species-specific diet

neandermagnon

Here's a species specific breakdown of the diets of humans over the last 3 million years. (the earliest humans appeared around 3mya) Human is not a species, btw, it's a genus. Homo sapiens is listed below (both Homo sapiens idaltu and Homo sapiens sapiens)



Homo habilis - scavenged lion kill, smashing up the bones to extract the bone marrow, after the lions had finished with it. Also ate whatever plant foods it could find.

Homo erectus/ergaster - seems to have eaten scavenged meat more than hunted meat, probably did not know how to use fire. was believed to hunt by running animals into the ground (a similar technique to the !kung people of the Kalahari, but without the sophisticated weapons they have, just sticks and stones) Also ate whatever plant foods it could find.

Homo heidelbergensis - a recent discovery of a stone tipped spear made by this species suggests that they hunted in a similar way to the neanderthals. they probably had fire. Probably their diet was somewhere between H. erectus/ergaster and H. neanderthalensis, seeing as they're intermediate between the two. i.e. scavenging less and hunting more.

Homo neanderthalensis - co-operatively hunted very large animals with stone tipped spears, they wore clothes made from the skins of the animals they ate. They used fire and ate cooked meat and cooked plant foods. they are not directly ancestral to us, however middle palaeolithic Homo sapiens had a very similar culture and very similar stone tools. They probably also ate a range of raw plant foods as well as cooked plant foods.

Homo sapiens idaltu - they hunted and ate hippos, likely using similar techinques and weapons to neanderthals. they likely had a similar culture to neanderthals i.e. controlled use of fire, cooking meat and probably plant foods too, possibly making clothes (although as they lived in a much hotter climate than the neanderthals they may not have done, but could still have used animal skins for other puroses, e.g. blankets, baby carriers etc)

upper palaeolithic Homo sapiens sapiens - developed much more sophisticated weapons for hunting animals, and also developed the ability to fish (i.e. making fish hooks, bows and arrows, atlatl (spearthrowers), and similar). they ate meat and fish. (neanderthals seem to have only eaten meat and not fish and only had short range hunting weapons like thrusting spears, neanderthals went extinct about 10,000 years after upper palaeolithic H. sapiens sapiens arrived in Europe) Also would have cooked some plant foods, eaten others raw, etc. Diet likely to have been similar to modern hunter-gatherer tribes, e.g. !kung San.

neolithic homo sapiens sapiens - developed the ability to farm plants and animals. Populations where dairy herding/farming was common have evolved the ability to digest lactose after early childhood, and human populations learned to produce high protein plant food in sufficient quantities for humans to have less need of meat. Basically, neolithic populations adapted to the food that they could produce in the areas where they lived, this is only small changes in the digestive system, e.g. lactase enzyme persisting after childhood. neurologically speaking we're still the same as upper palaeolithic homo sapiens sapiens. In early neolithic populations, over-reliance on large quantities of single plant species caused health problems and nutritional deficiencies. These problems became less over time as agricultural techniques developed in complexity and resulted in a wider range of different foods. Only minimal changes in evolution have happened during this time, we are by and large better adapted for an upper palaeolithic diet/lifestyle, although some changes have happened in some populations, e.g. the ability to digest lactose after childhood in populations that traditionally farm/herd dairy.

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If you want to eat your species specific diet, then go palaeo (if you're from a population that has herded or farmed dairy for millennia, then dairy's fine too. Palaeolithic people probably ate grains in small quantities when they were in season, so grains in small quantities is natural in the human diet, despite what some palaeo advocates claim).

If you don't want to go palaeo then don't, I don't personally care either way, and I don't follow the palaeo diet myself (or at least not what gets posted on the internet calling itself palaeo, plus I follow the 90% rule so eat 90% clean 10% whatever) but if you want the most natural, species specific diet, then read the above re Homo sapiens sapiens, which is what I presume you are seeing as you have a vertical forehead and a dome shaped cranium.

I have read a number of places that new evidence suggests that although our ancestors ate meat, their diet was mostly that of a vegetarian much like apes of today.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/07/23/human-ancestors-were-nearly-all-vegetarians/
http://www.herenow4u.net/index.php?id=cd6299
http://www.compassionatespirit.com/wpblog/2012/04/21/are-humans-naturally-vegetarian/

Neanderthals got 100% of their protein from meat (molecular studies have confirmed this). They ate plant foods for carbohydrate and micronutrients. Other middle palaeolithic humans (H. sapiens idaltu, early H. sapiens sapiens, H. heidelbergensis) had very similar cultures to neanderthals, and so likely had similar diets in terms of a heavy reliance upon meat. H. sapiens may have eaten fish during the middle palaeolithic era, even though they hadn't invented fish hooks yet. But they would not have been able to get enough plant protein to survive prior to agriculture. Plant protein in enough quantities to meet a human's protein needs was simply not available

Modern hunter-gatherers eat more than a little meat. Go look at the !kung San diet. The Inuit have the diet highest in quantity of meat and fish. the !kung San diet consists of about 80g protein a day, most of which comes from meat.

Yes vegetable sources are and always have been important in the diets of all primates, including humans, but they're more a source of carbohydrate and micronutrients, and in some cases fat (e.g. nuts). They've never been a significant source of protein for human populations prior to the invention of agriculture.

