# Paleolithic diet? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 20, 2008, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096 "2008-03-20T17:21:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/21 "2008-03-21T02:44:27Z")
I thought yams were low glycemic. Or at least considerably lower than regular potatoes. And if you eat the skin along with the potato, it’s much better. Also, the less you cook them, the lower glycemic index they register, so it is a bit more complicated than what the Cliff Notes tell you. You could be right, though, that not all high glycemic index foods are bad for you. We just know that a lot of them seem to be. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/22 "2008-03-21T03:01:50Z")
Could we even digest some of those foods, like yams, raw? And taro is poisonous unless it is at least soaked before eating. AND, given our wimpy jaws and teeth, we gave up the ability to chew that sort of stuff a couple subspecies ago. FTR, **John** , it isn’t the potato’s skin that is nutritious. It is mostly fiber, [with some poison mixed in.](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0854/is_n2_v16/ai_n18606290) The vitamin C is concentrated at the middle. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/23 "2008-03-21T03:43:30Z")
Personally, I’d rather take advantage of 2,000 years (okay, 100 years) of advances in nutrition. How long till somebody’s book _The Amish Diet_ is the next big thing in dieting? (Yeah, I know, Amish people eat pretty much the same stuff we do, minus TV dinners and processed food and such) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/24 "2008-03-21T06:04:09Z")
[QUOTE=dropzone] FTR, **John** , it isn’t the potato’s skin that is nutritious. It is mostly fiber, [with some poison mixed in.](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0854/is_n2_v16/ai_n18606290) The vitamin C is concentrated at the middle. [/QUOTE] Well, yeah. The fiber is what reduces it’s glycemic index. Sorry if that was unclear. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/25 "2008-03-21T11:23:32Z")
I don’t know the name of it (but I can try to find out the title later today), but an anthropologist (or someone with college degrees who’d actually _know_ about such things) has written a detailed book on what kinds of things paleolithic people ate. Some of the things would be fairly normal seeming to us, but how many of us would be willing to eat things like marrow, brains, and stomachs (to name but a few examples of things which were common)? Without things like smoking, curing, or refridgeration, meat was something of a garnish, according to the book, and our ancestors ate everything they possibly could of an animal that they killed. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/26 "2008-03-21T15:37:13Z")
As \*\*Malthus \*\*noted, above, there was no single Paleolithic diet, so you’re either remembering wrong, or that guy got it wrong. There is evidence that some of our ancestors may have been living right on the coast eating mostly from the sea (plants and animals). Others lived inland and didn’t each much fish at all. Some lived in extremely cold climates and would have eaten mostly meat. We adapted our diets to fit the environment we lived in at the time, and those environments varied tremendously. As for eating all of the animal, well, that still goes on in much of the world today. Even in the industrialized west, there are foods eaten in one country that folks from another would wince at. No “sweetbreads” for me, thank-you very much! ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/27 "2008-03-21T16:52:23Z")
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] There is such a 2005 book, but the linked article clearly shows that the Stone Age or Paleolithic diet has been the subject of books for decades. [/QUOTE] My mistake then. I had heard about it on NPR and IIRC they were making it sound like a new concept. ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/28 "2008-03-21T17:13:02Z")
This is a great article from a few years ago, [The Way We Eat Now](http://www.uvm.edu/~jfarley/61/obesity/The%20way%20we%20eat%20now.html), which discusses many of the changes in diet modern humans have experienced and the consequences. He mentiones that the Amish tend to eat high calorie foods but have a very low rate of obesity due to much manual labor. There’s alos a good discussion on cooking foods and how it’s so difficult to get adequate nutrition from raw foods that cooking may have been the big advancement that enabled humanity to prosper. (and actually changed our facial structures with less chewing leading to smaller teeth and jaws than apes for instance) It also talks about adding grains to the diet: > [@](#): > > With agriculture, human health declined, says Lieberman, partly because farming is such hard work, and partly because it allows higher population densities, in which infection spreads more easily. “There was more disease, a decrease in body size, higher mortality rates among juveniles, and more stress lines in bones and teeth,” Lieberman says. Cultivating grain also allowed farmers to space their children more closely. Hunter-gatherers have long intervals between births, because they do not wean children until age four or five, when teeth are ready to chew hard foods. (“You can’t feed babies beef jerky,” jokes Lieberman.) Farmers, however, can make gruel—a high-calorie mush of roots or grains like millet, taro, or oats that doesn’t require chewing—and wean children much sooner. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/29 "2008-03-21T17:37:27Z")
