"pearl"  wrote in message news:...
> "MattLB"  wrote in message news:1144155743.848539.58720@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> > st7 wrote:
> > > Rob wrote:
> > > > I'm sure you already know that certain natural toxins are destroyed by
> > > > the cooking.
> > >
> > > So you avoid those foods that are toxic in the raw state.
> >
> > Interestingly in the context of human diet history many of what are
> > today edible vegetables weren't before the dawn of agriculture and the
> > selective breeding of certain crops to make them more palatable or less
> > toxic. Most vegetables, unlike fruit, come from parts of the plant that
> > the plant doesn't want you to eat and in the original varieties would
> > have been toxic, bitter-tasting or both - so probably weren't part of
> > the ancient hominid diet.
>
> But most 'vegetables' are actually the plants' fruit.  And...
>
> 'Throughout the earth's geological history (4.5 billion years),
> large scale forces of nature such as global climate change,
> movements of continents, and geological variations induced
> by sun, rains and the winds, gave rise to a variety of life forms
> including a diversity of plain communities. An even more
> diverse array of herbivorous animals, ranging from tiny
> grasshoppers to giant elephants evolved to crop this vegetation.
> This complement of herbivores included several large mammals
> ancestral to the present day deer, pigs, wild cattle, tapirs, rhinos
> and elephants. Such a community of ungulates is not a mere
> collection of individual species, but an intricate, ecological web
> in which large species feed on coarser plants, providing paths
> and access for smaller ones, and each ungulate specialises to
> feed on different plant species, plant parts or different stages
> of plant growth. ..
> ..'
> http://www.rareearthexplorations.com/wildindia/tiger/tiger.htm
>
> Of course that also applies to primates and plant foods.
>
> > Any attempt, therefore, to claim that eating
> > modern cultivated vegetables and fruit is somehow closer to our ancient
> > ancestors' natural diet is misguided
>
> The plant foods we eat may be selected for desirable qualities,
> but they are still the genetic descendants of edible plant foods.

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