Editing Lucayan people (section)

=== Pre-European contact diet ===
The Lucayans grew root crops and hunted, fished and gathered wild foods. At least half of the diet came from plant foods.{{Sfn|Keegan|Carlson|2008|pp=3-5, 74}}

The staple crop of the Lucayans was manioc ([[cassava]]), followed by sweet potato. Sweet manioc was eaten like sweet potato, by peeling and boiling. Bitter manioc, which has a dangerous amount of [[hydrogen cyanide]], was prepared by peeling, grinding, and mashing. The mash was then filtered through a basket tube to remove the hydrogen cyanide as a poisonous juice. The filtered mash was dried and sieved for flour, which was used to make pancake-like bread cooked on a flat clay griddle. The poisonous hydrogen cyanide juice was boiled, which released the poison, and the liquid base mixed with [[Chili pepper|chili peppers]], vegetables, meat, and fish to make a slow-boiling stew that prevented the spoiling of its ingredients.{{Sfn|Keegan|Carlson|2008|pp=3-5, 74}}

The Spanish also reported that the Lucayans grew sweet potatoes, [[Xanthosoma|cocoyams]], arrowroot, [[Goeppertia allouia|leren]], [[Dioscorea trifida|yampee]], peanuts, beans and cucurbits. The Lucayans probably took most, if not all, of their crops with them to the Bahamas.{{Sfn|Craton|1986|p=20}} The Lucayans may have grown papayas, pineapples, guava, [[Mammea americana|mammee apple]], [[Melicoccus bijugatus|guinep]] and tamarind fruit.{{Sfnm|Craton|1986|1p=20|Keegan|1992|2pp=124–126}}

There were few land animals available in the Bahamas for hunting: [[Bahamian hutia|hutias]] (Taíno ''utia''), [[Cyclura|rock iguanas]], small lizards, land crabs and birds. While Taínos kept dogs and [[Muscovy duck]]s, only dogs were reported by early observers, or found at Lucayan sites. Less than 12% of the meat eaten by Lucayans came from land animals, of which three-quarters came from iguanas and land crabs. 

More than 80 percent of the meat in the Lucayan diet came from marine fishes, almost all of which grazed on seagrass and/or coral. Sea turtles and marine mammals ([[West Indian monk seal]] and porpoise) provided a very small portion of the meat in the Lucayan diet. The balance of dietary meat came from marine mollusks.{{Sfnm|Craton|1986|1p=25|Keegan|1992|2pp=126–127}} The main meats were fishes and mollusks from the grass flat and patch reef habitats that are found between the beach and the barrier reef, and include parrotfish, grouper, snapper, bonefish, queen conch, urchins, nerites, chitons, and clams.{{Sfn|Keegan|Carlson|2008|pp=3-5, 74}}

[[Maize]] was a recent introduction to the Greater Antilles when the Spanish arrived, and was only a minor component of the Taíno and, presumably, Lucayan diets.{{Sfn|Craton|1986|p=20}}