Posted on 12/19/2014 8:55:32 AM PST by Gamecock
ATLANTA, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- A new survey by anthropologists calls into question the scientific and historical justification for the paleo diet. Early man, they say, was an opportunist, not a nutritionist or dieter. By now, most people have heard of the paleo diet. The popular diet is named for the Paleolithic Age, the expansive period of prehistory characterized by so-called cavemen and primitive stone tools. Its followers forgo grains and processed foods in favor of meat, fish and vegetables.
Its emphasis on protein and whole foods isn't without merit, but its genesis is based on the idea that humans were at their physical and nutritional best some 10,000 and 2.5 million years ago -- before the modern diet was corrupted by the advent of agriculture.
While the new scientific paper -- compiled by researchers at Georgia State University and published in the Quarterly Review of Biology -- doesn't attack the paleo diet's nutritional validity, it does question the logic of attributing any single nutritional philosophy to ancient man.
"Based on evidence that's been gathered over many decades, there's very little evidence that any early hominids had very specialized diets or there were specific food categories that seemed particularly important, with only a few possible exceptions," anthropologist Ken Sayers said in a press release.
Sayers and his colleagues say early man ate what he ate based on availability. The percentage of protein included in the diets of paleolithic peoples (and other other nutritional details) likely varied from place to place, depending on climate and geology.
Furthermore, Sayers argues, today's fruits and vegetables are entirely different than the types of things people were finding in the fields and forests thousands of years ago.
Most scientists agree that assuming ancient man was in any way healthier than modern man is misguided. Paleolithic people had short lifespans, never living long enough to become susceptible diseases like cancer and other so-called "diseases of affluence."
"Throughout the vast majority of our evolutionary history, balancing the diet was not a big issue," Sayers said. "They were simply acquiring enough calories to survive and reproduce. Everyone would agree that ancestral diets didn't include Twinkies, but I'm sure our ancestors would have eaten them if they grew on trees."
Or presumably chocolate éclairs.
“...chocolate éclairs....”
“Was it below the Rim, George? Then it’s TRASH...”
“opportunist” = scavenger?
I think the scientists missed the point. People were not dieting — they just ate what was around (so, yes, opportunistic). No hot dogs, no white bread. Healthier without “trying” to be healthier.
Good article. We project onto people in the past a lot of silly notions that say a lot more about us than them. For instance natives didn’t eat every part of a buffalo because they were hippie environmentalists. They did it because they were poor, and using every bit of the dead buffalo they already had was less effort than chasing another one.
Exactly.
No, more like “omnivore”. Scavenging, hunting, fishing, gathering. Basically, we hadn’t invented farming or animal husbandry yet, so we needed to eat anything we could get our hands on in order to survive.
What a ridiculously researched article. Every description I have heard of paleo is predicated on the idea that people were opportunistic eaters. So these (rocket) scientists come along and say that they weren’t paleo, but instead were opportunistic (more grant money, please). And the idiot writer for UPI doesn’t even do 5 minutes of research necessary to discover that the anthropologists discovered, exactly, nothing.
and so if man was an opportunist during paleo times what paleo opportunities were there?...it’s not like there was fields of processed grain and food laying around your opportunity
Exactly. The things that were most opportune were what paleos go for.
Paleos aren’t eating ants under the assumption it’s healthier than chicken.
And they died at 30.
Hippie environmentalists are at the root of many fads. They promote the idyllic image of early man singing dancing about in fields of daisies with nothing else to do but eat, sleep and have sex, being super healthy and happy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Early men and women lived in huts or under tree branches. They probably had all sorts of bodily parasites and skin afflictions, and ate all sorts of unsanitary food, not to mention drinking water straight from whatever puddles were on the ground at the time. Early humans probably ate the dead carcasses that were left by other predators. They were very likely a food source themselves, a part of the big cats' paleo diet consisting of rodents, bovines and early humans.
Personally, I would not trade my unhealthy life of so far almost sixty years, with the roast turkey, grilled steak, broiled chicken or fried bacon and eggs that I have been eating for most of that time for a diet consisting of partially-eaten carcasses and entrails. My worst health problems are caused by being overweight, but I find that much better than near-starvation.
And yes, hippies are the ones that are coming up with this paleo diet crap as a way to make us think that this is not the Golden Age, which it is, and that we are not actually living in the Promised Land, which we are.
There were a few exceptions - mainly among the groups that ate a lot of pizza ...
roast turkey, grilled steak, broiled chicken or fried bacon and eggs
______________________________________________________________
Well it appears you are eating the paleo way.
The reality is you have no idea what you are writing about. The “paleo” diet has nothing to do with hippies or liberals.
It is based on scientific research by Dr. Loren Cordain and many others since. Basically a diet very heavy in grains only came about around 10,000 years ago and humans have not yet evolved to respond well to that diet.
The evidence and theory are much more involved than can be addressed in a single post here.
As an aside environmentalist hippies HATE the paleo diet due to it’s heavy reliance on meat.
spot on. Anything short of granite was food, sometimes including the neighbors.
It’s ain’t about what they ate, it’s about the fact that they couldn’t sit on their fat arses while the food came to them. They had to get out there and work for it, so they were fit.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.