New research suggests the latest diet craze, the "caveman diet," is actually far off from what was eaten by most early humans during the Stone Age.
People following the modern Paleolithic diet are instructed to stick to what was consumed by the people of the Stone Age, which is believed to be basic meats, fruits and vegetables, Georgia State University reported.
"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," said Dr. Ken Sayers, a postdoctoral researcher at the Language Research Center of Georgia State. "Some earlier workers had suggested that the diets of bears and pigs-which have an omnivorous, eclectic feeding strategy that varies greatly based on local conditions-share much in common with those of our early ancestors. The data tends to support this view."
To make their findings the researchers looked at the feeding habits of animals as well as "anatomical, paleoenvironmental and chemical evidence." The researchers found early humans were generally poor hunters, but tended to explore a wide variety of foods.
Advocates of the Paleo diet suggest a certain percentage of energy should come from certain foods containing protein, fats and carbohydrates, but the recent research suggest the authentic Stone Age diet was much broader.
"I think that you would certainly have lots of variation way beyond what those recommendations are," Sayers said. "When you're trying to reconstruct the diet of human ancestors, you want to look at a number of things, including the habitats they lived in, the potential foods that were available, how valuable those various food items would have been in relation to their energy content and how long it takes to handle a food item."
The study points out that our ancestors lived in a wide range of environments which would have caused different groups of people to have different diets. Food back in those days also may have been different, such as strawberries that were too bitter to eat or other foraging variations.
The researchers also noted humans had much shorter life spans during the Stone Age, so it is difficult to determine if they were actually healthier than modern humans.
"Individuals throughout the vast majority of the Stone Age were not living that long. Life expectancies are so high today, at least in many regions of the globe," Sayers said. "A lot of the diseases that do come about today or have been linked with high-fat diets or things like that have been referred to by some researchers as 'diseases of affluence.' They're diseases that come about simply because we're living long enough that they can show their effects."
The findings were published in a recent edition of the Quarterly Review of Biology.
