100 Million Years Of Food

What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today

 What’s in it for me? Learn about our complicated history with food.

 The insect- and fruit-based diets of our early ancestors wouldn’t work for us today.

 Meat, with both its benefits and costs, has played a major part in the history of the
human species.

 Some cultures embraced meat substitutes, but they weren’t all healthy.

 Humans only began eating plants out of necessity.

 Rapid changes in diet and lifestyle have brought on new diseases.

 A few extra pounds might not be such a bad thing after all and caloric intake doesn’t
explain your weight.

 Dietary needs vary from person to person but eating can and should be a communal
activity.

 Final summary

What’s in it for me? Learn about our

complicated history with food.
Something is clearly wrong with our eating habits. Today, diet-related diseases plague the
Western world. More people suffer from type 2 diabetes, obesity and food allergies, not to
mention many forms of cancer, than ever before.
But what exactly is wrong with how we’re eating – and what should we be doing instead?
The diets of our ancestors provide a few answers. They were generally much healthier than
modern-day humans, so it’s no wonder that the last decade has witnessed a major uptick in
caveman or paleo diets.

But to get a full picture we have to go back even further in time – starting with our earliest,
tree-dwelling ancestors 100 million years ago and exploring how these forebears adapted to
changing environments and diets. These blinks discuss whether the dietary choices of these
distant progenitors would work for us today.

On this journey through human evolution, you’ll learn

 why we should eat some bugs every now and then;

 about a strange illness that affected mainly the well-off; and
 why milk isn’t nearly as healthy as you may think.

The insect- and fruit-based diets of our

early ancestors wouldn’t work for us today.
If one of our first ancestors walked into one of today’s supermarkets, he’d be stunned by the
options. After all, the difference between the overflowing shelves of contemporary grocery
stores and the dinnertime options available to our ancient ancestors could hardly be greater.

Our earliest ancestors, who emerged around 100 million years ago, lived in the trees of
tropical forests and primarily ate insects. That might sound gross to us now, but insects are
actually a calorie-rich source of vitamins and iron.

In fact, insects would still make a great addition to the modern human diet. But for us to
attempt to live only on bugs wouldn’t be so smart. Our ancestors had enzymes that allowed
them to break down the exoskeletons of insects, which are made of chitin, a substance that we
can no longer digest. Another problem with eating bugs is that they can trigger allergies and
produce harmful toxins.

But in moderation, the consumption of insects would be a great boon to modern food
production. For instance, crickets produce about 50 percent less carbon dioxide than cows per
pound and convert feed into calories 12 times more efficiently.

Nonetheless, our ancestors transitioned away from creepy crawlies around 60 million years
ago. Around this time, the climate began cooling and, as the air grew more humid, the first
fruit-bearing trees emerged.
During the same period, our ancestors lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C, which is
essential to preventing cell damage. They only survived this change because they could get
plenty of vitamin C from fruit.

So around 30 million years ago our ancestors became full-time fruit eaters. However, eating
too much fruit can also be bad since fruit contains fructose, something our body can only
metabolize so much of; overconsumption can lead to insulin resistance and pancreatic cancer.

The actor Ashton Kutcher learned this the hard way. When preparing to portray Steve Jobs,
Kutcher followed the tech CEO’s fruitarian diet for a month. After just 30 days, Kutcher was
hospitalized with pancreatic issues.

Meat, with both its benefits and costs, has

played a major part in the history of the
human species.
About two million years ago, our ancestors began migrating out of the trees and adapting to a
terrestrial lifestyle. They started to look more human and their diets changed, too.

Around the same time, these early humans began hunting and foraging, eating more meat
than they ever had before. As a result, their brains started growing rapidly.

In fact, the brain size of our ancestors doubled over the course of just one million years, a
change that may well have been the result of their newly carnivorous diets. Meat, packed
with important fatty acids, is the perfect fuel for a growing brain.

And big brains also gave our ancestors an evolutionary advantage. Smarter, more coordinated
groups of hunters could bring home more prey, which meant their families were in turn more
likely to survive and reproduce.

But while meat has plenty of benefits, eating too much of it is bad for our health. Meat is
loaded with protein, which we can only tolerate in limited quantities.

