Chapter 28 Chapter 26 Food Intake in the Stone Age

A man who lives in a state of nature is strong, athletic, and clear-sighted, as the French philosopher Rousseau wrote as early as 1754.Numerous anthropologists and ethnologists have studied the life and health of many natural tribes living in Africa, the Americas, and Oceania over the past two centuries. The most studied is the living habits of Australian aborigines.Nutritionist Karin Kelyn of the Baker Medical Research Institute in Melbourne.Odie (Kerin O, Dea) lived among them for a period of time in order to observe and record their eating habits and health conditions.Australian aborigines were also once typical peoples of hunting and gathering.They are true omnivores and will eat just about anything.The choice of food by the aborigines of mainland Australia must be adapted to the seasons and their living environment.They also usually have a division of labor in obtaining food, with women collecting basic food items such as wild fruits, nuts, edible leaves, honey, bird eggs, insects, small reptiles, crustaceans and mammals, and fish , shellfish and other sea vegetables.The men have to capture the daily staple meat, and the bigger the prey, the better for everyone.There, kangaroos are of course the most favored prey.

Every day, when the hunters returned to the camp with their prey, everyone cooked the meat and gathered together to eat large pieces of meat.All edible parts of the prey are eaten together, entrails, brains and bone marrow.However, the aborigines are very fond of fat, and they will never waste it, and they will eat it with relish. Foods like honey, berries, nuts, insects, etc. are not meals, but snacks.Sometimes hunters cut off the liver of their prey and eat it raw on the spot in order to satisfy their hunger.These surveys of Aboriginal Australians constitute the most important and eloquent record of human life completely independent of food production.If you want to understand the eating behavior of our ancestors living in the Stone Age, and then learn about our genetic characteristics and the diet that matches our genetic characteristics, the above-mentioned research on modern hunter-gatherer tribes is the most direct material.

The natural way of life and food intake in the Stone Age can make a person healthy.This American radiologist and anthropologist Steffen.Bode.Eaton (Stehpen Boyd Eaton) and his colleague Marjorie.Shostak (Marjorie Shostak) and Melvin.Melvin Konner, in their book "Prescriptions in the Late Stone Age" published in 1988, made a comprehensive exposition and scientific demonstration for the first time, and introduced this point of view to the general readers. Dr. Eaton, who teaches at Emory University in Atlanta, USA, and his colleagues base their argument on data provided by the first anthropological atlases published in the 1960s.This atlas has documented in considerable detail fifty-eight hunter-gatherer tribes still living under Stone Age living conditions.Based on these data, experts made rough calculations on the diet and nutritional behavior of the Stone Age as early as 1968.

In the 1980s, Eaton and his colleagues refined this preliminary data base further, using analyzes of food remains from archaeological excavations and nutrient analyzes of modern wild plant and animal meat.On this basis, they calculated for the first time the nutrient composition of Stone Age food, that is, the ratio of carbohydrates, fat and protein in food.They believe that in that ancient time, the average ratio of plant and animal food in human food was 65:35, and it was still mainly plant.According to their calculations, carbohydrates accounted for a moderate proportion of daily calorie intake, 45%, fat 21%, and protein 34%.

Over the next few years, the same scientists revised their calculations with more and more precise analyzes of the plants, but overall, there was little change.So since the mid-1980s, it has been believed to have been scientifically validated that humans are better suited to a plant-based, low-fat diet.The modern high-fat diet is regarded as a major problem that is detrimental to our health.Fifteen years later, we realized the mistake! Eaton and his researchers made two huge mistakes in their calculations.First, they did not count fish and other seafood; second, they only considered the amount of edible muscle, and this kind of lean meat was not preferred by primitive peoples. If prey was plentiful, they would rather eat other meat. The same is true for chimpanzees.All kinds of internal organs, especially the brain, eyes, bone marrow, and fat from the abdominal cavity are their favorites.Liver, kidney, spleen, heart and lungs are also preferred over pure lean meats.No bit of fat is wasted, they even separate the fat inside by boiling the bones.In nature, the general principle is that the more fat it contains, the denser and more valuable the energy it provides.

With the above in mind, it should be clear that all Stone Age diet calculations cannot be trusted.They are far from reality.Therefore, in the late 1990s, at the University of Colorado, LaurenUnder the leadership of Professor Cordine, a young and promising evolutionary biologist, some experts in this field gathered to prepare a new calculation, and the experienced Eaton also participated in this work.In March 2000, the long-awaited calculation results were finally published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In the latest calculations, the scientists conducted a more detailed analysis of the nutritional composition of all wild plants imaginable, including hundreds of fruits, berries, nuts, seeds, tubers, flowers and leaves.In order to calculate the portion of nutrients taken in by food animals, experts analyzed the composition of meat and offal of various wild animals in Africa and North America.In addition, they also referred to the revised and supplemented Anthropological Atlas, newly published in 1999, which details the diets of 229 modern hunter-gatherer tribes.These tribes are found in all areas where humans may live, from tropical rainforests, grasslands, forests, to high-latitude ice sheets, from the Tiwi people in Australia to the Ona people in the United States and the Eskimos in the Arctic Circle.

