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 Expulsion from Paradise
Approximately 20,000 years ago, a dramatic climate change led to the extinction of our cousins, the Neanderthals, and initially, also expelled our human species, Homo sapiens, from parts of Europe. Nevertheless, due to his intelligence and hunting techniques, Homo sapiens were able to survive and assert themselves. We spread all the way to America, and towards the end of the last Ice Age about 10,000 years ago, we were the only human species worldwide that had survived.
The last Ice Age was followed by a short period of Golden Age until about 8,000 years ago. Humans were able to increase their own population, however, hunted down the mammoths and other large animal species which had already been reduced by the Ice Age and climate change until they finally became extinct worldwide.
Only small groups of giant-sized Ice Age animals survived on isolated, deserted islands until those were ultimately still visited by humans: Forest elephants inhabited Greek islands until about 4,000 years ago, mammoths lived on the Siberian island of Wrangel until about 3,500 years ago, and giant ground sloths in Cuba and on other Caribbean islands until approximately 2,000 years ago.
The disappearance of the Ice Age giants was a major disaster and definitively marked the end of the Golden Age. The spirits of the big game animals were gone forever and even the shamans of the clans with all their ritual magic were not able to bring them back.
Hunting for remaining, smaller and faster wild animals was significantly more demanding and time-consuming. Soon, it was over with the heavenly life during the Paleolithic Age. Since people still obtained their food primarily by hunting additionally to catching fishes as well as gathering roots and nuts, this task became an increasingly larger part of their lives. Being hunters, fishers, and gatherers were stressful full-time jobs, just like we are working in an office-type job these days.
It sure must have been disastrous for the people back then to experience that a lot of idyllic landscapes, which could have been compared with the historical model of biblical paradise where a sufficient number of animals to hunt was available, for instance a flood plain in the Persian Gulf, had been flooded due to sea level rise following the melting of large glaciers at the end of the Ice Age.
In many parts of the world, there was an insufficient amount of animals to be hunted in order to secure a reliable food supply; it therefore did not take long until starvation and shortages dominated people’s lives. The supply of bioidentical hormones and enzymes from the organs of smaller game animals was also inadequate, resulting that people now aged faster and looked considerably worse than their Paleolithic ancestors who primarily ate large animals. They had a feeling of being expelled from paradise and ever since then, dream in their myths and legends from the “Golden Age” of the Paleolithic.
The shamans of the clans had to turn to other spirits in order to feed their people: After they had consulted with the spirits of magic mushrooms and nightshade family, they turned to the spirits of plants, which so far had only contributed a small portion to their nourishment: Throughout the whole world, people now began to cultivate grains and field crops. In some areas, the spirits of the grain asked for human sacrifices as price for their consent to use their resources, while in others, the spirits were less demanding in concluding pacts with the shamans.
These grains and field crops, which initially were only a small addition to the meat-dominated diet, now turned out to become the nutritional basis. Consumption of meat became to be a rare side dish.
Our “species-specific” diet of the New Stone Age: grain, vegetables, fruits, dairy products
This nutrition behavior change from the consumption of large quantities of animal meat, fat, and intestines to porridge and subsequently bread, had consequences. Instead of protein, starch has dominated our food ever since. While Paleolithic hunters were big, well-built, and healthy, farmers of the Neolithic period grew much smaller, weaker and had to fight against all kinds of health problems, such as tooth decay, but also obesity, atherosclerosis, and diabetes. As a “temporary solution” to the insufficient supply of protein, it led to genetic mutations in humans worldwide which enabled them to digest milk from domestic animals.
At the time of the Venus of Willendorf (the world-famous sculpture of the Upper Paleolithic era can be admired these days at the Museum of Natural History in Vienna), such an overweight woman was still rare and embodied a fertility idol. However, during the time of Neolithic farming, obese people may have been quite common due to the fact that corn contains starch which is stored as fat in the body.
The next blog will tell you about the summary for today: Since the Neolithic Age, our diet has not changed much, aside from the fact that large quantities of refined sugar are consumed in recent years and that we nowadays eat more meat in the industrialized nations than in the centuries before. What does a species-specific diet these days look like and how can we create a foundation of a protein-rich and healthy diet for the huge population in the world?
DDr. Heinrich, MD