[QUOTE=tremorviolet] This is a great article from a few years ago, [The Way We Eat Now](http://www.uvm.edu/~jfarley/61/obesity/The%20way%20we%20eat%20now.html), which discusses many of the changes in diet modern humans have experienced and the consequences. He mentiones that the Amish tend to eat high calorie foods but have a very low rate of obesity due to much manual labor. There’s alos a good discussion on cooking foods and how it’s so difficult to get adequate nutrition from raw foods that cooking may have been the big advancement that enabled humanity to prosper. (and actually changed our facial structures with less chewing leading to smaller teeth and jaws than apes for instance). [/QUOTE] Yeah, it’s a common mistake to think that agriculture immediately led to better health. It led to a lot more people, but it had it’s own problems that had to be overcome. As for cooking, we’re not exactly sure when fire was harnessed, but probably about 500k years ago. Cooking food wouldn’t have necessarily changed our facial features , but rather it probably allowed them to be changed for other reasons-- maybe for better communication skills. At any rate, the reduction in teeth size, especially the incisors, and overall facial size comes as a slow, gradual continuum starting long before fire is seen in the fossil record. This goes back at least 3-4M years, to the time of Lucy and her Australopethicine relatives. ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/30 "2008-03-21T17:47:39Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] As for cooking, we’re not exactly sure when fire was harnessed, but probably about 500k years ago. Cooking food wouldn’t have necessarily changed our facial features , but rather it probably allowed them to be changed for other reasons-- maybe for better communication skills. At any rate, the reduction in teeth size, especially the incisors, and overall facial size comes as a slow, gradual continuum starting long before fire is seen in the fossil record. This goes back at least 3-4M years, to the time of Lucy and her Australopethicine relatives. [/QUOTE] Evidently, chewing alone can affect bone growth and facial development. From the article I linked above: > [@](#): > > Cooking might be considered the first food-processing technology, and like its successors, it has had profound effects on the human body, as in the growth of bones. Various signals influence human growth; some come from genes, and others come from the environment, particularly for the musculo-skeletal system, whose job is engaging with the environment. Less chewing of cooked food, for example, has altered the anatomy of our skulls, jaws, faces, and teeth. “Chewing is a major activity that involves muscular forces,” says skeletal biologist Daniel Lieberman. “It has incredible effects on how the skull grows.” Chewing can transform anatomy rather quickly; in one study, in which Lieberman fed pigs a diet of softened food, in a matter of months their skulls developed shorter and narrower dimensions and their snouts developed thinner bones than those of pigs eating a hard-food diet. > [@](#): > > In fact, for millennia human food has been growing less tough, fibrous, and hard. “The size of the human face has gotten about 12 percent smaller since the Paleolithic,” Lieberman says, “particularly around the oral cavity, due to the effects of mechanical loading on the size of the face. Fourteen thousand years ago, a much larger proportion of the face was between the bottom of the jaw and the nostrils.” The size of teeth has not decreased as fast (genetic factors control more of their variation); hence, modern teeth are actually too big for our mouths—wisdom teeth become impacted and require extraction. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/31 "2008-03-21T18:03:35Z")
[QUOTE=tremorviolet] Evidently, chewing alone can affect bone growth and facial development. From the article I linked above: [/QUOTE] Oh, OK. I was thinking of the part controlled by genetics. Just because our faces could get smaller, genetically, doesn’t mean that they would get smaller. And if you look at the fossil record, you do see a very gradual reduction in the size of the face, relative to the rest of the head, happening over millions of years. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/32 "2008-03-21T23:17:52Z")
[QUOTE=tremorviolet] Evidently, chewing alone can affect bone growth and facial development. From the article I linked above: [/QUOTE] I don’t remember where I read, or if it is true, that the Taino indians that inhabited our island before Columbus arrived had 4 teeth more than their European invaders, mostly due to the diet of hard roots and mostly-uncooked diet they ate. I would love to hear if that was true, or indeed possible. ---
**Author:** ![vison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e47774/32.png) [@vison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vison)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/33 "2008-03-22T00:41:18Z")
[This is the latest fad.](http://www.karlloren.com/human-raw-meat-diet.htm) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/34 "2008-03-22T03:17:44Z")
