Posted on 01/07/2025 9:06:01 AM PST by Red Badger
The Caveman Diet, also known as the Paleo Diet, is a weight-loss craze where calorie-counters pick foods they think early humans may have eaten.
For most followers, this means a meat-heavy diet.
But a new study suggests that if you truly want to eat like a caveman, you should be steering clear of red meat.
Contrary to popular belief, researchers from Bar-Ilan University say that early humans were not solely focused on animal protein.
Instead, cavemen were mostly vegetarians whose diets featured plant-based foods including acorns, cereals, legumes, and aquatic plants.
'This discovery underscores the importance of plant foods in the evolution of our ancestors,' said Dr Hadar Ahituv, lead author of the study.
'We now understand that early hominids gathered a wide variety of plants year-round, which they processed using tools made from basalt.
'This discovery opens a new chapter in the study of early human diets and their profound connection to plant-based foods.'
Cavemen have long been portrayed as voracious meat eaters.
But in their new study, the team set out to understand what early humans truly ate.
The researchers focused on basalt tools found at an ancient settlement site near Gesher Benot Ya'akov.
This site, located on the shores of the ancient Hula Lake, includes over 20 layers of settlement, fossilised animal remains, and plant remnants.
During their analysis, the researchers discovered starch grains approximately 780,000 years old on the basalt tools.
'These include acorns, grass grains, water chestnuts, yellow water lily rhizomes, and legume seeds,' the researchers wrote in their study, published in PNAS.
According to the experts, this indicates that plants played a central role in the cave man diet.
As for why our ancient ancestors prioritised these foods, the researchers suggest that it may be linked to the evolution of the human brain.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
They were ‘shopping lists’ from caveWOMEN to caveMEN to bring home whatever she pointed at!...............
Fixed it for you ;)
“You had to live. near a coastline with plant life.”
That’s why you often find Megan McCain in New York and DC. The shallow tidal waters help her stubby legs support her immense weight as she munches on tidal plants.
I read that in a dinosaur book when I was little.
“Scientists slam the Caveman Diet - and say early humans were mostly VEGETARIAN”
How can they watch The Flintstones cartoons and say that?
Just as I thought, they want us to relive the Stone Age, but with computers.
No thanks.
One scientist had a theory that the reason people don’t have much hair is we fished animals out of the water. IOW, people were semi-aquatic.
Some of the earliest human settlements had large mounds of clam shells and fish bones, which kind of boosts this theory. It’s easier to grab a clam that hunt a mammoth with a spear.
People in Africa and the South still catch fish by hand.
“Any Bible believer could tell you the first humans were vegetarians.”
How dare you refer to that antiquated collection of fables?!
(By the way, perfect to use that when discussing something coming from an Israeli University)
Adam and Eve had the Garden of Eden and all, but they were given dominion over all the animals of the earth, and at least one of their kids (the favored one) raised sheep.
Oh for sure. But do you see ancient man knowing this? A few rhousand years ago yes, not cavemen 50.000 years ago. I could br wrong.
Personally I go heavy on animal food, light on plant. For me the carbohydrate content of plant food is a bit much, for others it could be the opposite. But yeah we need both, I think the carnivore types are a bit extreme.
Who was the first guy to catch a lobster and say I wonder what this tastes like?
Man is a hero by nature. Woman a hero-worshipper. Shades of Ayn Rand.
Scenes depicting bringing down the huge Woolly Acorn with spears, and facing the fierce saber-toothed Cave Millet alone with only a torch were quite popular.
I am a ‘Second-Hand Vegan’.
Animals eat plants.
I eat animals....................
Here’s that use of the term “humans” to mean anything.
At 780kya , whatever it was using that tool was NOT our species.
So let’s talk about what ancient Homo sapiens ate:
“Early Americans ate tons of mammoth, 13,000-year-old bones from Clovis culture baby reveal”-https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/early-americans-ate-tons-of-mammoth-13-000-year-old-bones-from-clovis-culture-baby-reveal
“Neanderthals diet: 80% meat, 20% vegetables” - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160314091128.htm
“Homo sapiens 100,000 years earlier: Ancestors’ diet of game revealed” - New fossil finds from Morocco do more than push back the origins of our species by 100,000 years. They also reveal what was on the menu for our oldest-known Homo sapiens ancestors 300,000 years ago: Plenty of gazelle.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170607133246.htm
Caveman fried steak! LOL
The earliest human writing said:
“If it moves slow eat it.
If it moves fast tax it.”
Lol.
“Hares are very low fat meat.”
There is actually a term for that “rabbit starvation” or something like that. I can’t remember, but just like you said.
And I want to find the episode of that guy killing a musk ox. That is flat out dangerous. Slightly safer than a Cape Buffalo.... slightly.
Everyone who has seen cave paintings of salad realizes the scientists are right
The wheat we eat today is not like what it was in ancient times and we also did not spray it with roundup.
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