Claims of being "mostly vegetarian" are grossly exaggerated. Humans have always eaten meat, until we got good enough at agriculture to produce enough plant protein and other post-agricultural protein foods such as dairy, to become less reliant on it. In fact it goes so far as to say that we would not have evolved had we not eaten meat, because there's a correlation in primates between brain size and animal protein consumption. The protein and fat from meat is necessary to grow and fuel our large brains. The largest brained humans, i.e. neanderthals, ate the most meat. H. sapiens is not far behind neanderthals in terms of brain size (it's thought that a change in brain wiring in H. sapiens resulted in them being able to develop more complex technology than the neanderthals despite having slightly smaller brains). Completely vegetarian primates have the smallest brains. Even chimpanzees eat meat (they hunt small monkeys), they have the largest brains of non-human primates.

By all means eat and even promote a plant based diet, for ethical reasons, or economic reasons or whatever. However it's not right to deny the importance that meat has played in human evolution, or to claim that humans are not adapted for eating meat, or that meat was only a small part of the human diet. There is a lot of bias among some vegetarians that has resulted in promoting incorrect ideas about human evolution, and in some cases it's descended to the level of pseudoscience.

I think those were old outdated studies & information. There has been new evidence presented in the scientific journal Naturwissenschaften among others. So the idea that their diet was meat seems to be decreasing with each new piece of evidence and each passing year.

The assertion is drawn from 50,000-year-old skeletal remains found in El Sidrón Cave in northern Spain. The teeth of 13 individuals showed layers of calcified plaque, which contained a range of carbohydrates and starch granules. Some revealed alkyl phenols, aromatic hydrocarbons and roasted starch granules, which suggests the beings spent time in smoky areas and ate cooked vegetables. Few lipids or proteins from meat were found.

“The idea that Neanderthals were largely meat-eaters has been hard for me to accept given their membership in a mainly vegetarian clade. It is exciting to see this new set of techniques applied to understanding their palaeo-diet,” says Richard Wrangham, an anthropologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Hardy also told Science Daily that on another level, the findings suggest that these individuals "had a sophisticated knowledge of their natural surroundings which included the ability to select and use certain plants for their nutritional value and for self-medication."

This isn't the first time research has suggested vegetables played a larger role in Neanderthal diets than previously thought. In 2010, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study related to fossilized grains of vegetable material found in Neanderthal teeth. Some of it was cooked.

Yes, that's right, prior to that, some thought that they were almost 100% carnivorous. yes I already mentioned in my post that neanderthals ate and cooked plant foods. They are still nowhere near "mostly vegetarian" because the molecular evidence still says they got all their PROTEIN from meat. They ate vegetables (and cooked them) for carbohydrates and micronutrients.

So please if you want to attempt to refute what I wrote, which is palaeoanthropology 101, try to post something that actually contradicts what I wrote.

Nowhere did I say that any species of human is 100% carnivore. I have been saying that meat eating was a vital part of human evolution and there's no species of human that didn't eat meat. neanderthals got all their protein from meat. I can even list all the species if you like:

woolly mammoth, woolly rhino, wild horses, wild donkeys, wild cattle, reindeer, birds, and Homo neanderthalensis (yes cannibalism, something they appeared to have turned to during harsher times, seeing as they needed to eat meat so much they ate their dead tribe members, and there's possibly evidence of them hunting and eating other humans, likely at times when food was less available). So they regularly hunted and ate very large animals. the amount of plant food that was available to them during the winter (ice age, sub-actic climate) would have been very limited.

My information on neanderthals is up to date, palaeoanthropology is a hobby of mine. The recent discovery of neanderthals eating cooked plant food is a very interesting one, and read my original post, because I mentioned neanderthals eating cooked plant foods in it already.

BTW congrats on the google then C&P job.... shame it didn't actually refute anything that I'd written....

ApexLeader

you only have to take a census of pre-industrial tribes and bands around the world to see that veganism and vegetarianism isn't that common (as most of those pre-industrial groups eat meat). since they aren't affected by marketing, advertising, or money, that completely invalidates pretty much your entire post.

jjrichard83

you only have to take a census of pre-industrial tribes and bands around the world to see that veganism and vegetarianism isn't that common (as most of those pre-industrial groups eat meat). since they aren't affected by marketing, advertising, or money, that completely invalidates pretty much your entire post.

The meat they eat now, and the meat humans ate 100 years ago isn't the same as the meat being consumed today. To say it refutes the entire post is a huge overstatement. Not to mention the fact remains - vegetables in their natural state have not been linked to cancer, when consuming red meat has been (maybe not the meat in general, but what is in the meat).

If we were talking about meat that is "clean" then it's a whole different story.

neandermagnon

Covered the inuit diet. they also have higher mortality rates (4 times more) and less than 25% reach the age of 60. Not a good diet to follow.

It's not me promoting these "pseudoscience" ideas. It's leading researchers & scientists who study these bones who are coming up with these new findings that are basically telling you everything you learned, and everything that was written about neanderthals diets could very well be wrong.

Instead of trying to refute me, why don't you actually read what I'm saying? What are you trying to prove anyway?

I'm up to date on all research to do with neanderthals. The discovery of them eating cooked plant food does not suddenly make neanderthal spears jammed in the rib cages of very large animals, or the molecular evidence that suggests they got all their protein from meat, go away. So that discovery does not change "everything that was written about neanderthal diets" - it adds an extra dimension to it, that's all.

But most of all I want to know what you're trying to prove....

neandermagnon

you only have to take a census of pre-industrial tribes and bands around the world to see that veganism and vegetarianism isn't that common (as most of those pre-industrial groups eat meat). since they aren't affected by marketing, advertising, or money, that completely invalidates pretty much your entire post.