When the human body digests proteins, it produces potentially toxic substances called
nitrogen compounds. If a person gets more than 40 percent of their daily calories from
protein, the levels of these compounds get too high.

Another reason excess meat consumption can be detrimental to our health is that it contains a
lot of cholesterol, which can combine with other substances and clog up our arteries. But
cholesterol isn’t all bad. It’s a precursor to essential sex hormones like testosterone and
estrogen, and it also increases the level of high-density lipoprotein, or HDL, which is good
for our moods.

Our livers and intestines produce most of the body’s cholesterol on their own, but animal
products like meat and dairy provide additional inputs that affect our hormone levels. As a
result, girls on a cholesterol-rich diet reach sexual maturity earlier. That means they can
procreate earlier, potentially producing more offspring, but they also have reduced life
expectancies.

Some cultures embraced meat substitutes,

but they weren’t all healthy.
Nowadays, with all the choices available to us, it’s easy to eat a balanced vegetarian diet. But
alternatives to red meat are nothing new. Our meat-loving ancestors even branched out. For
instance, in many cultures, fish predominated, although not all people developed a taste for it.

Here’s how it happened:

In many areas where meat was hard to come by, locals embraced fish as an accessible and
nutritious food. This was a smart choice since, as we now know, fatty fish contain loads of
healthy omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D, which is key to bone health.

However, not every culture with access to fish chose to eat it. This bias wasn’t merely due to
the difficulties of eating fish (all those pesky bones!); there were also cultural reasons. Some
cultures regarded fish as a sacred animal that lived in a sacred element. Others, like the
Apache Indians, considered fish to be unclean.

Another important meat substitute emerged around 8,000 years ago: animal milk. Though it’s
often still regarded as an elixir of sorts, animal milk isn’t as healthy for human consumption
as some think.

The Northern European nations were among the first people to consume animal milk, which
has innumerable benefits. It’s nutritious, rich in calcium and whereas an animal can only be
eaten once, it can be milked many times over.

Statistics link milk consumption to increased growth in children, but this boost in height may
come at the price of bone health. This correlation can be seen in the nations with the highest
dairy intake; the citizens of these nations, because of their above-average height, also
experience the highest rates of hip fractures in the world.
A further issue with milk is that people from regions with little history of dairy consumption
absorb calcium more efficiently. This means that if a man from, say, Africa drinks a lot of
milk, he might experience dangerously elevated calcium levels. This is especially risky since
research has linked high blood-calcium levels to prostate cancer.

Next up we’ll explore the history of vegetables and their place in the nutritional hierarchy.

Humans only began eating plants out of

necessity.
All parents have insisted, at one time or another, that their kid eat her veggies. After all,
veggies are healthy and packed with nutrients, right? Well, the truth is, most plants are
actually unhealthy and many are even dangerous.

Why?

Well, plants are surrounded by other organisms that want to eat them and they have no way to
run. Since they can’t escape, they have to defend themselves. They do this by engaging in
chemical warfare: producing chemicals that discourage, harm and sometimes kill the animals
that try to eat them.

For instance, vegetables like squash and cucumbers can contain a bitter substance known as
cucurbitacin to discourage consumption, and it’s only the domesticated versions where the
excessive bitterness can be bred out. Or take beans, lentils and soybeans, which contain a
group of chemicals called lectins. If you eat too many of them, you’ll get sick and you might
suffer liver damage.

In fact, one of the most lethal poisons known to man is a type of lectin. It’s called ricin and
it’s found in the seeds of the castor oil plant. Even a tiny amount of ricin is enough to cause a
painful death.

So why did humans begin eating plants in the first place?

Well, the truth is, we turned to farming and eating plants because the other food options
became scarce. This turn toward agriculture occurred around 12,000 years ago in many parts
of the world simultaneously.

There are lots of theories as to why this happened, but it was primarily caused by the
extinction of large, delicious animals such as the mammoth. These creatures likely died due
to overhunting by humans and the spread of trees into the grasslands they called home.
With the loss of this major food source, humans began looking for other options. They settled
on plants because they were readily available and could be easily produced. From that point
on, plant-based foods dominated in densely populated areas and places where animals were
hard to keep.

Rapid changes in diet and lifestyle have

brought on new diseases.
The human body is surprisingly adaptable and we can get used to big dietary changes. But
doing so can take many generations. The slow nature of this process posed a problem when
food processing began to become the norm.