Scientists attach great importance to the integrity of the data. All the plants and bird eggs that may be collected, the mammals and birds that may be hunted, and the fish that may be caught are included in the new Stone Age food analysis.Only one limitation, which seems necessary, is that some insects and small reptiles, such as lizards, which they occasionally caught, were not counted because of the lack of reliable data on this.The researchers acknowledged that they had to accept the fact that the new calculations included a lower proportion of animal-based foods than they actually did.But they stuck with this conservative estimate because they realized that the new calculations had become too difficult for the nutrition community to accept.

Lauren.Cordain describes the dietary behavior of hunter-gatherer tribes living in Stone Age conditions that were radically different from what was previously known.First of all, the experts who participated in the study emphasized that it is obvious that there has never been a natural tribe in the world that completely or basically lived on plants.As discussed in Chapter 23, hunters and gatherers always try to get as much animal food as their ecological environment allows.The reason behind this is still the principle of optimal food acquisition: expending the same physical strength and energy, obtaining animal food can bring more energy and nutrients.It is therefore natural that the vast majority of tribes that still lead a hunter-gatherer life in modern times basically eat animals.Among the 229 hunter-gatherer tribes surveyed, the proportion of animal food ranged from 56% to 65%.One hundred and thirteen tribes (that is, 58% of the total) have animal food that accounts for more than two-thirds.

This is a blow to the authorities and followers of vegetarianism.Inspired by their beautiful ideals, they have been looking for strong evidence to prove that human beings originally belonged to herbivores.They are still convinced that in the era of hunting and gathering, plant food accounted for such a large proportion that it should have been called gathering and hunting in the first place. Today's German Vegetarian Bible says this: Gathering and hunting tribes still living in tropical areas today, 60% to 80% of their food comes from plants.People often erroneously draw opposite conclusions Professors Letzman and Hahn write: We should take this fact into account when giving sound dietary nutritional advice.

However, we now find that the inhabitants of these tropical regions also eat fish, and that their diet consists of plants only between 36 and 55 percent.The farther away from the equator, the lower the proportion of plants in human food.Between 41° and 50° north and south latitude, the proportion of plants in food is only 25% to 35%, and between 51° and 60° north and south latitude, the proportion of plants in food is only 16%. to 25%.In contrast, the farther away from the equator, the higher the proportion of animal food from hunting and fishing in the diet. I am truly sorry, respected vegetarian authorities, but your interpretation of Professor Eaton's old research data in 1996 is now completely untenable.Your plant-based diet propaganda has been refuted by the facts and can be relegated to the scientific trash heap.We can naturally expect that you, as academically rigorous university teachers, will correct the wrong information as soon as possible.In addition, as you have vigorously promoted so far, the food and nutrient intake ratio of natural tribes should be used as a reference for providing nutritional advice on correct diet.On this point, I completely agree.We look forward to the early publication of the new edition of the Vegetarian Bible.