The meat they eat now, and the meat humans ate 100 years ago isn't the same as the meat being consumed today. To say it refutes the entire post is a huge overstatement. Not to mention the fact remains - vegetables in their natural state have not been linked to cancer, when consuming red meat has been (maybe not the meat in general, but what is in the meat).

If we were talking about meat that is "clean" then it's a whole different story.

you weren't talking about clean meat though, were you? You were trying to claim that humans are evolved for a mostly vegetarian diet, which simply isn't true.

yes, wild meat is a lot healthier than farmed meat, especially industrial/factory farmed meat. But that's a whole other issue

jjrichard83

Here's a species specific breakdown of the diets of humans over the last 3 million years. (the earliest humans appeared around 3mya) Human is not a species, btw, it's a genus. Homo sapiens is listed below (both Homo sapiens idaltu and Homo sapiens sapiens)



Homo habilis - scavenged lion kill, smashing up the bones to extract the bone marrow, after the lions had finished with it. Also ate whatever plant foods it could find.

Homo erectus/ergaster - seems to have eaten scavenged meat more than hunted meat, probably did not know how to use fire. was believed to hunt by running animals into the ground (a similar technique to the !kung people of the Kalahari, but without the sophisticated weapons they have, just sticks and stones) Also ate whatever plant foods it could find.

Homo heidelbergensis - a recent discovery of a stone tipped spear made by this species suggests that they hunted in a similar way to the neanderthals. they probably had fire. Probably their diet was somewhere between H. erectus/ergaster and H. neanderthalensis, seeing as they're intermediate between the two. i.e. scavenging less and hunting more.

Homo neanderthalensis - co-operatively hunted very large animals with stone tipped spears, they wore clothes made from the skins of the animals they ate. They used fire and ate cooked meat and cooked plant foods. they are not directly ancestral to us, however middle palaeolithic Homo sapiens had a very similar culture and very similar stone tools. They probably also ate a range of raw plant foods as well as cooked plant foods.

Homo sapiens idaltu - they hunted and ate hippos, likely using similar techinques and weapons to neanderthals. they likely had a similar culture to neanderthals i.e. controlled use of fire, cooking meat and probably plant foods too, possibly making clothes (although as they lived in a much hotter climate than the neanderthals they may not have done, but could still have used animal skins for other puroses, e.g. blankets, baby carriers etc)

upper palaeolithic Homo sapiens sapiens - developed much more sophisticated weapons for hunting animals, and also developed the ability to fish (i.e. making fish hooks, bows and arrows, atlatl (spearthrowers), and similar). they ate meat and fish. (neanderthals seem to have only eaten meat and not fish and only had short range hunting weapons like thrusting spears, neanderthals went extinct about 10,000 years after upper palaeolithic H. sapiens sapiens arrived in Europe) Also would have cooked some plant foods, eaten others raw, etc. Diet likely to have been similar to modern hunter-gatherer tribes, e.g. !kung San.

neolithic homo sapiens sapiens - developed the ability to farm plants and animals. Populations where dairy herding/farming was common have evolved the ability to digest lactose after early childhood, and human populations learned to produce high protein plant food in sufficient quantities for humans to have less need of meat. Basically, neolithic populations adapted to the food that they could produce in the areas where they lived, this is only small changes in the digestive system, e.g. lactase enzyme persisting after childhood. neurologically speaking we're still the same as upper palaeolithic homo sapiens sapiens. In early neolithic populations, over-reliance on large quantities of single plant species caused health problems and nutritional deficiencies. These problems became less over time as agricultural techniques developed in complexity and resulted in a wider range of different foods. Only minimal changes in evolution have happened during this time, we are by and large better adapted for an upper palaeolithic diet/lifestyle, although some changes have happened in some populations, e.g. the ability to digest lactose after childhood in populations that traditionally farm/herd dairy.

---

If you want to eat your species specific diet, then go palaeo (if you're from a population that has herded or farmed dairy for millennia, then dairy's fine too. Palaeolithic people probably ate grains in small quantities when they were in season, so grains in small quantities is natural in the human diet, despite what some palaeo advocates claim).

If you don't want to go palaeo then don't, I don't personally care either way, and I don't follow the palaeo diet myself (or at least not what gets posted on the internet calling itself palaeo, plus I follow the 90% rule so eat 90% clean 10% whatever) but if you want the most natural, species specific diet, then read the above re Homo sapiens sapiens, which is what I presume you are seeing as you have a vertical forehead and a dome shaped cranium.

I have read a number of places that new evidence suggests that although our ancestors ate meat, their diet was mostly that of a vegetarian much like apes of today.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/07/23/human-ancestors-were-nearly-all-vegetarians/
http://www.herenow4u.net/index.php?id=cd6299
http://www.compassionatespirit.com/wpblog/2012/04/21/are-humans-naturally-vegetarian/

Neanderthals got 100% of their protein from meat (molecular studies have confirmed this). They ate plant foods for carbohydrate and micronutrients. Other middle palaeolithic humans (H. sapiens idaltu, early H. sapiens sapiens, H. heidelbergensis) had very similar cultures to neanderthals, and so likely had similar diets in terms of a heavy reliance upon meat. H. sapiens may have eaten fish during the middle palaeolithic era, even though they hadn't invented fish hooks yet. But they would not have been able to get enough plant protein to survive prior to agriculture. Plant protein in enough quantities to meet a human's protein needs was simply not available

Modern hunter-gatherers eat more than a little meat. Go look at the !kung San diet. The Inuit have the diet highest in quantity of meat and fish. the !kung San diet consists of about 80g protein a day, most of which comes from meat.