[QUOTE=Mighty\_Girl] I don’t remember where I read, or if it is true, that the Taino indians that inhabited our island before Columbus arrived had 4 teeth more than their European invaders, mostly due to the diet of hard roots and mostly-uncooked diet they ate. [/QUOTE] But consider that the diet of a 15th century seaman would be considerably worse than his land-based relatives. I wouldn’t consider that to be a fair comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/35 "2008-03-22T11:59:10Z")
[_Prehistoric Cookery_](http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPrehistoric-Cookery-Recipes-History%2Fdp%2F1850749345&tag=promefiresfou-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325) > [@](#): > > This book provides a fascinating insight into the foods which were eaten by our prehistoric ancestors and attempts to recreate recipes which are authentic and palatable. There are practical restraints of course - some of the ingredients, like mammoth steaks or rhinoceros joints, are difficult to find in the modern supermarket. There are also other staples that we take for granted today which were not available to our prehistoric forebears - sugar, yeast, spices, vinegar, onions, sugar, yeast, spices, vinegar, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, oranges and lemons to name a few. They did, however, use much more of our wild vegetation than we do now and this is reflected in recipes such as Nettle Puree, Easter Ledge Pudding (using dandelion leaves) and boiled Sea Urchins. Beautifully illustrated with full colour photography throughout, the book provides a unique insight into our culinary prehistory. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/36 "2008-03-22T12:05:57Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] ing to us, but how many of us would be willing to eat things like marrow, brains, and stomachs (to name but a few examples of things which were common)? Without things like smoking, curing, or refridgeration, meat was something of a garnish, according to the book, and our ancestors ate everything they possibly could of an animal that they killed. [/QUOTE] You go to the North of England in the present day mate,they eat sheeps stomach,its called Tripe,They’re ANIMALs up there, they’ll eat anything,they’re still getting to grips with toilet paper for gods sake. That apart,if you follow this diet do you go to an extremely restricted diet as winter goes on? My feeling? Yet another dietary gimmick. I’m launching my own soon,Guinness and Lard cooked French Fries. I call it the "I cant be fucking bothered Diet"available soon in all major retail outlets. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/37 "2008-03-22T12:10:10Z")
[QUOTE=Lust4Life] You go to the North of England in the present day mate,they eat sheeps stomach,its called Tripe,They’re ANIMALs up there, they’ll eat anything,they’re still getting to grips with toilet paper for gods sake. [/QUOTE] Yes, but that’s not exactly a _common_ diet, is it? I doubt if the local McDonald’s has McTripe on the menu, just like the ones here _don’t_ have McChitlins, even though people still eat [chitlins.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitlin) ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/38 "2008-03-22T12:29:37Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Yes, but that’s not exactly a _common_ diet, is it? I doubt if the local McDonald’s has McTripe on the menu, just like the ones here _don’t_ have McChitlins, even though people still eat [chitlins.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitlin) [/QUOTE] Well its less common now but Tripe and onions was considered a bit of a treat like Fish’un Chips,another disgusting thing they eat is Mushy Peas,if you like bitter sulphur tasting floor droppings then thats the side order for you. But to be honest we’re not totally gastronomically innocent down here in gods country,my old mum used to relish jellied eels and if you’re ever over here and somebody offers to take you out for a truly authentic Cockney "Pie and Mash"tell them to fuck off and then beat them up. Its like eating a tortoise on the shell,with some dribbly,sometimes lumpy window sealent. But at least we use toilet paper. ---
**Author:** ![vison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e47774/32.png) [@vison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vison)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/39 "2008-03-22T16:46:38Z")
[QUOTE=Lust4Life] But at least we use toilet paper. [/QUOTE] Yeah, but it’s single ply, right? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096/40 "2008-03-22T17:29:06Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Yes, but that’s not exactly a _common_ diet, is it? I doubt if the local McDonald’s has McTripe on the menu, just like the ones here _don’t_ have McChitlins, even though people still eat [chitlins.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitlin) [/QUOTE] It’s common enough in most of the agricultural societies in the world today. Remember, the industrialize West is a small fraction of the 6B people living on the earth today-- most of whom live in relatively poor, agricultural societies.. We’re comparing a pre-agricultural diet with a post-agricultural diet, not a pre-agricultrual diet with a First World diet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paleolithic-diet/442096.md?page=3)