History rewritten by skulls

THE discovery of two fossils has challenged the belief our ancestor homo erectus evolved from homo habilis, according to an article in the British magazine Nature.

The finds, on the eastern bank of Lake Turkana in Kenya, suggested the species may have co-existed for some 500,000 years in East Africa.

The team that found the remains was led by mother-daughter team Mary and Meave Leakey of the famed Kenyan anthropological family who have uncovered a host of critical human and hominid remains in east Africa.

One of the fossils was an upper jaw bone of homo habilis that dated back 1.44 million years.

It was nevertheless more recent than any of the previously found fossils of its kind.

The second was a remarkably well preserved skull of homo erectus, which, paradoxically dates back even further, to some 1.55 million years ago.

"What is truly striking about this fossil is its size," said Fred Spoor of London's University College, one of the paper's lead authors. "It's the smallest homo erectus found anywhere in the world."

This suggests male and female skulls were different sizes -- challenging current thinking.

The discoveries have created a stir among academics tracing humankind's roots, because it challenges the presumed evolutionary timeline of the species: homo habilis to homo erectus to homo sapiens.

"Their co-existence makes it unlikely that homo erectus evolved from homo habilis," said Meave Leakey, one of the lead authors of the paper.

"The fact that they stayed separate as individual species for a long time suggests that they had their own ecological niche, thus avoiding direct competition."

Homo habilis is thought to have lived from about 2.5 million to 1.8 million years ago.

Homo erectus is important because it is believed to be the first hominid to leave Africa.

Meat back on menu

Australian families are turning back to "meat and three veg" as staple fare, according to a new study published in the Nutrition and Dietetics journal.

The study, funded by Meat and Livestock Australia, reveals 88 per cent of Australian households eat red meat at least once a week, while 96 per cent put meat on the table every month.

Meat and Livestock Australia managing director David Thompson says the figure represents a small but significant change in eating habits, and there are a number of reasons behind it.

"People are becoming more aware of the health benefits of fresh food," Mr Thompson said.
"They're becoming disenchanted with processed food. They're responding by going back to more traditional food.

The study found that red meat plays a vital role in child development.

"The nutrients in red meat are so important for childhood development, particularly early childhood," Mr Thompson said.

"Red meat is the major deliverer of iron, zinc and vitamin B12 in our diets, and a little known fact is that it's also second only to seafood in omega-3."

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott lent his support to the study. "I have always enjoyed red meat," Mr Abbott said. "It's important to rehabilitate red meat as part of the Australian diet. Apart from anything else, red meat is an important Australian industry."

Australians consume 35 per cent of domestic production of red meat.

Japan and the United States are our biggest meat export destinations.

Child obesity rate is 'likely to double'

Australia's obesity epidemic is reaching crisis point and the number of overweight children will rise to 60 per cent within 30 years unless the Government invests billions, according to a health expert.

Kevin Norton, professor of exercise science at Sport Knowledge Australia, accused state and federal governments of failing to stem rising obesity rates, which could cripple the national health system.

In the first study to look at the weight of Australian children over the last century, researchers found that obesity rates jumped from 4 per cent in 1901 to more than 30 per cent in 2003.

The study found that in 30 years' time the number of overweight or obese children will double, matching the current rate of adult obesity.

Professor Norton likened the seriousness of the problem to that of climate change and said failure to act now could have devastating consequences.

"We are going to need new money — in the same way we've done with the climate change issue — for interventions to tackle the problem," he said. "If we're going to have an impact we'll need hundreds of millions, if not billions … because we're running out of money and the health-care costs can't continue."

The report, published in the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity, took in data from 41 studies since 1901 that weighed 500,000 Australian children aged five to 15.

The figures reveal a low, steady rate of obesity until the 1970s when the rate increased.

Professor Norton said the spike coincided with a decline in physical education in schools, and called for compulsory classes from year 1 to year 12.

"It's got to be put in the same bracket as maths and English and reading and writing skills. If we do national testing for that surely we should educate our kids about their health through physical activity and nutrition programs in schools," he said.

"Last year's estimates of direct financial costs placed the obesity epidemic throughout Australia at somewhere around $3.5 billion."

The Age revealed last year that Australia has the fastest growing rate of childhood obesity in the world.

Professor Norton described recent Government prevention measures — such as a ban on soft drinks in Victorian state schools — as little more than "tinkering".

Professor Norton said policies such as adding half a cent per litre to the price of petrol could generate enough money to put one physical education teacher into every school in Australia for a year.

Chimp "Stone Age" finds are earliest nonhuman ape tools

Humans might not be as pioneering as we're cracked up to be.

That's one possible explanation for new evidence that West African chimpanzees learned to use stone tools on their own to crack nuts at least 4,300 years ago.

The research pushes back chimpanzee tool use thousands of years. It casts into doubt the long-standing theory that direct human ancestors were the only animals to independently develop tools—and that chimps learned to use stone tools by watching humans.

Instead both humans and chimps could have inherited the ability to crack nuts with rocks from a common ancestor, Julio Mercader of the University of Calgary in Canada and co-authors report in today's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Or chimps may have developed the behavior on their own. In either case, it's no longer likely that chimps learned to use stones as tools only by imitating humans.

At 4,300 years old, the chimps' tools correspond to the late Stone Age of human history—before the advent of agriculture in West Africa.

"Until recently people used to say that among modern-day chimpanzees the behavior came from imitation of farmers," Mercader said. "That assumption is no longer valid. What we present predates the presence of farming."

