Dear Everyone, Loren asked me to confirm Crane's statement that 'honey was the very basis of their diet' (Ache or Guayaki Indians of Eastern Paraguay). Eva Crane is arguably the world's expert on all aspects of honey. I don't have her 1975 book on hand to check her sources right now but I'll try to do this shortly. I don't think she intended to mean that all they ate was honey but perhaps it made up a significant fraction of their daily energy intake. In the past meat was often eaten with honey for flavour and even preserved in it. My hypothesis is that carbohydrate was in short supply during glacial periods and that humans adapted to the the scarcity by becoming insulin resistant. Insulin resistance spares glucose for the brain and foetus which use glucose exclusively as a source of fuel. Genetically determined insulin resistance was therefore a selective advantage. In this way, populations with a high prevalence of insulin resistance emerged. Today this characteristic is no longer an advantage and is, in fact, a disadvantage because it is increases one's risk of developing non-insulin-dependent diabetes. This hypothesis was published in Diabetologia 1994;37:1280-86. I think honey and all things sweet would have been highly sought after for this reason. What do you think? Best wishes Jennie PS In passing, Eva Crane is Elsie Widdowson's sister. McCance and Widdowson's The Composition of Foods is the author of one of the best compilations on the composition of foods. Best wishes Jennie Assoc. Professor Jennie Brand Miller Human Nutrition Unit, Dept. of Biochemistry G08 University of Sydney, 2006, Australia [log in to unmask] FAX: 61.2.9351.6022 Ph: 61.2.9351.3759