"Ruminants -- particularly cattle -- don't react as poorly to a high grain diet as do pigs and chickens. I believe Peter at Hyperlipid discussed this a while back."
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How do you know they preferred variety? What's so important about variety and why would paleo people even want variety?
They ate smaller animals because they had already wiped out the mega fauna or mega fauna had become scarce. The cave paintings DO depict larger animals not small ones.
I think because you like variety you have found evidence to support this?
"I'm always suspicious of such statistics especially when they directly oppose the numerous anecdotal reports made by RAFers"
of course, this is just another statistic, only this time in disguise
the key words being "such" & "anecdotal" -- the former, such, seems to convey here a negative connotation whereas the latter, anecdotal, seems to carry a positive feeling
also
how, precisely, do "such statistics" work to "directly oppose" the claimed "numerous reports"?
where are those numerous reports kept & how can they be accessed?
i agree that the depictions in the paleo caves are not an exclusive or final argument vis-a-vis what cro-magnon, neanderthal & perhaps other paleo homo ate regularly or seasonally & in what proportions
yet they are a solid piece of evidence right in front of our eyes
further, the neanderthals have also been claimed to have become extinct due to cannibalism
see
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1978059/posts (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1978059/posts)
http://www.anansi.ca/pop_excerpt.cfm?book=237 (http://www.anansi.ca/pop_excerpt.cfm?book=237)
again, it's practically impossible to say the last word on these issues
re. the paleo horse:
the most abundant herbivore mammal in the cro-magnon cave paintings is the horse
levi-gurhan found 610 horses in all the caves he examined
& it so happens that current horse meat is said to contain an even better o-3 profile than beef
see
http://www.throwthembows.com/Alistair-Overeem-eats-Horse-Meat (http://www.throwthembows.com/Alistair-Overeem-eats-Horse-Meat)
re. the impact of pufa's on homo health & evolution/devolution esp. on brain, eyes, nervous system 2 plausible scenarios come to mind at the moment:
~ the long chain pufa profile in paleo meats of any herbivore mammal might, most likely, have been different from today's
~ the cro-magnon (&/or other sophisticatedly evolved paleo humans) might have eaten a fair amount of water vertebrates (more than the modest # of fish in the caves suggests)
Now that comment I can easily NOT believe in. After all, in teh Uk and many other countries, pigs are happily fed on grains, and being omnivores, are less susceptible to problems from grains than cattle - and cattle are meant to be fed on grasses, not grains.
are you now saying that, just as 40,000 years ago, humans are basically still eating aurochs today?
in that case, it does not really matter whether the raw beef we pop in the mouth comes from pastured or from feed loted cattle
Re comment "why should homo physiology, the planet's biosphere, animal physiology & metabolism be exactly the same today as 30,000 years ago" .It is possible, I suppose, for animals to suddenly change their metabolism etc., but that generally takes a lot longer than 30,000 years. I'm just a bit sceptical re the pufas somehow changing in that time.
so earlier you were skeptical about the possibility of the pufa profile changing in 30,000 years or less
but recently you ended up claiming that it was "weird" logic to hypothetically presume that there is no significant difference between modern grass & modern grain fed beef re. their pufa profile
however:
a) you had already stated that the said pufa profile won't change in 30,000 years
b) you agreed that modern cattle is not genetically different from paleo auroch (ignoring epigenetics)
what gives?
hopefully your comparative (grass vs grain) nutritional profile will be available soon
so earlier you were skeptical about the possibility of the pufa profile changing in 30,000 years or less
but recently you ended up claiming that it was "weird" logic to hypothetically presume that there is no significant difference between modern grass & modern grain fed beef re. their pufa profile
however:
a) you had already stated that the said pufa profile won't change in 30,000 years
b) you agreed that modern cattle is not genetically different from paleo auroch (ignoring epigenetics)
what gives?
hopefully your comparative (grass vs grain) nutritional profile will be available soon