Mercader and colleagues found subtly altered rocks in the Ivory Coast in Africa at a research site that houses the only known prehistoric chimpanzee settlement.

The excavated stones resemble those used by ancient humans and modern chimpanzees to smash nuts—showing evidence of flakes, chips, and worn edges.

Also, several types of starch grains were found on the stones, which the researchers say is residue from cracking local nuts.

Some experts had believed that the chimps at Mercader's study site learned to crack nuts by watching people break apart the seeds of African palm oil trees and other tropical species.

Agustín Fuentes, an anthropologist at Indiana's University of Notre Dame, said he's not surprised by the new research, but he's happy about it.

"It puts the nail in the coffin on those who say chimp tool use is atypical," he said.

"Most people have already bought into that. But now you can say, Look, you've got a 4,000-year-old tradition."

The most primitive human stone-tool sites are in Olduvai Gorge in East Africa. Tools there date back to 2.6 million years ago, when people were deliberately modifying stone tools by flaking rocks to create razorlike edges. Chimps today don't change the shapes of the stones they use as nutcrackers.

But the chimps' stones may be similar to stone tools used by humans before our ancestors began to chisel rocks for specific purposes.

Today in Côte d'Ivoire's Taï rain forest, mother chimpanzees still teach their infants the art of nut cracking.

It takes young chimps about seven years to master the technique. To split a nut without pulverizing it, the chimps must apply 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms) of force.

Fuentes said that Mercader and colleagues' work emphasizes that the difference between chimps and humans is not the ability to use tools, but the ability to modify the tools and share that information.

For Fuentes, the research "knocks humans off the pedestal of tool use," but it affirms our unique ability to communicate.

A chimp mother might teach her offspring to crack nuts, but chimps are not really communicating about how to use tools and where to get them, he said.

"Nothing," he said, "goes to the level of information-sharing and technology that humans are capable of."

The Paleo Diet Newsletter

I've been meaning to blog about Dr. Loren Cordain's website and free e-newsletter for a while now. Here are some valuable links for you, my Hunter-Gatherer friend.

Dr' Cordain's website, ThePaleoDiet.com

Newsletters:
Paleo Diet Newsletter Vol. 3 Issue 1

The Paleo Diet Newsletter Courier, Vol. 2, Issue 5

The Paleo Diet Newsletter, Vol. 2, Issue 4

The Paleo Diet Newsletter Courier, Vol. 2, Issue 3

The Paleo Diet Newsletter Courier, Vol. 2, Issue 2

The Paleo Diet Newsletter, Vol. 2, Issue 1

The Paleo Diet Newsletter, Vol. 1, Issue 3

The Paleo Diet Newsletter, Vol. 1, Issue 2

The Paleo Diet Newsletter, Vol. 1, Issue 1

Dr. Cordain is also the author of one of the better books on Paleo nutrition: The Paleo Diet. He has also written The Paleo Diet for athletes and The dietary cure for acne. I haven't read the latter two yet, but the first one was one of the texts that first opened my eyes to this way of life.

Fat Men Can't Hunt

One of the more interesting shows (potentially) for Paleo eaters is a new show on the BBC in Britain called "Fat men can't hunt". It's a four part series shot in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia. From the BBC website is the following:

If you can't kill it and cook it, you'll be going hungry...
Most of us love our convenient Western lifestyles - supermarket shelves groaning with every possible type of food known to man, takeaway deliveries only a phone call away, and handy fridges to keep everything fresh.

However, our Stone Age ancestors lived on a hunter/gatherer diet - and many of the health problems that we in the West currently face can be linked directly back to the change in the way we eat.

In some parts of the world, people still need to hunt, kill, prepare and cook all of their own foodstuffs. Just how would a group of overweight, out-of-condition Brits cope with having to search for their supper?

Fat Men Can't Hunt is a four-part series that follows a group of eight men and women to see if they can live among the San Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in Namibia.

The men will have to join hunts, spending days at a time foraging for food. Meanwhile the women will have to stay in the camp, living their lives according to the strict social rules that govern local women.

Isolated in one of the world's harshest environments, will our brave volunteers adapt to their new lifestyle or end up begging to be airlifted to the nearest kebab shop?

It looks to me that it has the potential to be a "reality" show that's actually worth watching. I hope it come on the TV in Australia very soon. Perhaps channel 9 can do an Aussie version in the Aussie desert with some local indigenous people.

Dog's breakfast - so what's a dog really meant to eat?

If you thought human nutrition was a minefield of conflicting information, it's no easier if you're a pooch. At one extreme of the dog diet spectrum is the Biologically Appropriate Raw Food (or BARF diet) - this is the canine equivalent of the human Paleolithic diet which recommends a raw food diet that's as close as possible to what wild dogs evolved to eat - at the other are those who argue dogs do just fine on a vegetarian diet; and somewhere in the middle are the vets who recommend a healthy mixed diet.

If research into the effects of dog ownership on human health is to be believed, dogs deserve the right diet - whatever that might be. Owning a dog appears to be good for human health, helping lower blood pressure and cholesterol. But while they're busy protecting us from heart disease, living with a human is no guarantee for good canine health - otherwise why would vets be running weight-loss programs, or a canine anti-obesity drug be poised for release in the US? So what should - and shouldn't - go into a dog's dinner?

Off the menu for all dogs are foods known to be toxic to them. These include grapes, raisins, chocolate, macadamia nuts, tomatoes, onion and garlic (there goes garlic's reputation as a natural flea repellant). Cooked bones can splinter and injure the dog.

