not come about in man
> until after he had developed agriculture - long after the Paleolithic
era --
> which I do not think is correc (see your quote below). We are nearly
> completely adapted to a largely vegetarian diet and have been probably for
> the last couple of million years, way before the onset of agriculture. Our
> teeth, type of saliva, arrangement of our jaws and length and structure of
> our colon indicate primarily a herbivorous physiology who could also feast
> on carrion and small slow moving animal/insect life.
>
> At 05:33 PM 11/27/01 -0500, Paul Getty wrote:
> >I would assume that the first extended vegetarian diet did not come about
in
> >early man until he had developed extensive agriculture, long after the
Paleo
> >stage of history.
>
> For an excellent article read;
>
> http://www.animalvoices.org/vegetarian.htm
>
> Marilyn
>
>