Hi, all I'm new to list, having been lurking for two weeks and reading much other information at the same time. I'm terribly impressed with the level of education on this list. In my reading, I believe I've seen a good deal of information that suggests that early hominids ate all sorts of vegetable matter, depending on season and food scarcity. Some of the evidence was dental--microscratches on teeth surfaces--some was regarding carbon 13 and some seemed intelligent guesses based on what we know. I did a couple web searches; "early human diet" may have been my most fruitful one. (in interesting related news, it seems at one time a majority of people were left-handed...but left-handers are more fragile when it comes to toxic substances, so as experiments with vegetation increased due to food shortages, they started dying off. Even today, their life expectancy is considerably shorter.) I found the metabolic information on the inverse relationship between gut size and brain size compelling, as well. Seemingly, meat made us smarter...then we were better able to catch meat...then we got smarter...and finally we got so overly smart we spawned vegetarians, I suppose (j/k!). Anyway, hi, and thanks for such a lively and informative listserve. Oh yes, and a question--I've read cashews are legumes; I've read they are nuts. Does some botanist here know what they are? Lou