Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution
Theodosius Dobzhansky
Are you confused by conflicting advice on what constitutes a healthy diet? Is fat dangerous? Is meat unhealthy? What about eggs? Is the healthiest breakfast you can eat a slice of whole grain bread with cheese, and a big glass of milk?
In this article, I will show you why an evolutionary approach to this issue will give you the answer to this question and give you the reassurance that you can make the best choices for your health without being a trained nutritionist.
Evolution is infinitely slow.
Human evolution on this earth from the first human-like creature to the amazing body you have today has taken place between 6-7 million years.
Modern man originated about 40,000 years ago and is called Homo Sapiens. This means that you, me and a human who lived 40,000 years ago are 99.9% genetically identical! In other words….exactly the same. Had you taken a Stone Age man, given him a shower, a haircut, dressed him in a suit and put him around the lunch table at work, then your colleagues would have wondered who the new guy was. They wouldn’t have expected anything to be strange, maybe until he opened his mouth and tried to say something.
The biological and chemical processes that took place in a human body 40,000 years ago are exactly the same things that are happening inside you at the moment you sit and read these words. Pretty cool, right?
So if we are to orient ourselves in the jungle of diets and dietary advice on what is healthy or unhealthy to eat, then it is useful to put on our evolutionary glasses. Let’s ignore all the conflicting research on diet for a moment and use common sense. For what was humans eating 40,000 years ago? And what are you eating today?
Let’s start by taking a closer look at what scientists have found that humans ate in prehistoric times, and what indigenous peoples in the world today eat.
Or formulated in another way:
What is the range of foods that humans by nature are biochemically, physiologically and genetically developed to eat?
It is difficult to say with certainty exactly what humans ate in prehistoric times. However, scientists can find out quite a bit from remains, bone remains, etc. We know from archaeological studies and isotope analyzes that our ancestors have eaten meat for at least 2.5 million years! In addition, we know that they also ate plant foods that they found in the nature around them. How much did they eat of meat in relation to plants vary widely with geographical location. If we look more closely at studies of today’s indigenous peoples and what they eat, we know that they eat on average 65% of energy intake from animal food, and 35% from plant food. If we turn this into a kind of ancestral plate model, remember that 65% of the energy from animal food does not mean that 65% of your plate should be covered with meat. Because animal food is so much more energy-rich than plant food, a «prehistoric plate model» will have about ¼ of animal food and the rest plant food.
What we can say with 100% certainty is what ancient people (and today’s indigenous peoples) did NOT eat and drink! They did not eat any modern food.
That is, nothing that is made in a factory and has a table of contents. Not bread, pasta, buns, soda, candy, cakes, ready meals, fast food, alcohol, vegetable oils and very little dairy products (except in northern European countries in the last 5000 years, because people in this part of the world developed an ability to break down milk sugar lactose also in adulthood).
As you can see, there is an incredibly large gap between what the human animal has eaten in 99.6% of the time we have existed on this planet, and what we have eaten the last 0.4% of the time, ie in modern and industrialized times.
What consequences has this had for our health? What is the result of this gap between how we are evolutionarily evolved to live, and how modern humans ( you and I) actually live?
We know that archaeologists can quickly look at the remains of prehistoric people and decide if they are from before or after agriculture originated (about 10,000 years ago). The remains of pre-agricultural people have greater bone density, less wear and tear and damage, the teeth do not have holes, etc. For you and me and everyone else in the western world, the health prospects are rather poor. 1 in 3 in Norway will get cancer in their lifetime. Autoimmune diseases are exploding in incidence. Heart problems affect 20% of the population in Norway, and also the incidents of diabetes, and obesity are growing in numbers by the year.
These diseases, which we today call western lifestyle diseases, almost didn’t exist in prehistoric times. And they almost don’t exist in indigenous groups who live in isolation as hunters and gatherers in the world today.
The government’s dietary advice that are applied to the entire population looks quite different from what history shows us that humans are actually meant to eat. We feel the consequences on our body and our health every single day. So if you let your logic and reason grab you for a moment, I hope you might now start to question whether you are actually eating as healthy as you thought you were?
Not two people are alike, so there is no one-size-fits-all diets. There is a big difference between a 20-year-old athlete and a 55-year-old couch potato with obesity and diabetes. We don’t have time in this article to go into the details of the distribution of carbohydrates / fats / proteins that you should eat in light of the health challenges you may have, but one thing should be clear:
- Eat natural food. Food that ARE ingredients, not food that HAS ingredients (ie without table of contents), both meat, fish, shellfish, lots of vegetables, nuts, fruits and berries
- Learn how to cook and make your own food
- Stay away from processed food, fast food and other “food like” substances.