Yes vegetable sources are and always have been important in the diets of all primates, including humans, but they're more a source of carbohydrate and micronutrients, and in some cases fat (e.g. nuts). They've never been a significant source of protein for human populations prior to the invention of agriculture.

Claims of being "mostly vegetarian" are grossly exaggerated. Humans have always eaten meat, until we got good enough at agriculture to produce enough plant protein and other post-agricultural protein foods such as dairy, to become less reliant on it. In fact it goes so far as to say that we would not have evolved had we not eaten meat, because there's a correlation in primates between brain size and animal protein consumption. The protein and fat from meat is necessary to grow and fuel our large brains. The largest brained humans, i.e. neanderthals, ate the most meat. H. sapiens is not far behind neanderthals in terms of brain size (it's thought that a change in brain wiring in H. sapiens resulted in them being able to develop more complex technology than the neanderthals despite having slightly smaller brains). Completely vegetarian primates have the smallest brains. Even chimpanzees eat meat (they hunt small monkeys), they have the largest brains of non-human primates.

By all means eat and even promote a plant based diet, for ethical reasons, or economic reasons or whatever. However it's not right to deny the importance that meat has played in human evolution, or to claim that humans are not adapted for eating meat, or that meat was only a small part of the human diet. There is a lot of bias among some vegetarians that has resulted in promoting incorrect ideas about human evolution, and in some cases it's descended to the level of pseudoscience.

I think those were old outdated studies & information. There has been new evidence presented in the scientific journal Naturwissenschaften among others. So the idea that their diet was meat seems to be decreasing with each new piece of evidence and each passing year.

The assertion is drawn from 50,000-year-old skeletal remains found in El Sidrón Cave in northern Spain. The teeth of 13 individuals showed layers of calcified plaque, which contained a range of carbohydrates and starch granules. Some revealed alkyl phenols, aromatic hydrocarbons and roasted starch granules, which suggests the beings spent time in smoky areas and ate cooked vegetables. Few lipids or proteins from meat were found.

“The idea that Neanderthals were largely meat-eaters has been hard for me to accept given their membership in a mainly vegetarian clade. It is exciting to see this new set of techniques applied to understanding their palaeo-diet,” says Richard Wrangham, an anthropologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Hardy also told Science Daily that on another level, the findings suggest that these individuals "had a sophisticated knowledge of their natural surroundings which included the ability to select and use certain plants for their nutritional value and for self-medication."

This isn't the first time research has suggested vegetables played a larger role in Neanderthal diets than previously thought. In 2010, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study related to fossilized grains of vegetable material found in Neanderthal teeth. Some of it was cooked.

Yes, that's right, prior to that, some thought that they were almost 100% carnivorous. yes I already mentioned in my post that neanderthals ate and cooked plant foods. They are still nowhere near "mostly vegetarian" because the molecular evidence still says they got all their PROTEIN from meat. They ate vegetables (and cooked them) for carbohydrates and micronutrients.

So please if you want to attempt to refute what I wrote, which is palaeoanthropology 101, try to post something that actually contradicts what I wrote.

Nowhere did I say that any species of human is 100% carnivore. I have been saying that meat eating was a vital part of human evolution and there's no species of human that didn't eat meat. neanderthals got all their protein from meat. I can even list all the species if you like:

woolly mammoth, woolly rhino, wild horses, wild donkeys, wild cattle, reindeer, birds, and Homo neanderthalensis (yes cannibalism, something they appeared to have turned to during harsher times, seeing as they needed to eat meat so much they ate their dead tribe members, and there's possibly evidence of them hunting and eating other humans, likely at times when food was less available). So they regularly hunted and ate very large animals. the amount of plant food that was available to them during the winter (ice age, sub-actic climate) would have been very limited.

My information on neanderthals is up to date, palaeoanthropology is a hobby of mine. The recent discovery of neanderthals eating cooked plant food is a very interesting one, and read my original post, because I mentioned neanderthals eating cooked plant foods in it already.

BTW congrats on the google then C&P job.... shame it didn't actually refute anything that I'd written....

You said that they got 100% of their protein from meat. If plants were a much larger part of their diet than once thought, then it isn't 100% of their protein from meat then is it? Proteins can come from vegetable matter too. Not everyone has a hobby like yours, so to insult for searching online for both supporting and opposite info shouldn't be looked down upon. It is better than most do on here. That is how we learn. We challenge one another on ideas (while keeping an open mind), in the hopes of learning new things ourselves.

tigersword

Humans have been eating meat AND cooking food for over a million years. The thought that a raw vegan diet is ideal when humans have been eating a cooked omnivorous diet since before Homo sapiens existed is a silly argument.

did you read the last bit? there is evidence that they DID NOT eat meat for millions of years. Not a very silly argument.

Don't disagree or discount something just because you don't understand it. Open your mind at least to the ideas.

Do you mean the part on Neanderthals? Homo sapiens didn't evolve from Neanderthals, so I'm not sure how that explains anything about homo sapiens evolution.

infamousmk

I'd rather eat a few cheeseburgers and enjoy some beers than add six years on to the end of my life. Plain and simple. Any day is a good day to die, and when my time comes I'll know I rocked it balls-out and enjoyed all of the things in life.


