The Evolution of Mankind's Diet

It is an often-quoted fact that about 90 percent of the foods modern man eats were not eaten by our ancient ancestors. Through years of technology and trying to out-do Mother Nature, our diets have become terribly bastardized from what they once were. Even the fruits and meats that we eat now are not the same as they were when our nomadic precursors roamed the planet.

The fruits that our ancient ancestors ate contained much more fiber--this made them a little tougher to chew, but also ensured that the seeds would pass through the digestive system and be dispersed as the nomad traveled. This resulted in natural selection of fruits that were much more fibrous and beneficial to both parties (cleaning out the digestive tract of the human, and spreading the seeds of the fruit.).

Now, in modern times, we often take the path of least resistance, and this has even had a negative effect on the fruits we grow and eat. Because we don't like 'tough' or 'chewy' fruits, we've greatly reduced their fiber content through selective breeding, grafting, genetic engineering, and other varitable forms of meddling in the affairs of nature. Through this, fruits became less and less fibrous, and less and less beneficial, until the hearty wild apple became the docile fruit on your teacher's desk. By some accounts, fiber has been reduced by as much as 80 percent. This, too, has further negative consequences. Fiber helps regulate blood sugar, and the blood sugar fluxes caused by eating very sweet fruits. Without the fiber component, fruit may not be as beneficial to us today as it was in the past.

In addition, our diet used to never contain grains. Nutritionally, grains are far inferior to fruits. Grains are often higher calorie, higher protein, higher fat, higher carbohydrate, higher fiber, but contain little in the way of nutrition. Fruits are loaded with significant amounts of a few nutrients, and trace amounts of many, many others. Grains have one thing that most fruits do not have, and that is iron. While iron is important, it is not enough of a reason to eat grains. Grains were very rarely eaten by our ancestors, if at all. Until the age of agriculture began a few thousand years ago, the diet of the average human consisted of wild animal meat and wild fruits and vegetables. Grains were few and far between and often passed over when one was pursuing a meal.

There is a lot of controversy surrounding grains, and whether or not they contribute to the rate of heart diseases and autoimmune diseases we see in ourselves today: heart attacks are commonplace, as are arthritis, diabetes, and various other ailments.

Diets such as the Warrior Diet, Paleo Diet, and the Zone Diet have interesting science at hand that shows that we, biologically, may not be cut out to consume such large amounts of grains as we have been--and certainly not in such quantities as the United States Food Pyramid would suggest would be a good idea.

So, watch yourself, and watch your grains.