So-called “ancestral diets” have become popular, but what did our prehistoric ancestors actually eat? Paleoanthropology researcher Dr. Peter Ungar takes us on a journey through the origins of our species and how scientists decipher the diets of our distant ancestors.
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References:
1-https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7312/hard92188/html
2-https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.5049
3-https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1305827110
4-https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-real-paleo-diet/
5-https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41033-3
6-https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1607872113
7-https://science.sciencemag.org/content/326/5960/1680.full
8-https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/humans-feasting-on-grains-for-at-least-100000-years/
9-https://www.pnas.org/content/112/39/12075.abstract
10-https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/ancient-oat-discovery-may-poke-more-holes-in-paleo-diet
11-https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6473/87
12-https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01681-w
13-https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/cooking-in-caves-palaeolithic-carbonised-plant-food-remains-from-franchthi-and-shanidar/0CB510C9E528CD7AD923469D78E14E42
14-https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/22/world/prehistoric-diets-plants-neanderthals-scn/
15-https://insider.si.edu/2011/01/starch-grains-found-on-neandertal-teeth-helps-debunk-theory-their-extinction-was-caused-by-dietary-deficiencies/
16-https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1016868108
17-https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2021655118
18-https://www.science.org/content/article/neanderthals-carb-loaded-helping-grow-their-big-brains
19-https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248415001657
20-https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0204368
21-https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1005992107
22-https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248408001565
23-https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-real-paleo-diet/
24-https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-neanderthals-idUSKBN16F2LK
25-https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21674?dom=pscau&src=syn
26-https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1307308110
27-https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022034518822981
28-https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018206002355
29-https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0002044
30-https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1809439115
31-https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-true-human-diet/
32-https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27981702
33-https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0101045
34-https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03675-0
35-https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/abs/new-evidence-for-the-processing-of-wild-cereal-grains-at-ohalo-ii-a-23-000yearold-campsite-on-the-shore-of-the-sea-of-galilee-israel/3F1C519692D8923D4FD321001CB87359
36-https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248484710438
37-https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11434-011-4718-2
38-https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440384710806
39-https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0305440387900045
40-https://www.amazon.com/Edible-Insects-Human-Evolution-Lesnik/dp/0813056993
41-https://academic.oup.com/ae/article/64/4/261/5232711
42-https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.98.4.1358
Disclaimer: The contents of this video are for informational purposes only and are not intended to be medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, nor to replace medical care. The information presented herein is accurate and conforms to the available scientific evidence to the best of the author’s knowledge as of the time of posting. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions regarding any medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of information contained in Nutrition Made Simple!.
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0:00 Highlights
0:25 What did our ancestors eat?
2:15 Is there ONE ancestral diet?
5:47 Diversity & uncertainty
9:01 Did Neanderthals eat whole grains?
10:34 Bone marks, teeth and DNA
17:27 The chemical signature of diet
19:45 Tooth microwear
21:00 Putting the evidence together
29:53 Patterns in human diet evolution
35:19 Fossilized feces
36:25 Omnivores, carnivores or herbivores?
40:08 Hunting vs scavenging
44:31 Eating insects
46:05 Recap & Conclusion
26 Comments
bye bye paleo diet arguments, anyway I always felt it was a “fishy“ one 😀
Did our European stone age ancestors create images of the mostly horrible vegetables available to them?
Always interesting, thank you.
Could somebody please tell me the answer in the comments, i can't be arsed to watch the video
Superb session !
great Video!
Test123
Could you make a video about msg?
I appreciate a lot your content Gil and the way you express yourself.
Would you consider to talk about the effectiveness of collagen and others similares supplements in next videos?
Thank you
Excellent interview, fascinating topic. Thank you Gil for these nuanced science conversations, they are enormously helpful.
My personal takeaway from this discussion: From an evolutionary standpoint the modern human is an omnivore. Ultra processed food is not what he is used to eat!
Another great video 📹 👏
Looking forward to part 2..cheers 😀
Ancestral diets don't matter for maximal longevity, because our ancestors didn't have to live a very long time to be able to reproduce, maybe 40-55 years at most. Diseases like cancer, heart disease, and cellular senescience, on the other hand, are what restrains maximum longevity in the modern world. And it turns out that alot of blue zones have basically figured this out through centuries of wisdom about what to eat (and how to live), and not to eat, to live a long time. People in blue zones don't think of their diet in terms of macronutrients, but in terms of holistic balance or energy of various types of foods, and they eat alot of micronutrient dense foods as staples (such as beans, corn, or sweet potatoes), with far less refined grains than in modern industrial societies.
thanks for making this content a reality….
I love how you provide references! Awesome.
So, as we ate LESS fruit and grains the more intelligent we were. I think the important part is that we cooked food and that separated us from the other apes to develop into modern humans.
猪吃地下的，人吃地上的。(最开始人吃河里的鱼虾贝)
I just read an article on mysportscience called are-electrolytes-important-for-athletes. They seem to be saying that athletes don't need to take electrolytes unless they are training for more than 4 hours. Most athletes I know seem to believe they need to take electrolytes a lot more than that. What does the science say?
Chimps are herbivores, so how can we compare them with humans? How about isotope testing, we can tell what they ate through that method.
Our ancestors ate anything they could fit in their faceholes, including poisonous things. Not certain why people (carnivores) seem to think cavemen were experts on health and longevity 😂
On ancestral mixed diets, with the Phytic Acid/Oxalic Acid in plant foods inhibiting the absorption of calcium and magnesium, was osteopenia or osteoporosis a problem?
Neanderthals were not homo sapiens and they lost In competition why?
if you find fossils of plants close to homo sapiens it is not proof they ate it in daily basis or in starvation period or even at all since you want to check what was left in their bellies not what they could feed their animals maybe…
Sure they weren’t eating Beyond Burgers.
23 minutes into the video the speaker has not yet mentioned the most IMPORTANT things about humans and their diet : we COOK our food. No point looking at chimps and gorillas, they do not cook. Richard Wrangham has said cooking might go back as far as 2 million years in hominin history. IOW we were cooking our food even before we became humans
Carnivores say meat made our brains doubled in size, this is a dumb statement as we couldn’t have used fire before our brains doubled in size so we wouldn’t have eaten a food that poisoned our organism and threatened our life before we became “smart” enough to cook (process) our food… we became smart and made dumb choices on the other side of the coin of duality
Fascinating topic. I love learning about this stuff, and grateful that he concluded that what our ancestors ate was not necessarily optimal.
How long did prehistoric humans live?
Based on Early Neolithic data, total life expectancy at 15 would be 28–33 years. Based on Early and Middle Bronze Age data, total life expectancy at 15 would be 28–36 years. Based on Athens Agora and Corinth data, total life expectancy at 15 would be 37–41 years.