Being in peak physical condition is not the end-all of what makes life worth living.

ApexLeader

you only have to take a census of pre-industrial tribes and bands around the world to see that veganism and vegetarianism isn't that common (as most of those pre-industrial groups eat meat). since they aren't affected by marketing, advertising, or money, that completely invalidates pretty much your entire post.

The meat they eat now, and the meat humans ate 100 years ago isn't the same as the meat being consumed today. To say it refutes the entire post is a huge overstatement. Not to mention the fact remains - vegetables in their natural state have not been linked to cancer, when consuming red meat has been (maybe not the meat in general, but what is in the meat).

If we were talking about meat that is "clean" then it's a whole different story.

yeah but none of what you wrote matters. the average life expectancy is already pretty high. ask people in their 70s and 80s if they are ready to go, and most of them are going to tell you yes. so at that point, their diet over the course of their life and whether they enjoyed it or not is more important than the health effects.

if i get cancer when i'm 80 years old i'm not going to care. what i will care about is that i got to eat the food that i enjoyed and didn't spend a ton of time worrying about preservatives.

for that matter, it is unlikely cancer is what kills me anyway 50 years from now, so why would i sit here and worry about it? cardiovascular disease is the same. it probably won't affect but a tiny portion of the population in 20 or more years, so why worry about it? the only people that should be worried are people who are older and already unhealthy now.

neandermagnon

Here's a species specific breakdown of the diets of humans over the last 3 million years. (the earliest humans appeared around 3mya) Human is not a species, btw, it's a genus. Homo sapiens is listed below (both Homo sapiens idaltu and Homo sapiens sapiens)



Homo habilis - scavenged lion kill, smashing up the bones to extract the bone marrow, after the lions had finished with it. Also ate whatever plant foods it could find.

Homo erectus/ergaster - seems to have eaten scavenged meat more than hunted meat, probably did not know how to use fire. was believed to hunt by running animals into the ground (a similar technique to the !kung people of the Kalahari, but without the sophisticated weapons they have, just sticks and stones) Also ate whatever plant foods it could find.

Homo heidelbergensis - a recent discovery of a stone tipped spear made by this species suggests that they hunted in a similar way to the neanderthals. they probably had fire. Probably their diet was somewhere between H. erectus/ergaster and H. neanderthalensis, seeing as they're intermediate between the two. i.e. scavenging less and hunting more.

Homo neanderthalensis - co-operatively hunted very large animals with stone tipped spears, they wore clothes made from the skins of the animals they ate. They used fire and ate cooked meat and cooked plant foods. they are not directly ancestral to us, however middle palaeolithic Homo sapiens had a very similar culture and very similar stone tools. They probably also ate a range of raw plant foods as well as cooked plant foods.

Homo sapiens idaltu - they hunted and ate hippos, likely using similar techinques and weapons to neanderthals. they likely had a similar culture to neanderthals i.e. controlled use of fire, cooking meat and probably plant foods too, possibly making clothes (although as they lived in a much hotter climate than the neanderthals they may not have done, but could still have used animal skins for other puroses, e.g. blankets, baby carriers etc)

upper palaeolithic Homo sapiens sapiens - developed much more sophisticated weapons for hunting animals, and also developed the ability to fish (i.e. making fish hooks, bows and arrows, atlatl (spearthrowers), and similar). they ate meat and fish. (neanderthals seem to have only eaten meat and not fish and only had short range hunting weapons like thrusting spears, neanderthals went extinct about 10,000 years after upper palaeolithic H. sapiens sapiens arrived in Europe) Also would have cooked some plant foods, eaten others raw, etc. Diet likely to have been similar to modern hunter-gatherer tribes, e.g. !kung San.

neolithic homo sapiens sapiens - developed the ability to farm plants and animals. Populations where dairy herding/farming was common have evolved the ability to digest lactose after early childhood, and human populations learned to produce high protein plant food in sufficient quantities for humans to have less need of meat. Basically, neolithic populations adapted to the food that they could produce in the areas where they lived, this is only small changes in the digestive system, e.g. lactase enzyme persisting after childhood. neurologically speaking we're still the same as upper palaeolithic homo sapiens sapiens. In early neolithic populations, over-reliance on large quantities of single plant species caused health problems and nutritional deficiencies. These problems became less over time as agricultural techniques developed in complexity and resulted in a wider range of different foods. Only minimal changes in evolution have happened during this time, we are by and large better adapted for an upper palaeolithic diet/lifestyle, although some changes have happened in some populations, e.g. the ability to digest lactose after childhood in populations that traditionally farm/herd dairy.

---

If you want to eat your species specific diet, then go palaeo (if you're from a population that has herded or farmed dairy for millennia, then dairy's fine too. Palaeolithic people probably ate grains in small quantities when they were in season, so grains in small quantities is natural in the human diet, despite what some palaeo advocates claim).

If you don't want to go palaeo then don't, I don't personally care either way, and I don't follow the palaeo diet myself (or at least not what gets posted on the internet calling itself palaeo, plus I follow the 90% rule so eat 90% clean 10% whatever) but if you want the most natural, species specific diet, then read the above re Homo sapiens sapiens, which is what I presume you are seeing as you have a vertical forehead and a dome shaped cranium.