Raw bones are fine and don't feed salty foods to dogs who are overweight or have problems with their heart or blood pressure.

Like overweight humans, overweight dogs are prone to diseases like diabetes, arthritis and cancer - to keep them around longer, keep them active and don't overfeed.

I suggest a mixed diet that includes a good quality dried food, together with raw beef or lamb and vegetables. Dried food is a more concentrated source of nutrients (compared with canned food which can contain as much as 60 per cent water) - but provide lots of water.

Vegetables like raw broccoli and carrots are good to add extra nutrients and fibre. Raw chicken wings mimic a wild diet and provide calcium and other nutrients. As for fruit, not much is known about fruit and dog nutrition, though some dogs enjoy it. I know mine certainly does! She collects dropped apricots from the tree (they're too high to reach) and she actually picks peaches from the tree!

If beagles are anything to go by, a little fruit might be a good thing - a University of Toronto study found older dogs whose diet was supplemented with fruit and vegetables did better at learning new tasks.

Not everyone agrees with feeding dogs commercial dog food. The BARF diet, developed by Australian vet Dr Ian Billinghurst, recommends a diet based on raw muscle and organ meat and vegetables - and no grains. Meanwhile, many vegetarian organisations, including the Vegetarian Network Victoria, believe dogs can thrive on a plant-based diet.

So tell us what goes into your dog's bowl to keep them in good shape? Have you tried BARF or even a vegetarian diet?

BARF

Raw Meaty Bones

Previous posts on canine nutrition: 1,

Eat A Tasty Animal for PETA Day (EATAPETA)

Ingrid Newkirk's PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) claims to be an animal rights group, but their outrageous headline-grabbing tactics are rarely more than criminal thuggery laced with fits of blatant bloody-handed hypocrisy.

In response to the "Holocaust On Your Plate" media campaign that mocked the Holocaust, blogger Meryl Yourish responded with "Eat A Tasty Animal For PETA Day" (EATAPETA) campaign on March 15, 2003. Bloggers and non-bloggers are invited to revolt against PETA's ham-fisted tactics by eating animals on this day.

This year will be the Fifth Annual International Eat an Animal for Peta Day.

So, how can you join in the fun?

Sure, you can eat animal food products all by your lonesome, but you are encouraged to organize and promote your own gathering place to celebrate the carnivore side of your omnivorous nature.

I intend to organise a BBQ at home with some close friends. On the menu will be Prawns (Hey, I'm an Aussie so apparently I have to have crustaceans on the BBQ), lamb chops, Pork chops and rump steak. My wife will make up an egg salad.

That covers seafood, sheep, pigs, cows and chickens. I think I'll act like Noah and have two of every animal ..........

McHealthy meals win National Heart tick

FAST food giant McDonald's has secured the National Heart Foundation's tick of approval for several low-fat meals to be added to its menu this month.

But leading dietitian Rosemary Stanton says this may just encourage more people to buy McDonald's - and not necessarily the healthy meals.

The foundation gave nine new meals - switching the winning chips-and-soft drink combination for salad and juice - a tick.

Big Macs missed out, but McNuggets and Filet-o-Fish burgers can wear the tick when paired with the healthy side-dishes.

Foundation chief executive Lyn Roberts said the firm had spent a year reducing trans fats and sodium and adding vegetables to meal combinations.

McDonald's follows Qantas in tick-approval since the foundation introduced the scheme for meals eaten out. Ticks previously only went to supermarket foods meeting strict nutritional standards: companies paying for the privilege.

Tick scheme national manager Susan Anderson would not say how much McDonald's would pay but said it would only cover foundation expenses.

McDonald's was charged $330,000 for 12 Months of approval. In a forum I contribute to, another user (that claims to work at the National Heart Foundation) has this to say on the subject: (The post has been edited only to correct spelling mistakes)

Let me clarify this for everyone because I actually work at the Heart Foundation.

The license fee charged to manufacturers is based on a proportion of expected revenue. This money is used to cover costs only - the money stays inside the tick program and is not released to any other part of the Heart Foundation. In the case of McDonalds 2 restaraunts will be tested per week for 12 months to check their food is meeting the strict standards set by the Tick program, this includes clinical analysis, human resources etc. This is where the $330,000 is going. The Tick is granted only to the nine meals that will be released later in the month, and it does not apply to the whole of McDonalds. The meals are no longer tick certified if you change them in any way. Obviously if you buy fries with a Tick meal you are not eating according to Tick guidelines.

The Heart Foundation "Tick" of approval is nothing short of a pathetic joke. McDonald's can get the tick for a "heart healthy" meal, yet there is no tick of approval for fruit and vegetable growers or livestock producers.

The truth is, the Heart Foundation's "Tick of approval" is purely a revenue raiser for a pathetic government - it has nothing to do with the food being heart healthy.

Mars bars not to be marketed to under-12s

CONFECTIONERY giant Masterfoods, which owns the Mars, Maltesers, Topic, Revel and Snickers candy bar brand names, has said it will stop marketing its "core products" to children under the age of 12 by the end of this year the first time a big foodmaker has set such a high global age limit for products.

The policy will apply to all advertising, including online and new media, The Financial Times reported.

"We have decided to make an official policy change to a cut-off age of 12 years for all our core products," read a Masterfoods letter to the European Commission's director-general for health and consumer protection Robert Madelin, according to the business paper.

Core products reportedly include snack foods and confectionery.