It is not easy to take these new insights into account when providing dietary and nutritional advice.Lauren.Cordine's latest analysis reverses nearly all previous advice in the field and, in his own words, bases a conservative estimate of 65 percent on animal foods.Here, the scientists are very careful not to use a subjective fixed number ratio, but to represent the average range of the nutrient intake ratio of hunter-gatherer tribes around the world as much as possible. Calculations, combining the recorded food intake of all 229 peoples or tribes who lived as hunter-gatherers, most likely constituted: about 20% to 40% carbohydrates, 28% to 58% % fat, 19% to 35% protein. All hunter-gatherer tribes living in areas above 40 degrees latitude, that is, the areas where environmental conditions should be closest to those in Europe where our ancestors lived, the most likely composition of nutrients is: about 30% carbohydrates, 40% to 50% fat and 30% protein. You read that right, not a typo, but extremely interesting scientific material.Maybe you will feel familiar with the ratio of the relationship between nutrients?Maybe you should go back and read Chapter 23, where the latest metabolic research suggests beneficial dietary nutrient ratios for people, especially those with insulin resistance.Could this bring about a revolution in nutritional science?In short, the data are enough to make them speechless to the devout believers of prestigious professional associations. Nutrient ratios in the Stone Age diet Lauren.Cordine and his collaborators calculated the nutrient ratios in their analysis with a maximum possible margin of error.They started with two different assumptions: one was that 65 percent of the food sources were animal-based; or that 65 percent of the food sources were plant-based, which was less likely.Scientists must also take into account that the body fat content of the animals eaten varies according to size, season, climate and husbandry.So again, they calculated a low to high margin of error.Given the extreme possibility, they calculated it at 2.5% body fat (including all viscera and bone marrow), although that low is unlikely.At the same time, they considered another unlikely extreme, that is, the fat content was as high as 20%, and the middle value was 10% to 15% fat ratio. Based on animal food accounting for 65% of the total and animal body fat content of 10%, the average ratio of food nutrients for all hunter-gatherer tribes is: 22% carbohydrates, 43% fat and 28% protein .Based on the fact that animal food accounts for 65% and animal body fat content is 15%, the calculated proportions are: 22% carbohydrates, 50% fat and 28% protein. If the proportion of animal and plant food is reversed, that is, assuming that animal food accounts for 35%, the ratio is as follows: based on the animal body fat content of 10%, the ratio is 40% carbohydrates, 34% fat and 26% protein.Based on a fat content of 15%, the ratio is 40% carbohydrates, 37% fat and 22% protein. Based on this newly calculated composition of Stone Age nutrition, it can be extrapolated that it is extremely unlikely that hunter-gatherer tribes consumed less than 34% fat.It's also highly unlikely that their food would consist of 40 percent carbohydrates.Instead, it is highly likely that most hunter-gatherer tribes have historically only made up about 20 percent of their diets from carbohydrates.In contrast, the proportion of fat in their food is always 40% to 50%, and it is mainly animal fat.In addition, the proportion of protein in food will never be less than 20%. In most cases, protein accounts for about 30%, and most of them are animal protein. Can't think of it?From this point of view, human beings are indeed inherently dependent on animal fat and animal protein in order to continue their species!Is this the way of food intake in line with our species characteristics and genetic characteristics?In the past few million years, what did our ancestors rely on to survive the ice ages again and again?What kind of food could they find in Europe during the Ice Age?More than meat, it's meat! Of course, wild foods from their natural environment differ in many ways from the man-made products we consume today.During the Stone Age, the meat and fat of hunted animals was probably largely similar to that of wild animals today.Therefore, Lauren.Cordine and his colleagues specifically analyzed the meat of moose, deer and antelope as evidence for the meat and fat intake of our ancestors. The body fat content of wild animals is relatively low, there is not so much oil and water in their stomachs, and there is very little subcutaneous fat.In this kind of accumulated fat, the proportion of saturated fatty acid is relatively high, reaching 60% to 66%.Because wild animals store less fat, saturated fat intake is unlikely to be high.The fat of wild animals is mainly structural fat, that is, intermuscular fat and visceral fat, and its main components are unit and polyunsaturated fatty acids in a balanced ratio. Another key point about polyunsaturated fatty acids is that wild animals do not eat grains and soybeans, but green plants.Therefore, the content of Omega︱6 fatty acids in its fat is relatively low, while the content of Omega3 fatty acids is relatively high.This is reflected in the ratio of Omega︱6 and Omega︱3 fatty acids, which is about 3:1 to 6:1, which is the ideal ratio required by human physiology.Today, the ratio of the two fatty acids in the muscle of a grain-fed cow from the United States is 14:1! The main source of fat in the diet of hunter-gatherer tribes was animal bone marrow.According to analyzes of wild animals, the fat contained in bone marrow is mostly (60% to 70%) monounsaturated fatty acids.Two thirds of the rest are saturated fatty acids and one third are polyunsaturated fatty acids.Among them, the ratio of Omega︱6 and Omega︱3 fatty acids is 4:1 to 9:1, which is also an ideal range. The small amount of vegetable fat that hunter-gatherers consume comes primarily from nuts and seeds.The main components of most of these fats are also monounsaturated fatty acids, and the ratio of polyunsaturated Omega︱6 Omega︱3 fatty acids is more balanced than most vegetable fats on the market today.So it can be said that hunter-gatherers, although high in fat intake, was of better quality than the fat that people consume today.In recent decades, some influential nutrition experts and vegetable cream merchants have recommended and provided products to consumers that cannot be compared with them. The carbohydrate intake of hunter-gatherers was low and of a qualitatively different quality than what people consume today.Fruits, berries, mushrooms, wild vegetables and tubers are the main sources of carbohydrates.Except for honey, they are all unrefined carbohydrates, which contain more soluble and insoluble crude fiber.These foods also had a relatively low glycemic index (see Chapter 13 and the appendix at the end of the book), and pure starches were rare at the time.In other words, not only are there fewer carbohydrates, but they also have a weaker effect on blood sugar production.In addition, these foods ensure the intake of a large amount of water-soluble vitamins, especially vitamin C, and the supply of minerals and trace elements, especially potassium and magnesium, is also naturally sufficient. All of the above were introduced by Lauren.Cordine and his colleagues say it most likely reflects the actual diet of hunter-gatherer tribes.If this pattern can also represent the food intake of our ancestors in the past two million years, and if the human genes formed in the evolution process, the most adapted diet should look like this, then what we accept today Suggestions and the way we eat in real life can lead us down a path of self-destruction.