I have read a number of places that new evidence suggests that although our ancestors ate meat, their diet was mostly that of a vegetarian much like apes of today.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/07/23/human-ancestors-were-nearly-all-vegetarians/
http://www.herenow4u.net/index.php?id=cd6299
http://www.compassionatespirit.com/wpblog/2012/04/21/are-humans-naturally-vegetarian/

Neanderthals got 100% of their protein from meat (molecular studies have confirmed this). They ate plant foods for carbohydrate and micronutrients. Other middle palaeolithic humans (H. sapiens idaltu, early H. sapiens sapiens, H. heidelbergensis) had very similar cultures to neanderthals, and so likely had similar diets in terms of a heavy reliance upon meat. H. sapiens may have eaten fish during the middle palaeolithic era, even though they hadn't invented fish hooks yet. But they would not have been able to get enough plant protein to survive prior to agriculture. Plant protein in enough quantities to meet a human's protein needs was simply not available

Modern hunter-gatherers eat more than a little meat. Go look at the !kung San diet. The Inuit have the diet highest in quantity of meat and fish. the !kung San diet consists of about 80g protein a day, most of which comes from meat.

Yes vegetable sources are and always have been important in the diets of all primates, including humans, but they're more a source of carbohydrate and micronutrients, and in some cases fat (e.g. nuts). They've never been a significant source of protein for human populations prior to the invention of agriculture.

Claims of being "mostly vegetarian" are grossly exaggerated. Humans have always eaten meat, until we got good enough at agriculture to produce enough plant protein and other post-agricultural protein foods such as dairy, to become less reliant on it. In fact it goes so far as to say that we would not have evolved had we not eaten meat, because there's a correlation in primates between brain size and animal protein consumption. The protein and fat from meat is necessary to grow and fuel our large brains. The largest brained humans, i.e. neanderthals, ate the most meat. H. sapiens is not far behind neanderthals in terms of brain size (it's thought that a change in brain wiring in H. sapiens resulted in them being able to develop more complex technology than the neanderthals despite having slightly smaller brains). Completely vegetarian primates have the smallest brains. Even chimpanzees eat meat (they hunt small monkeys), they have the largest brains of non-human primates.

By all means eat and even promote a plant based diet, for ethical reasons, or economic reasons or whatever. However it's not right to deny the importance that meat has played in human evolution, or to claim that humans are not adapted for eating meat, or that meat was only a small part of the human diet. There is a lot of bias among some vegetarians that has resulted in promoting incorrect ideas about human evolution, and in some cases it's descended to the level of pseudoscience.

I think those were old outdated studies & information. There has been new evidence presented in the scientific journal Naturwissenschaften among others. So the idea that their diet was meat seems to be decreasing with each new piece of evidence and each passing year.

The assertion is drawn from 50,000-year-old skeletal remains found in El Sidrón Cave in northern Spain. The teeth of 13 individuals showed layers of calcified plaque, which contained a range of carbohydrates and starch granules. Some revealed alkyl phenols, aromatic hydrocarbons and roasted starch granules, which suggests the beings spent time in smoky areas and ate cooked vegetables. Few lipids or proteins from meat were found.

“The idea that Neanderthals were largely meat-eaters has been hard for me to accept given their membership in a mainly vegetarian clade. It is exciting to see this new set of techniques applied to understanding their palaeo-diet,” says Richard Wrangham, an anthropologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Hardy also told Science Daily that on another level, the findings suggest that these individuals "had a sophisticated knowledge of their natural surroundings which included the ability to select and use certain plants for their nutritional value and for self-medication."

This isn't the first time research has suggested vegetables played a larger role in Neanderthal diets than previously thought. In 2010, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a study related to fossilized grains of vegetable material found in Neanderthal teeth. Some of it was cooked.

Yes, that's right, prior to that, some thought that they were almost 100% carnivorous. yes I already mentioned in my post that neanderthals ate and cooked plant foods. They are still nowhere near "mostly vegetarian" because the molecular evidence still says they got all their PROTEIN from meat. They ate vegetables (and cooked them) for carbohydrates and micronutrients.

So please if you want to attempt to refute what I wrote, which is palaeoanthropology 101, try to post something that actually contradicts what I wrote.

Nowhere did I say that any species of human is 100% carnivore. I have been saying that meat eating was a vital part of human evolution and there's no species of human that didn't eat meat. neanderthals got all their protein from meat. I can even list all the species if you like:

woolly mammoth, woolly rhino, wild horses, wild donkeys, wild cattle, reindeer, birds, and Homo neanderthalensis (yes cannibalism, something they appeared to have turned to during harsher times, seeing as they needed to eat meat so much they ate their dead tribe members, and there's possibly evidence of them hunting and eating other humans, likely at times when food was less available). So they regularly hunted and ate very large animals. the amount of plant food that was available to them during the winter (ice age, sub-actic climate) would have been very limited.

My information on neanderthals is up to date, palaeoanthropology is a hobby of mine. The recent discovery of neanderthals eating cooked plant food is a very interesting one, and read my original post, because I mentioned neanderthals eating cooked plant foods in it already.

BTW congrats on the google then C&P job.... shame it didn't actually refute anything that I'd written....

You said that they got 100% of their protein from meat. If plants were a much larger part of their diet than once thought, then it isn't 100% of their protein from meat then is it? Proteins can come from vegetable matter too. Not everyone has a hobby like yours, so to insult for searching online for both supporting and opposite info shouldn't be looked down upon. It is better than most do on here. That is how we learn. We challenge one another on ideas (while keeping an open mind), in the hopes of learning new things ourselves.