The newspaper said that while Masterfoods already had a policy of not advertising to children younger than six, rivals Nestle and PepsiCo do not have a global age limit for targeting children.

According to the paper, CadburySchweppes does not advertise to children less than eight, while Kraft does not advertise to children younger than six, though it said that it only markets "better for you" products such as fruit juices and wheat crackers to children between six and 11.

The measure reflects mounting concerns about the links between advertising and childhood obesity and follows moves by some public authorities to bring in tighter food regulations.

Parents blind to fat children

Most parents don't think their overweight children are fat - and heavy parents are the worst judges of them all, a study has found.

A survey of more than 1,200 Melbourne families has revealed the majority of caregivers believe their kids are of normal weight when they are overweight or even obese.

Parents of 5 to 6-year-olds were the worst, with 90 per cent wrongly judging their overweight child.

And 63 per cent of parents of overweight 10 to 12-year-olds made the same mistake.

Deakin University researcher David Crawford said the findings, published in the journal Public Health Nutrition, were alarming given Australia was in the grip of an obesity epidemic.

"These are quite troubling results and suggest that current obesity prevention campaigns are not hitting the mark with parents," said Prof Crawford, head of the Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research.

"Parents are part of the front line in the battle to reverse the trend of obesity in children.

"It is therefore essential that they are armed with information and practical strategies that they understand and can easily build into their daily lives."

He said the results were not surprising because waistlines were expanding across the whole population, making obesity harder to recognise.

"Almost one in two people are overweight now ... so it's almost more usual than unusual," Prof Crawford said.

Children are also growing quickly, making it hard to judge weight, and many parents also believe their child will grow out of it which, research shows, is not the case.

Mothers in particular tended to judge a weight problem on whether their child was teased at school - a poor marker of overweight.

Interestingly, it was the overweight adults that were least likely to recognise their child's weight problem, probably because they don't recognise it in themselves, Prof Crawford said.

Despite not recognising the problem, most parents said they took care to promote a balanced diet and physical activity and cut back on junk food in the home.

But few parents boosted fruit and vegetables intake, limited television viewing or stopped children drinking high energy drinks to control weight.

Parents need to follow the pyramid below and encourage (insist!) that their kids do the same.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Here's a quick summary of events and blogs for the last week.

Low Carb Dave is back from Holidays in FNQ. I wonder what he's been up to? Any comments Dave? As soon as he got back he's been posting like mad on his blog.

I still haven't posted my review about Anthony Colpo's book The Great Cholesterol Con. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait a bit longer as I've been rather busy lately helping to plan our Wedding.

Jimmy Moore is keeping true to form and posting every day. Check out his fascinating blog. He's also managed to lose six pounds doing his 30-in-30 weight loss challenge.

I will be absent from this Blog for nearly a month. I'm getting married on Saturday 09/09/06 and will be starting the honeymoon almost immediately. After the honeymoon, we're driving up to see a good friend of mine in Brisbane so we wont be back until about the start of October. So stay on track, keep the carbs low and I'll post again when I'm back.

Pre Paleo medical checkup.

*********************************
The monday funny.......



Steve...

Soft-drink makers pledge to lift game

Soft-drink makers will remove sugared drinks from school canteens and stop advertising directly to children.

The Australian Beverage Council yesterday unveiled tough guidelines in response to pressure to alleviate childhood obesity. Signed by almost all major bottlers of carbonated, non-carbonated, juice and water-based drinks, they will be introduced over two years.

The measures include the removal of all sugar-sweetened drinks from primary school canteens and the supply of them to high schools only on request.

The companies also propose that they will not advertise any such drinks directly to primary school-age children or in children's TV programs. So-called diet drinks would not be included in the bans.

The companies will also declare kilojoule content and additional nutritional information on labels.

Australian Beverages Council chief executive Tony Gentile said the changes would help consumers make informed choices.

Nine other initiatives include increasing the range of low-calorie products, encouraging smaller portions and boosting educational programs.

Disease on the march

More Australians are being admitted to hospital for diabetes, statistics show.

Hospital admissions rose by up to 20 per cent between 2000-01 and 2003-04, an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report reveals.
Data for 2003-04 shows more than 473,000 Australians with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes were admitted to hospital.

Of those, 86 per cent were admitted for conditions associated with diabetes, such as strokes.

More than a million Australians have diabetes.

Most have type 2 or lifestyle diabetes caused by poor nutrition and lack of exercise, the report, Diabetes Hospitalisations in Australia 2003-04(PDF), says.

Doctors have blamed the nation's obesity crisis for the worsening problem.

A big night out ......

Well it's two days after, and I'm virtually fully recovered from my buck's night. I was right about the "bad" nutrition. Too many beers and bourbons but it was only one night I suppose.

We started off at the Sandy hotel where surprisingly everyone turned up. I was expecting only a few and for everyone to be at the cricket club. We had a few beers, played some pool and watched the Melbourne / Geelong draw on the footy, then headed back to the club.

My brother cooked up an excellent BBQ with prawns, snags, burgers and lamb chops. All LC, HP foods. Wonderful stuff. Thanks mate for doing that. When we arrived there was a barmaid in action already so we got our share of the beers.

An hour or so later the police turned up. The best man's cousin is a cop and he set me up with them. Good laugh all around, but I have to admit my pulse was up a bit for a while!

The first act started and she was a very friendly girl! A great show and I wish I had a buck's night every Saturday night.

