1. New paper @AnnualReviews Nutrition w @briwood1 on hunter-gatherer and Paleolithic diets. 🧵of highlights
TLDR “Paleo” diets probably aren’t. Variation is the point.
annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.114…
2.First, anat & phys: Humans often touted as having small GI tracts. Evidence says… sort of. We’re in the primate spectrum. Total length = primate. Large intestine= primate w high diet quality. Not carnivore.

⚫️=primates 🔺=human
3.Stomach ph? Really low for humans, similar to scavengers, not like carnivores. Why so low? @bendormiki argues Paleo humans fed on large game for days, had to deal w high pathogen loads. Maybe. Could also be scavenging old carcasses from other carnivores, etc.
4.We also note archeological evidence for plants in the diet at Paleo sites like Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel and lots of starch / grain microfossils in dental calculus of Neanderthals and humans.
5. Now onto the meat (or potatoes) of the paper: diet evidence from living hunter gatherers. We took a deep dive into the data groups around the globe. Here’s the main themes:
6.Variability across space: For groups in tropical and temperate latitudes, LOTS of variability in the mix of plants and animals in the diet. Using 260+ groups from Murdock’s Atlas, we see groups hover around 50/50 plants/animals with tons of variation.
7.Variability across time: We consolidated 20y of published Hadza @hadzafund data into 2.5 yrs of continuous observation. % of meat in the diet fluctuates wildly over days/weeks/months
8.Effects of recent cultural changes: Pastoralism (e.g. Maasai), Arctic Living, and Farming are each ~12,000 yr old or less. Pastoralism and Arctic living ⬆️meat in the diet. Fishing also ⬆️ meat.

Farming ⬆️ plants.
9. “Paleo” diet arguments based on the Maasai / pastoralists or on Arctic cultures thus biased toward more meat, and based on cultures no more ancient (or Paleo) than farming
10.Are fruits only seasonally available for hunter-gatherers? Doesn’t seem that way. Hadza, for example, eat fruits (berries and baobab, mostly) all year. Oh, and A LOT of honey, which in terms of macros is just sugar and water.
11.In fact, Hadza macronutrient intake is HIGHER carb and lower fat than the typical American diet. Protein intake ~60 to 240 g/d. @tednaiman
12.And it’s not just the Hadza. Reviewing the data from S America and Australia, lots of plants eaten, including starchy veg
13.We also explore how farming changed the qualities of the foods we eat.

PLANTS: Cultivation size but fiber, protein, micronutrients. Carbs and total energy/g generally similar to wild foods

Source: wikipedia
14.ANIMALS: Farmed livestock have TWICE the fat content of wild game species. Saturated fat content is also double that of wild animals.
15.3 take home messages with all this: First, you can’t go home again. Even if you want to eat “Paleo” you can’t unless you hunt and gather wild foods. Farmed foods are fundamentally different than their Paleo ancestors.
16.Second, there is and never was a singular Paleo diet. Variation is the norm both within and between groups. This breadth far exceeds the breadth of every “Paleo” diet I’ve come across, tho I haven’t done an exhaustive search
17.Finally, we see no evidence of ‘carnivory’ or low carb diets as the norm for Paleolithic or living hunter-gatherers. If low carb works for you, great! But the Maasai, Inuit, etc are not the norm and no more Paleo than farming
18.And as always, if you’re looking for more on this check out #BURN
amazon.com/Burn-Research-…
should say: cultivation INCREASES size but DECREASES protein, micronutrients, and fiber

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Herman Pontzer

Herman Pontzer Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @HermanPontzer

16 Aug 19
Still wrong, even in less “humorous” form. This sort of poor evolutionary thinking is a big problem esp as medicine adopts a more evolutionary perspective (which is great when done well).

Hold my beer I’m writing a thread! 1/
Argument is: Species X needed to evolve trait Y, and so adopted behavior Z. Folks, doesn’t work that way.

First, for any “crucial” trait, there are 10000s of species that lack it. Theres always many solutions. Thinking the trait was inevitable / necessary is wrong. 2/
In the specific case of hominins it’s clearly false that Australopithecus (ancestral genus to Homo) *needed* to get bigger. They lasted 3+ million years, longer than Homo has. And lots of other species (like baboons) thrive on savannah at small body size 3/
Read 9 tweets
5 Dec 18
Great to see discussion generated by this. One common complaint: “yeah but living hunter gatherers aren’t good models of the past”. Often followed by some version of “Surely in the good old days we ate more meat”. Very flawed argument. Here’s why 1/
1. First, totally correct that *no* HG population is a perfect model for *all*. Tons of diversity across the HG world just as today.
2. Also true that no pop today is a time machine, stuck in amber as a model of the Paleolithic

BUT

2/
3. There is no empirical evidence from the 2 million years of fossil & archeological evidence of our genus Homo that we were ever “carnivores” or “facultative carnivores”. Teeth and tools have wear and microfossils of plants, even cereals. We’ve always eaten a mixed diet
3/
Read 9 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(