(ive always loved this picture of a Hadza man keeping a lookout on a tree, from National Geographic)

Our culture, well my culture at least, is obsessed with ways to remove fat from the diet. The grocery store shelves are filled with products stating that they are 'lite', 'fat-free', 'skinny', 'skim'. These qualities are promoted as a means to encourage buyers and we fall for it willingly and without fail.

If you were a prehistoric hunter-gatherer you would feel very differently about fat. In contrast to modern diets, you would spend your life searching for fat resources in your diet. More and more it looks like hunter-gatherers based their entire subsistence practice around the acquisition of fat. Hunting intensely in the late autumn when deer, boar and other prey species were at their fattest (after they had gorged in order to survive through the winter), moving to follow herds of caribou or reindeer which provided a main fat source during the Paleolithic period in the North, splitting the bones of hunted animals in times of desperation in order to retrieve the fatty bone marrow.

As we try to avoid fat like the plague, hunter-gatherers would have searched after it relentlessly.

In other news, our weather here has been quite inconsistent, which isnt inconsistent for the UK. We had a long streak of warm, sunny days and then suddenly cloudy, windy, cold rain. Yesterday was particularly interesting as most of the day Durham was filled with just the finest mist of moisture in the air. Things noticed:

• a baby pink tulip covered with the slightest hint of misty dewdrops
• lots of birds loving the escapee earthworms the rain produces
• a layer of Icelandic volcano ash covering my black rain boots
• and increased level of green to the trees and plants that makes it look like someone adjusted the color and brightness modes on a TV
• that smell of fresh rain air
• people on the street in a hurry to get out of the rain have no problem knocking you off the sidewalk
• coffee tastes better when its cold outside
• paying attention in German class is hard when you are concentrating on the rhythm of raindrops on the window
• things always look better the next day after the rain

(vintage Durham Cathedral)