About an hour later, the second act started and this girl could virtually tie herself into pretzels! Extremely flexible and a very "full on", fast paced show. Craig, did you ever get your belt back?



After the second show a few guys (that were driving and had commitments the following day) started to leave. I ended up getting home about 05:45. A long night but well worth it.

Thanks to Millsy, Ando, Donno and Glenn. You know who you are.

Steve

P.S. My ass is still sore from that second show !!!!!

Caveman Cuisine

This is a copy of an article posted in 1999 on the Weston A. Price Foundation website. It was written by Sally Fallon, President of the foundation, and Mary G. Enig, author of Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils, and Cholesterol.


Sally Fallon


Mary G. Enig Ph. D.

It is an older article but still very relevant. It mentions the high fat content of the food our Paleolithic bretheren ate and they also mention the domestication of our meat product via animal husbandry, farming and selective breeding.

Lowfat diets, claim the pundits of medical orthodoxy, have been associated with good health and longevity throughout the globe and since the dawn of time. The research of Weston Price proves otherwise. From the Eskimo of Alaska to the hardy Alpiner, from Gaelic villager to African tribesman, Price discovered that all healthy indigenous people had a plentiful source of animal fat in the diet. Such Neolithic groups could still be found when Price embarked on his eventful travels back in the 1930s. But no one, of course, not even the indefatigable Dr. Price, could visit our Paleolithic forbearers, the so-called cave men. The lack of direct evidence about our hunter-gatherer ancestors—who by definition neither cultivated crops nor domesticated farm animals—allows limitless conjecture about the content of their diets. The low fat school claims that the cave man ate lean meat, supplemented by copious amounts of plant foods in the form of sprouts, roots, fruits, berries and leaves; dissenting investigators assert that the cave man imbibed animal fat first and foremost, along with the meat to which it was attached, and very little in the way of foods from the vegetable kingdom. Both schools of thought are in agreement that the cave man diet was otherwise Spartan, lacking foodstuffs that were either salty or sweet.

Dr. Walter L Voegtlin argues for the high fat model in his book The Stone Age Diet, published in 1975. Humans are carnivorous animals he asserts, and the Stone Age diet was that of a carnivore—chiefly fats and protein, with only small amounts of carbohydrates. He notes that like the carnivorous dog, man has canine teeth, ridged molars and incisors in both jaws. His jaw is designed for crushing and tearing, and moves in vertical motions. Mastication of his food is unnecessary and he does not ruminate. His stomach holds two quarts, empties in three hours, rests between meals, lacks bacteria and protozoa, secretes large quantities of hydrochloric acid and does not digest cellulose. His digestive tract is short relative to body length, his cecum is nonfunctional and his appendix vestigial. His rectum is small, contains putrefactive bacterial flora and does not contribute to the digestive process. The volume of feces is small; digestive efficiency borders on 100%; his gall bladder is active and well developed. Both the dog and man feed intermittently and can survive without a stomach or colon. The herbivorous sheep, by contrast, lacks canines, has flat molars and incisors only in the lower jaw. His jaw is designed for grinding and rotary movments. Mastication and rumination are vital functions. His stomach holds eight and one-half gallons, contains bacteria and protozoa, never empties and has but weak production of hydrochloric acid. His colon and cecum are long and capacious; the cecum performs a vital function; the bacterial flora of his rectum is fermentative rather than putrefactive; feces are voluminous; gall bladder function is weak or absent; and total digestive efficiency is 50% or less. The sheep feeds continuously. He cannot live without his stomach or colon. His entire digestive tract is about five times longer, as a ratio of body length, than that of man and his dog.

Voegtlin argues that gross differences in the anatomy of man and the herbivorous animals make him unable to successfully adapt to a diet based on plant foods, particularly carbohydrate-rich grains, as well as to a diet in which milk products, rich in lactose, predominate; and that the whole range of modern diseases stems from his abandonment of the food choices of his primitive ancestors, based largely on meat and rich in fat. He notes that, with the exception of vitamins C and K, all essential nutrients can be derived from animal foods, and that the cave man diet was certainly much richer in vitamins and minerals than our own. Modern devitalized plant foods—such as sugar and white flour—only hasten our decline.

A decade later, in 1988, Dr. Boyd Eaton published the Paleolithic Prescription in which he argues that the cave man diet was low in fat, particularly saturated fat, low in salt and rich in dietary fiber from plant foods. His Paleolithic prescription for optimum health is, in fact, very much akin to the so-called prudent diet of the American Heart Association. The typical Paleolithic macronutrient profile, he asserts, contained 33% of total energy from protein, principally but not entirely animal protein, 46% from carbohydrates and a mere 21% from fat. Journalist Joe Friel translates these suppositions about Paleolithic eating habits into the following dietary recommendations: Select the leanest cuts of meat (wild game, if possible), trim away all visible fat from meat, include fish and fowl, eat low- or non-fat dairy products and include moderate amounts of monounsaturated fat in the diet in the form of oils and spreads of almonds, avocado, hazelnut, macadamia nut, olive and walnut. He lumps natural saturated fats in with newfangled hydrogenated oils as fats to be avoided. The cave man, it seems, thriving on a diet of lean venison along with roots, shoots and fruits, was altogether politically correct in his low-fat dietary habits.

