Food choice is as much about what is available to be eaten as it is about what a species evolved to eat. From the standpoint of paleoecology, the Paleolithic diet is a myth. I am not a dietician and cannot speak with authority about the nutritional costs and benefits of Paleolithic diets, but I can comment on their evolutionary underpinnings. The idea is to eat like our Stone Age ancestors-you know, spinach salads with avocado, walnuts, diced turkey, and the like. On the other hand, cereal grains, legumes, dairy, potatoes, and highly refined and processed foods are out. Grass-fed cow meat and fish are good, and carbohydrates should come from nonstarchy fresh fruits and vegetables. There are many variants on the general theme, but foods rich in protein and omega-3 fatty acids show up again and again. It makes sense, and it's no surprise that Paleolithic diets remain hugely popular. The wrong fuel can wreak havoc on the system, whether you're filling a car or stuffing your face. Think about what might happen if you put diesel in an automobile built for regular gasoline. The idea is that our diets have changed too quickly for our genes to keep up, and the result is said to be “metabolic syndrome,” a cluster of conditions that include elevated blood pressure, high blood sugar level, obesity and abnormal cholesterol levels. Nevertheless, diet gurus have built a strong case for discordance between what we eat today and what our ancestors evolved to eat. I'm not really a fan-I like pizza and French fries and ice cream too much. As a paleoanthropologist I'm often asked for my thoughts about it. This leads us to the so-called Paleolithic Diet. There is nothing new about cereal consumption. Paleobotanists have even found starch granules trapped in the tartar on 40,000-year-old Neandertal teeth with the distinctive shapes of barley and other grains and the telltale damage that comes from cooking. People at Ohalo II on the shore of the Sea of Galilee ate wheat and barley during the peak of the last ice age, more than 10,000 years before these grains were domesticated. Despite the pervasive call to cut carbs, there is plenty of evidence that cereal grains were staples, at least for some, long before domestication. It also explains our simple guts, which look little like those evolved to process large quantities of fibrous plant foods.īut gluten isn't unnatural either.
There is no explanation other than meat eating for the fossil animal bones riddled with stone tool cut marks at fossil sites. Our early Homo ancestors invented weapons and cutting tools in lieu of sharp carnivorelike teeth.
While humans don't have the teeth or claws of a mammal evolved to kill and eat other animals, that doesn't mean we aren't “supposed” to eat meat, though. Take the ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras, for example: “Oh, how wrong it is for flesh to be made from flesh!” The argument hasn't changed much for ethical vegetarians in 2,500 years, but today we also have Sarah Palin, who wrote in Going Rogue: An American Life, “If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?” Have a look at Genesis 9:3-“Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you.” People have been debating the natural human diet for thousands of years, often framed as a question of the morality of eating other animals.