"Krusty" > wrote in message
...
> "Dana Carpender" > wrote
> > Cite?
>
> Eaton suggests that early primate diet was roughly 95% "plant foods". (see
> associated citations)
>
> ...plant foods such as fruits, leaves, gums, and stalks probably comprised
> at least 95% of their dietary intake with insects, eggs, and small animals
> making up the remainder (Milton, 1993; Tutin & Fernandez, 1993). The
general
> nutritional parameters of an eating pattern along these lines can be
> estimated with modest confidence, although certainly not with mathematical
> exactitude. Protein would have contributed a greater proportion of total
> energy than it does for most contemporary humans, but with much more from
> vegetable sources than from animal. (Popovich, 1997) Simple carbohydrate
> intake would have been strikingly below that now common, and, somewhat
> counterintuitively, such diets would have provided only moderate levels of
> starch and other complex carbohydrates so that the total carbohydrate
> contribution to dietary energy would have been less, not more, than is
> typical in contemporary affluent nations. Dietary fiber would have
exceeded
> current levels by an order of magnitude: 200 grams vs. 20 grams a day

Hmmm. Seems like they're trying to say they ate low carb to me. Very
little simple carbs, and moderate levels of starches and other complex
carbs. And look at the fiber levels! Do you suppose that was because fruits
and vegetables in the wild do not contain a lot of carbs?

> (Milton, 1993): for some ancestral hominoids, colonic fiber fermentation
may
> have provided over 50% of total dietary energy. (Popovich, 1997) Daily
> intake of vitamins and minerals is likely to have been considerably
greater
> than at present with the likely exception of iodine, consumption of which
> would have varied with geographic location according to oceanic proximity,
> volcanic activity, prevailing winds and rainfall. As it is for all other
> free-living terrestrial mammals, sodium intake would have been only a
> fraction of that currently common and would have been substantially less
> than that of potassium. (Denton, 1995) Availability of phytochemicals,
like
> that of vitamins and most minerals would, in all likelihood, have been
> substantially greater than for Americans and other Westerners.
>
> Happy to Help.
>
>