Saturday, May 5, 2012

Why don't we just eat mongongo nuts?

This is from Jared Diamond's essay about the idea that agriculture was a mistake. But this quote is hilarious:

"[T]he average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only 12 to 19 hours for one group of Bushmen, 14 hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania. One Bushman, when asked why he hadn't emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, 'Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?'"
Apparently, the mongongo nuts are 57% fat and 24% protein by weight. Very paleo!

Also, rather than laboriously harvest them yourself, you can find them all in one place (with the nut meat intact!) in piles of elephant dung. Mmm... hunter-gathering.

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