Read how human nutrition has changed over the past 200 million years of its existence and what conclusions can be drawn in terms of our health and beauty today.
The demise of the dinosaurs – as insectivores we hold sway over the world
Mammals have been around longer than dinosaurs. They even dominated the world for a while prior to the development of the dinosaurs, but were superseded by the dinosaurs. Being pushed into an ecological niche, their existence was characterized as small omnivores during the time of the dinosaurs, probably specialized for eating insects and perhaps also dinosaur eggs.
Our species-specific diet of 100 million years ago: insects and dinosaur eggs
Towards the end of the Cretaceous period, an approximately 10-kilometer-wide asteroid hit the earth off the Yucatán Peninsula at a speed of about 75,000 km/h, which yields an estimated energy equivalent to 20 million megatons of TNT, resulting in a worldwide inferno in which all animals larger than a cat fell victim. All dinosaurs, except the birds which belong to the theropod dinosaurs and hence being the last grandchildren of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, went extinct. 500 meter high tsunamis, global conflagrations and several months of darkness with acid rain have brought life on earth to the brink of extinction.
All that remained were, except for the birds and other little animals, small shrew-like mammals that nourished themselves from rotting dinosaurs and insects. As a result, the vacant ecological niches divided themselves and a large variety of species was created. Among them have been the primates, whereby we may imagine ourselves the prosimians of Madagascar. Those primates mainly lived in trees and primarily ate fruits, but also insects, birds, and lizards. In consequence of the eating habits of our ancestors towards fruits that contain a lot of vitamin C, we are now – unlike most animals – unable to produce vitamin C in our body.
Later on, some of the primates became more similar to the monkeys that are living nowadays and even ate larger animals once in a while, if they were able to hunt them.
Our species-specific diet of 50 million years ago: fruits, insects, birds, lizards, small animals
The next blog will tell you how life changed when our ancestors were forced to leave the trees due to climate change…
DDr. Heinrich, MD