Or was he? In a recently published collection of essays, Ice Age Hunters of the Rocky Mountains, we learn that the hunter-gatherers of the North American continent ate the following animals: mammoth, camel, sloth, bison, mountain sheep, small mammals including beaver, pronghorn antelope, elk, mule deer, horse, llama and large members of the dog family. Mammoth, sloth, mountain sheep, bison and beaver are fatty animals in the modern sense in that they have a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, as do the many species of bear and wild pig whose remains have been found at Paleolithic sites throughout the world. The bison and camel have humps composed largely of tallow. Furthermore, if the dietary patterns of present day African hunter-gatherers can serve as a guide, the Paleolithic hunter preferred the fatty portions of the carcass including organs, brains, tongue, feet and marrow. Archeological remains indicate that whereas meat from game carcasses was often left uneaten, the long bones were carried back into camps and chopped into pieces so that the marrow could be extracted. Organ meats were eaten immediately—and often raw—but muscle meat was preserved by drying, or by mixing it with tallow to make pemmican. Some investigators believe that the cave mans's preference for the fatty portions of his kill led to profligate practices—wasteful killing of mammoths simply to extract their fatty tongues, for example—and that selective hunting of the fattier animals was a prime factor leading to the extinction of large mammals such as mammoths, sloths and rhinoceros.

Bones of the bear predominate in many European sites. Archeologist Myra Shakley reports on an important Neanderthal site in Hungary where 90 percent of the remains were those of bear. Whole carcasses were brought to the site—not just portions as was the case for other animals—and the manner in which the carcasses were cut up suggests that the skins were removed. Obviously the pelts were used to protect the hunter-gatherer from the severe climate. The subcutaneous fat would not have been wasted; in fact, it could have been used for preserving other foods. Altars containing bear skulls found in caves in the Swiss Alps, and dated back as far as 75,000 years, indicated that the bear was worshiped as a sacred animal.

Present-day hunter-gatherers, as well as those of the ancient past, possess greater dietary wisdom than the majority of our modern Ph.D.'s. They understood that a diet of lean meat, lacking in fat, was the surest route to weakness, disease and death. Steffanson, who studied the Eskimos and Indians of the far north, reports that when lean caribou was the only meat available, anxiety set in. These natives knew that a month or more on such meat, without the addition of marine animals or fatty fish, would make them sick and prone to disease. The ancient tribes of the American West would not eat female bison in the Spring because nursing and pregnant bison cows burned off their fat reserves during the winter months. In fact, most bison hunts occurred in the late Summer and Fall when the bison were naturally fattened on the ripe grain of prairie grasses. Anthropologist Leon Abrams reports that the Aborigine will throw away a kangaroo he has killed if he discovers that its carcass does not contain sufficient fat. Members of Randolph Marcy's 1856 expedition to Wyoming grew weak and sick consuming a politically correct low-fat regime of six pounds of lean horse and mule meat per day; Dr. Wolfgang Lutz reports that a very efficient way of eliminating jailed political prisoners in South and Central America is to feed them a diet composed exclusively of lean meat. They soon develop severe diarrhea and succumb. The explanation is that fats contain nutrients like vitamin A that the body needs to utilize the amino acids and minerals in flesh foods; without fat in the diet, the body rapidly uses up its own stores of fat soluble vitamins. When these vital nutrients are depleted, the human organism can no longer fight off disease.

Was the cave man diet simply rich in unsaturated fats, but low in saturated fats? Antelope and caribou fat is over 50% saturated—about the same as beef—and mountain sheep fat would be the similar. Buffalo fat is 56% saturated—more saturated than beef! All ruminant animals contain lots of saturated fat because the protozoa in their capacious guts do an efficient job of saturating the oils found in plant foods—whether these oils come from dried hay or green grass, from feedlot corn or the ripe grains of prairie grasses. (Of course naturally-fed meat is richer in vitamins and minerals.) The bison were hunted in the late Summer and Fall when their fat stores would have been highest. Grazing animals spend several months eating the carbohydrate-rich seeds of wild grasses, which begin to ripen as early as the month of May—grain fattening in feedlots merely mimics this natural process.

Camel fat, from the kind of animal the Neanderthals apparently hunted to extinction, is a whooping 63% saturated! Wild boar fat is about 41% saturated, exactly the same as lard from a domestic pig. Kidney fat—which modern man avoids but which the cave man would have eaten—is highly saturated. Buffalo kidney fat is 58% saturated, antelope kidney fat is 65% saturated, elk kidney fat is 62% saturated and mountain goat kidney fat is 66 % saturated. Caribou marrow has a preponderance of monounsaturated fat, and a small amount of polyunsaturated, but still contains more than 27% saturated fat. Figures for elephant tongue are unavailable but beef tongue is 45% saturated. Bears, which yield 48% of their kilocalories as fat, have a preponderance of monounsaturated fat, the same kind found in olives, almonds and other nuts.

Seafood in coastal regions would also have provided fat for primitive man, particularly the valuable omega-3 fatty acids; insects, grubs and worms are a source of additional fat in all regions except the arctic.

So the high-fat proponents are the most likely winners of the great Paleolithic fat debate; but they are probably wrong in their assertions that plant foods, particularly grains, are new to the human diet. Remains of plant foods at Paleolithic sites include seeds, berries, roots, leaves and bulbs. Sunflower seeds, prickly pear seeds, amaranth seeds and limber pine seeds have been found at Rocky Mountain sites. Various types of nuts were consumed by primitives in the Americas and on the European continent. The amount of plant food in the cave man diet varied according to the climate and locality. Obviously plant foods were minimal in the diets of those in arctic climates, but played a large role in tropical regions. Nuts, of course, provided additional fat. The pecan, consumed in large quantities by the Indians of the Southeast, contains 85% of calories as fat. In tropical regions, palm nuts and coconuts provide large quantities of saturated fats.

