"More recent evaluations of early man's nutritional patterns by Dr. Loren Cordain, estimate that as much as 65 percent of his calories were derived from animal products. Granted, early man was not eating corn fed Angus beef from Jewel, but he was eating the meat, the organs and the bones of his prey. Essentially, a high protein/fat diet. It was a mere 10,000 years ago (or less) that man began exploiting an agricultural niche.
This transition was made due to decreasing population of large game prey and an increasing population of humans. While undeniable good has transcended this dietary shift, i.e., growth of the human population, establishment of permanent settlements, the inception of civilization itself - man's health may have suffered in the transition.
"Generally, in most parts of the world, whenever cereal-based diets were first adopted as a staple food replacing the primarily animal-based diets of hunter-gatherers, there was a characteristic reduction in stature, a reduction in life span, an increase in infant mortality, an increased incidence of infectious disease, an increase in diseases of nutritional deficiencies (i.e., iron deficiency, pellagra), and an increase in the number of dental caries and enamel defects.
"In a review of 51 references examining human populations from around the earth and from differing chronologies, as they transitioned from hunter-gathers to farmers, one investigator concluded that there was an overall decline in both the quality and quantity of life.
"There is now substantial empirical and clinical evidence to indicate that many of these deleterious changes are directly related to the predominately cereal-based diets of these early farmers. Since 99.99% of our genes were formed before the development of agriculture, from a biological perspective, we are still hunter-gathers.
"Thus, our diet should reflect the sensibilities of this nutritional niche: lean meats; fish; seafood; low glycemic vegetables and fruit, (modern agriculture has significantly increased the sugar and starch content of vegetables and fruits over their Paleolithic counterparts), nuts and seeds - the evolutionary diet."
All that said, there are cultures which thrived on a diet of mostly rye bread (prepared in traditional ways - if you want to replicate that diet, be prepared to soak and process your own bread), grass fed (unpasteurized) cow's milk and butter, with meat not more than weekly. IOW, there are many ways to get around the paleolithic model and still thrive. The caveat is that one would have to prepare the bread in traditional ways, and eat the same quantities of the fat soluble vitamins (A, D, and K) which are found in that rich, full fat grass fed cow's milk! One would also have to give up juice, sugars, and the other toxic foods those cultures thrived by avoiding.
Dr. Weston Price's masterpiece, "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" does a supreme job of documenting these facts.
Many of us in this 'food camp' call it the 'paleolithic model' because it provides a template by which to analyze which foods may be perilous and which should work - but it's not nor should it become the 'paleolithic obsession'.
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