PROTEIN does not equal the entire diet. Protein equals protein. the human diet equaps protein, fat, carbs and micronutrients (and fibre and water)

I said, and still say, that neanderthals got 100% of their PROTEIN from meat, and they got their carbohydrate and some micronutrients from plant food. (and most likely fibre too)

protien CAN come from plants too, but the molecular evidence from neanderthal bones suggests that they got 100% of their protein from meat. therefore the vegetable foods would have provided them with carbs and micronutrients.

Amy62575

To the OP: while you make some interesting points, you are forgetting one major factor here. Not everyone is in agreement with you. People have differing views and perspectives...trying to persuade them with poorly researched info is not going to help your argument. It's true if it's on the internet right?

Bakkasan

eat nothing but sheep.
problem solved

SteveJWatson

One of the slight issues with a lot of these studies is that they have made an error that one of my ex biology lecturers was always drilling into us: they have forgotten the animal involved.

You cannot make estimations of a diet as a while based on the remains of stomach contents. Without well developed agriculture, what the stomachs contained would depend on the time of year. Consider this in terms of optimal foraging theory: In the summer/autumn, plant based foods would be very plentiful and easy to gather, it would make less sense to expend effort hunting. A human in a temperate winter would have an extremeley hard time feeding itself - even until recently the period from Jan to April was known amongst farmers etc as the 'hungry gap'. All the roots will have been being used up and the spring greens wont have yet grown. Of course, primitive man had no access to root crops, as such - tubers such a iris etc aside. So, I expect that winter was when most animals were hunted - and the weak would be much easier to pick off in the winter.

Also, comparison of cancer rates etc between india and the US might be valid, but tho then try and infer a reason for the difference probably isn't. India does have a greater level of vegetarianism, but there are a whole world of socio-economic dfferences between the two countries that would make trying to establish one reason for this bordering on futile. You could look at life expectancy - as little ago as the 50s, doctors knew that although people were not dying of cancer, a lot were dying *with* cancer. Perhaps the lower life expectancy in India could be the reason for the lower death rate from cancer?

jjrichard83

you only have to take a census of pre-industrial tribes and bands around the world to see that veganism and vegetarianism isn't that common (as most of those pre-industrial groups eat meat). since they aren't affected by marketing, advertising, or money, that completely invalidates pretty much your entire post.

The meat they eat now, and the meat humans ate 100 years ago isn't the same as the meat being consumed today. To say it refutes the entire post is a huge overstatement. Not to mention the fact remains - vegetables in their natural state have not been linked to cancer, when consuming red meat has been (maybe not the meat in general, but what is in the meat).

If we were talking about meat that is "clean" then it's a whole different story.

you weren't talking about clean meat though, were you? You were trying to claim that humans are evolved for a mostly vegetarian diet, which simply isn't true.

yes, wild meat is a lot healthier than farmed meat, especially industrial/factory farmed meat. But that's a whole other issue

I think you jumped ahead. In my original post here I said I didn't think removing meat was the solution, but adding more fruits and vegetables was when it came to increasing longevity. It's not like I am saying I believe in plants being the only food source for humans. Those are words that many of you have put into my mouth to make this more black and white. I said a number of studies (and no study proving the opposite) show that vegetarians live longer, healthier lives. I don't believe it is because they are vegetarian. I believe it is because they consume less meats and eat more vegetables and fruits. Not removing meat, but adding more veggies is the reason they live longer.

Someone who studies this should know about the teeth, intestines etc in relation to omnivores and carnivores. Those are just facts, not info I pulled out of my butt.

neandermagnon

Humans have been eating meat AND cooking food for over a million years. The thought that a raw vegan diet is ideal when humans have been eating a cooked omnivorous diet since before Homo sapiens existed is a silly argument.

did you read the last bit? there is evidence that they DID NOT eat meat for millions of years. Not a very silly argument.

Don't disagree or discount something just because you don't understand it. Open your mind at least to the ideas.

Do you mean the part on Neanderthals? Homo sapiens didn't evolve from Neanderthals, so I'm not sure how that explains anything about homo sapiens evolution.

I missed the bit where someone claimed that there is evidence that humans didn't eat meat for millions of years. There is no such evidence and it's quite a ridiculous claim as throughout human evolution, humans have eaten meat of one kind or another.

re neanderthals - middle palaeolithic H. sapiens had extremely similar tools and weapons, and both hunted large animals (hippos in the case of H. sapiens). so what neanderthals did has relevence because of that. Plus most modern humans have 1-4% neanderthal DNA due to interbreeding (the amount may be higher in some European populations but no-one's found any DNA evidence to prove it so far)

SteveJWatson

eat nothing but sheep.
problem solved

Sheep should make up a large part of a healthy and nutritious diet.

tigersword

you only have to take a census of pre-industrial tribes and bands around the world to see that veganism and vegetarianism isn't that common (as most of those pre-industrial groups eat meat). since they aren't affected by marketing, advertising, or money, that completely invalidates pretty much your entire post.

The meat they eat now, and the meat humans ate 100 years ago isn't the same as the meat being consumed today. To say it refutes the entire post is a huge overstatement. Not to mention the fact remains - vegetables in their natural state have not been linked to cancer, when consuming red meat has been (maybe not the meat in general, but what is in the meat).

If we were talking about meat that is "clean" then it's a whole different story.

