What Our Ancestors Ate
By Paul D. Tortland, DO
wide range of eating habits, from vegetarian to cave man. Yet what does the actual historical and fossil record tell us? And what can we learn from that to apply to our lives today? What you are about to read will infuriate some, puzzle a few, and delight others. My goal in this article is to present the historical facts as we currently understand them, not necessarily to endorse or condemn any dietary pattern.
M What Cave Men Really Ate
In 2000 a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition outlined the presumed diets of pre-agricultural humans (before the advent of formal agriculture 10,000 years ago). Specifi- cally, the authors looked at the ratio of plant to animal consumption in order to estimate the relative percentage of macronutrients— carbohydrates, fats, and proteins—in the diet of these peoples. This study was the first-ever comprehensive nutritional evaluation of the macronutrient and trace nutrient contents of the foods consumed in un-Westernized pre-historic hunter-gatherer diets. The results of the study were compelling. The authors’ analysis reported that whenever and wherever possible, hunter-gatherers consumed high amounts of animal food (45–65% of the food required for survival came from animal food). Only 14% of the worldwide hunter gatherer societies derived more than 50% of their sustenance from plant foods. According to the authors, “This high reliance on animal-based foods coupled with the relatively low carbohydrate content of wild plant foods produces universally characteristic macronutrient con- sumption ratios in which protein is elevated (19–35% of energy) at the expense of carbohydrates (22–40% of energy).” In other words, 19-35% of the diet consisted of protein, while only 22-49% consist- ed of carbohydrates, from an energy-producing perspective. Pre- historic peoples overwhelmingly consumed diets that were heavily weighted towards animal protein and fat; approximately two-thirds of their total calories came from animal food and one-third from plant sources. Not a single one of the 229 populations studied were exclusively vegetarian.
36 Natural Nutmeg October 2012
uch has been made about the type of diet enjoyed by our forbearers, ranging from early America to as far back as pre-historic times, with advocates ardently championing a
Furthermore, as the researchers pointed out, these peoples preferentially ate the fattest animals they could find, and preferen- tially ate the fattest parts of the animal, including the tongue, organs, and bone marrow. Of the plant foods they consumed—nuts, berries, roots, and fruits—most would be considered low glycemic index foods by today’s standards, having relatively low carbohydrate con- tent. And of course these plant sources contained such high degrees of natural fiber that they were difficult to digest (and they were not engineered to increase their sweetness!).
In their final analysis, the authors note that more than 60 per- cent of all the calories in a modern Western diet—including cereal grains, dairy, beverages, vegetable oils, and sweets—“would have contributed virtually none of the energy in the typical hunter-gather- er diet.”
So how did this affect the health of prehistoric hunter-gatherer
peoples? An analysis of the fossil record shows that the overall health of pre-agricultural man was excellent. People were tall, lean, had strong dense bones, little, if any, tooth decay, and scant evidence of severe disease.
The Curse of the Egyptians
Let’s fast-forward to the ancient Egyptians. Organized agri- culture—farming—was developed roughly 10,000 years ago. As Michael Eades, MD points out in his book Protein Power, from 3000 BC to roughly 395 AD the Egyptians left us a wonderfully detailed medical and dietary history. Their perfection of mummification has enabled researchers to determine the health status of this population by examining the remains. And their prolific use of papyrus left a de- tailed written history of their lives, including how they lived, where and how they worked, what they were paid, and what they ate. The typical ancient Egyptian subsisted on a diet almost exclu-
sively of carbohydrates. In fact, the average Egyptian soldier was given a ration of five pounds of bread per person per day, leading the Greeks to refer to these soldiers as “bread eaters.” Fruits and veg- etables were grown and consumed in abundance, including grapes, dates, melons, olives, apples, nuts, garlic, lettuce, cucumbers, peas and lentils. They sweetened their food with honey (cane sugar would not be developed until 1000 AD). They ate a small amount of fish and poultry and almost no red meat.
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