Present day hunter-gatherers employ special preparation methods for carbohydrate-rich foods. Acorns, for example, are soaked in water and lye to remove tannins; tubers are buried in the ground, pounded or cooked in hearth ashes; seeds are soaked, pounded and allowed to ferment in various ways. It is safe to assume that the ancient hunter-gatherers employed similar techniques to neutralize the many enzyme inhibitors, irritants and mineral blocking substances found in tubers and seeds. In fact, a large portion of the primitive woman's day was spent in just such preparations—pounding, soaking, sieving, souring and putting the finishing touches on various types of root and seed foods. The men, on the other hand, divided their time between dangerous hunting forays, in which physical stamina and strength was at a premium, and periods of idleness when they would work on their weapons—and gossip.

So the comparison of the human digestive tract with that of the dog, while interesting, does not tell the whole story. Man can benefit from the many nutrients in plant foods as long as he takes care in their preparation. Primitive plant preparation methods—pounding, soaking, and fermenting—imitate the time-consuming processes that take place in the sheep's digestive tract, beginning with his flat grinding molars and ending with the fermentative bacteria in his lower bowel. The Paleolithic hunter-gatherer had the good sense not only to eat the fattier portions of meat, but to prepare his plant foods correctly. Modern man, particularly the modern professor of nutrition, does not.

Dogs, apparently, were the first animal to be domesticated by man—or, as the current theory holds, the dogs adopted man and went to work for him. A man with five or six dogs can track down and kill the largest of wild animals. Dogs made hunting less dangerous, and allowed our intrepid cave man to stand back and kill his prey with something he threw—an arrow or light spear—rather than with a lance that he physically had to thrust in. Almost certainly, the advent of the dog at man's side hastened the extinction of the large fatty animals that had given the cave man his physical prowess and resistance to disease. But the dog would also have helped the hunter move into his Neolithic phase, by rounding up wild sheep, cattle and goats and helping to keep them in flocks, so that their fatty meat and milk would be available throughout the year. Such milk was much richer than milk from today's Holsteins which have been bred to produce low-fat milk The neo-agriculturist would have been ruled by his tastebuds, rather than modern advertising, and consumed his milk products whole.

Assuming that man's tastebuds are not superfluous, but nature's way of guiding him to the food he needs, let us examine the notion that the cave man diet satisfied only the bitter, sour or pungent portion of his tasting apparatus, and not the salty or sweet. A number of studies report that honey, far from being a rare delicacy, contributed a substantial portion of the calories in many primitive diets. The Hazda of Tanzania, the Mbuti pygmies of the Congo, the Veddas or Wild Men of Sri Lanka, the Guayaka Indians of Paraguay, the Bushmen of South Africa and the Aborigines of Australia, all put a high value on honey and consumed it in large amounts. East coast American Indians consumed plentiful portions of maple syrup, and used it in the production of pemmican. Wild fruits and berries are incredibly sweet at the peak of ripeness, and can be preserved in various ways for consumption throughout the year. Fermented foods of the Eskimo are described as tasting as sweet as candy. Primitive man did not consume refined sweeteners, as we do, but neither did he neglect his sweet tooth.

It is hard to imagine that he would have neglected his taste for salt. It occurs naturally in meat and blood and, as animals seek out natural salt licks, so our sensible cave man would have done the same. The manufacture of salt can be accomplished simply by filling a hollowed out log with sea water and letting the brine evaporate. The evidence of place names in England indicates that salt was the earliest commodity to be traded from the seacoast, or from salt pits, to other areas. In extremely remote locations, such as the Himalayas or the interior of Africa, the ashes of sodium-rich marsh grasses are added to food. It is reported that the members of the Yanomami tribe in the Amazon basin do not take in any added salt. In an apparant adoptive measure, they also excrete almost no salt in the urine.

Milk is salty because mammals need salt for the production of hydrochloric acid and for the development of the brain and nervous system. Without dietary salt, the human mind does not fully develop and man must live, not by his wits like the ingenious cave man from the dawn of time, but as a brute, even if he happens to be born in this modern age.

Fat obscures scans

Doctors are facing a new challenge in the war against obesity.

More and more obese patients are unable to be scanned in X-ray and MRI machines because they are too big.


Traditional MRI machine

Even if big patients can fit into scanners, the machinery will not work because X-ray beams and soundwaves cannot penetrate deep fat.

With 60 per cent of Australians either overweight or obese, radiologists say the problem is becoming more common in hospital patients.

Royal Melbourne Hospital head of radiology Prof Brian Tress said standard X-rays, CT scans, MRI scans and ultrasounds were sometimes ineffective when used on obese people, making diagnosis extremely difficult.

"The more flesh there is, the more the X-ray beam gets attenuated or scattered and produces grey results," Prof Tress said. This is one of many methods doctors and clinicians use to measure adipose tissue (fat).

"This is just another indication of the extent of the obesity problem."

Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists spokeswoman Dr Liz Carter said X-ray images became blurry when used on a patient weighing 100kg (220lb) or more.

Ultrasounds were virtually impossible on these patients, but Dr Carter said CT scans and MRI scans could often be used as a last resort.

As well as the personal health risks of obesity, large patients also posed risks to medical staff. "There is the risk to the equipment, of it being broken, and to the staff if they have to move the patients," Dr Carter said.