This argument makes no sense. The fruits, vegetables, and grains we eat today are not the same as was eaten 100 years ago, either. Heck, a few hundred years ago, cucumbers were bitter and poisonous.

jjrichard83

One of the slight issues with a lot of these studies is that they have made an error that one of my ex biology lecturers was always drilling into us: they have forgotten the animal involved.

You cannot make estimations of a diet as a while based on the remains of stomach contents. Without well developed agriculture, what the stomachs contained would depend on the time of year. Consider this in terms of optimal foraging theory: In the summer/autumn, plant based foods would be very plentiful and easy to gather, it would make less sense to expend effort hunting. A human in a temperate winter would have an extremeley hard time feeding itself - even until recently the period from Jan to April was known amongst farmers etc as the 'hungry gap'. All the roots will have been being used up and the spring greens wont have yet grown. Of course, primitive man had no access to root crops, as such - tubers such a iris etc aside. So, I expect that winter was when most animals were hunted - and the weak would be much easier to pick off in the winter.

Also, comparison of cancer rates etc between india and the US might be valid, but tho then try and infer a reason for the difference probably isn't. India does have a greater level of vegetarianism, but there are a whole world of socio-economic dfferences between the two countries that would make trying to establish one reason for this bordering on futile. You could look at life expectancy - as little ago as the 50s, doctors knew that although people were not dying of cancer, a lot were dying *with* cancer. Perhaps the lower life expectancy in India could be the reason for the lower death rate from cancer?

The India vs. USA cancer thing came from someone suggesting that india had a much higher rate than Americans, and many Indians are vegetarians. That was simply to invalidate the point. I agree it's hard to compare - especially not knowing how many vegetarians we were dealing with in the data on both sides.

jjrichard83

you only have to take a census of pre-industrial tribes and bands around the world to see that veganism and vegetarianism isn't that common (as most of those pre-industrial groups eat meat). since they aren't affected by marketing, advertising, or money, that completely invalidates pretty much your entire post.

The meat they eat now, and the meat humans ate 100 years ago isn't the same as the meat being consumed today. To say it refutes the entire post is a huge overstatement. Not to mention the fact remains - vegetables in their natural state have not been linked to cancer, when consuming red meat has been (maybe not the meat in general, but what is in the meat).

If we were talking about meat that is "clean" then it's a whole different story.

This argument makes no sense. The fruits, vegetables, and grains we eat today are not the same as was eaten 100 years ago, either. Heck, a few hundred years ago, cucumbers were bitter and poisonous.

There are still places that you can get non-gmo grain, but as far as the vegetables, I agree some are different. Lettuce has had practically all of it's nutrients taken away - which is why many vegans choose adding dandelion leaves to their mix amongst other things. The argument of organic meat to organic veggies is the most similar - I would say veggies win out due to the carcinogens that happen when cooking meat.

neandermagnon

you only have to take a census of pre-industrial tribes and bands around the world to see that veganism and vegetarianism isn't that common (as most of those pre-industrial groups eat meat). since they aren't affected by marketing, advertising, or money, that completely invalidates pretty much your entire post.

The meat they eat now, and the meat humans ate 100 years ago isn't the same as the meat being consumed today. To say it refutes the entire post is a huge overstatement. Not to mention the fact remains - vegetables in their natural state have not been linked to cancer, when consuming red meat has been (maybe not the meat in general, but what is in the meat).

If we were talking about meat that is "clean" then it's a whole different story.

you weren't talking about clean meat though, were you? You were trying to claim that humans are evolved for a mostly vegetarian diet, which simply isn't true.

yes, wild meat is a lot healthier than farmed meat, especially industrial/factory farmed meat. But that's a whole other issue

I think you jumped ahead. In my original post here I said I didn't think removing meat was the solution, but adding more fruits and vegetables was when it came to increasing longevity. It's not like I am saying I believe in plants being the only food source for humans. Those are words that many of you have put into my mouth to make this more black and white. I said a number of studies (and no study proving the opposite) show that vegetarians live longer, healthier lives. I don't believe it is because they are vegetarian. I believe it is because they consume less meats and eat more vegetables and fruits. Not removing meat, but adding more veggies is the reason they live longer.

Someone who studies this should know about the teeth, intestines etc in relation to omnivores and carnivores. Those are just facts, not info I pulled out of my butt.

it's not words I've put in your mouth, it's what you've been claiming - that humans are adapted to be "mostly vegetarian" <--- those are your words, and so on.

the stuff you've posted frequently comparing human teeth to herbivores and carnivores etc, is largely irrelevant because it ignores the fact that humans are primates. You need to compare humans to other primates, because that's what humans are. Primates are omnivorous, and some are adapted to eat more meat than others (e.g. humans, chimpanzees). They may not be facts you've pulled out of your butt, but their relevance to human evolution and what the natural diet of humans is has been grossly overestimated and cherry-picked by the pro-vegan lobby. We're adapted to eat the diet of our recent ancestors, so if you're discussing animals in different orders (primates is an order) it's totally irrelevant because it's like saying that humans shouldn't give birth lying down because reptiles lay eggs (or some other non-sequiteur) - compare humans to other primates, and look for patterns in the diets of primates and how primates are adapted to what they eat, and it's very clear that humans are adapted to be hunter-gatherers, which includes eating a significant amount of meat, by necessity (although humans have much more recently learned how to do agriculture and produce plant foods that provide enough protein.... but you can hardly call this the natural human diet)