X-rays, CT scans, ultrasounds and MRI scans are used to look for broken bones, fetuses, blood clots, tumours, diseased organs and other internal abnormalities.

Most scanning equipment can hold patients up to 250kg (550lb).

But those who cannot fit into a scanner must be referred to hospitals with open-sided MRI equipment, such as Sunshine and Goulburn Valley.


Open MRI machine

Steve

Monday mixed Grill - August 21st 2006

Here's a quick summary of events and blogs for the last week.

The Age newspaper are conducting a poll on Diabesity. View the current results here.

I've managed to finish Anthony Colpo's book The Great Cholesterol Con. Stay tuned for my review coming in the next few days.

Jimmy Moore is going to be coming out of your speakers now too!! He is involved in a podcast with three other guys. Find out about it here. The podcast service is going to start up next week.

Speaking of next week, I anticipate a bad night (nutrition wise) on Saturday night (26th August). My mates are throwing me a bucks night. That's right, this cave man has clubbed himself a cave woman and is tying the knot! I'll let you know how Saturday night pans out in a future blog post.

Thigs seem to be very quiet at the moment over at the Low Carb Dave site. It looks like he's a very busy man.

Pre Paleo medical checkup.

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The monday funny.......



Steve...

Crackdown on danger food

PACKAGED food, margarines and even Chiko Rolls may soon carry warnings about their trans fat content, which recent research has revealed can increase the chance of developing coronary heart disease by more than 20 per cent.

But Rosemary Stanton and other nutritionists say food regulators should go further and adopt the Danish standard, banning all products with more than 2 per cent trans fat. "Manufacturers don't have to have this stuff. They can process their fats by other methods, it's just a bit more expensive," Ms Stanton said.



Clinical trials conducted by Oxford University recently published in the British Medical Journal found that a 2 per cent increase in the consumption of trans fatty acids can lead to a 23 per cent increase in coronary heart disease. Trans fats are added to most fast foods and to a range of baked supermarket goods, confectionary and sandwich spreads, to improve taste, texture and shelf life.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand said it was examining the level of trans fat in the Australian diet and may change food labelling laws so consumers would know how much of the fat was used in particular products. "We have formally started the review process and been working on it since the beginning of this year," said FSANZ spokeswoman Lydia Buchtmann, adding that the process should be complete by the beginning of next year.

FSANZ last examined the use of trans fats in 2000. Ms Buchtmann said at that time there was not evidence to show that sufficient quantities of trans fats were consumed in Australia to become a health threat.

However, Ms Stanton said consumers had been lulled into a false sense of security. She said while two major margarine manufacturers had stopped using trans fat, most house brand and cheaper brands still had high trans fat content.

"We are also totally ignoring it in things like chicken nuggets, fast foods and pastries and things like Nutella," she said.

Professor Paul Nestel, senior principal research fellow in cardiovascular nutrition at the Baker Heart Research Institute, who started studying trans fats more than a decade ago, said most locally produced food stuffs have much lower levels than that produced in the United States or Europe.

Currently manufacturers must only reveal saturated fat content and total fat content that includes trans fat. Still, he expects that food labelling laws will be changed following the review.

Footnote: Rosemary Stanton runs a consulting business, whos clients include State and Commonwealth government departments, sports associations and teams, primary industry groups, selected sections of the food industry and a major retailer. Her major role within these groups is to further the aims of educating the public about food and nutrition. I see a conflict of interest here. Does any one else? If she is being paid by "selected sections of the food industry" and a "major retailer", whos interests do you think she has in mind? Ours, or the people that pay her?

Steve

Obesity experts call for cheaper fruit and vegetables

Fruit and vegetables should be subsidised to cut fresh food prices and help overcome "tragic" new obesity rates in Australian kids, experts say.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released research showing Australia is the only country in the world where childhood obesity rates have overtaken adult rates.

The number of overweight and obese children has doubled since 1985, with 23 per cent of all Australians under 16 now fitting into the two categories.

Obesity experts Professor Ian Caterson from Sydney University and Paul Zimmet from Monash University have labelled the figures a tragedy for Australia.

Prof Caterson, who will address the Chronic Diseases Summit in Canberra tomorrow, said he was particularly concerned by statistics showing people aged 20 to 35 were gaining weight the fastest.

"Our worry is that if our kids are getting fat quicker and people in their 20s to 30s are getting fat faster (than the previous generation), when they're middle aged we're going to have a real problem," he told AAP.

The academics support calls by US-based WHO researcher Professor Barry Popkin to institute a so-called calorie tax on manufacturers to lift the price of unhealthy food.

But they said it may be even more effective to subsidise fresh food to make fruit and vegetables cheaper.

"Over the last few years, the things we want people to eat have gone up in price more than processed food," Prof Caterson said.

"So if we make them cheaper, we're rewarding people for eating the right things rather than punishing them for eating the wrong things."

He said while eating habits were largely ingrained, (no pun intended) research had proved that price affects what people buy.

One study showed that halving the price of apples boosted sales three fold.

Prices would need to come down substantially through subsidies offered either to growers, transporters or supermarkets by both state and federal governments, Prof Caterson said.

The move would bring the price of fresh produce back into line with processed foods and get fruit and vegetables to people quicker and fresher.

The experts will tackle Australia's childhood obesity epidemic at the International Congress on Obesity in Sydney next month.

"We live in an affluent society and Australian children are now suffering from 'affluenza'," Prof Caterson said.

"Preventing obesity is a better way of reducing chronic disease and simpler because you can do it with eating and lifestyle intervention."