Humans, with little time to adapt to this change, suddenly faced a variety of new illnesses.
For instance, in the second half of the nineteenth century, a frightening disease called
beriberi emerged among the richer people of East and Southeast Asia. The affected patients
presented with heart issues, mobility problems and mental confusion.

In the end, it was discovered that the illness was caused by a severe B1 deficiency. Wealthier
people were affected because they could afford the “better” highly polished rice, which had
been stripped of most of its B1.

Then, around 1900, pellagra became endemic among poorer populations of the American
South. These groups had been subsisting on products made from industrially milled corn,
which, compared to fresh corn, is extremely low in vitamin B3. The disease caused horrible
symptoms like red lesions, weakness and even dementia.

Obviously, processed food is an issue, but it’s not the only problem. Other lifestyle changes
can also be detrimental to our health. Just take asthma and food allergies, both of which are
on the rise. There’s some debate about why, but it’s likely that lifestyle decisions are to
blame.

After all, most people spend lots of time indoors. As a result, we’re not exposed to much
sunlight, and suffer lower levels of vitamin D, also known as the “sunshine vitamin.” This in
turn causes human allergies to rise as pregnant women with reduced vitamin D levels are
more likely to give birth to allergic children.

If you don’t buy that theory, consider the hygiene hypothesis. It postulates that modern day
kids develop allergies and asthma because they grow up too clean. The idea is that a child’s
immune system needs to be exposed to some germs to learn how to discern harmless proteins
from deadly bacteria and fight infections without unnecessarily harming the body.
A few extra pounds might not be such a bad
thing after all and caloric intake doesn’t
explain your weight.
Did you know that Japanese people eat an average of 300 fewer calories per capita than
Americans? That sounds healthy, but is it worth following their example?

Actually, there are upsides and downsides to limiting your caloric intake. For instance, the
Japanese live longer than Americans, but that’s not proof that their way is better.

Eating too few calories can deprive your brain of fuel and might cause you to lose focus. Not
just that, but consuming too little protein for a period will cause muscle weakness.

So it’s a question of trade-offs. For instance, lots of animals, when going through a period of
food scarcity, will reduce inessential bodily functions, like reproduction. And the same goes
for humans: women who eat fewer calories will live longer, but they’ll be less fertile and
more irritable.

In fact, even if you’re overweight, counting every calorie isn’t a good idea. For starters, it’s
actually healthier to be slightly overweight.

For example, people who are a few pounds heavier than average, those with a body mass
index between 25 and 30 live longer than people of normal weights. This could be because
heavier people have more fat to protect them from toxins and more energy to compensate for
weight lost during periods of severe illness.

But even if it weren’t healthy to have a few extra pounds, the link between weight and caloric
intake is actually weaker than you might expect. The truth is, research has found that slim,
modern-day hunter-gatherers eat about as many calories as your average contemporary
American and engage in comparable levels of physical activity. The only difference is they
have a greater variance in caloric intake over the seasons.

Simply put, not all differences in body weight can be chalked up to calories and exercise.

And finally, paying attention to your total calories, without considering what type of food
they come from, is useless. If all your calories come from junk food and soda, it doesn’t
matter how few of them you consume.
Dietary needs vary from person to person
but eating can and should be a communal
activity.
Imagine your friend invites you out to lunch at a buffet but you’re trying to eat healthily. Are
you better off going for a bowl of oatmeal, some meatballs or just sticking with Prosecco?
The answer is, it depends.

After all, most foods and beverages aren’t simply good or bad. Everyone is different and, to
determine which foods are good for you, you need to consider your age, heritage and how
much of any given thing you’ll eat.

Just take alcohol. If you drink too much, you’ll damage your brain and gut. However, studies
have found that moderate consumption of alcohol in people over the age of forty helps to
fight coronary heart disease.

That being said, lots of people of Asian descent need to be cautious when drinking. That’s
because they’re genetically predisposed to produce lower levels of alcohol dehydrogenase,
the enzyme your body needs to break down alcohol in your stomach. As a result, more
alcohol enters the bloodstream of Asian people per drink than enters the bloodstream of their
Caucasian peers, causing them to become more intoxicated.

Similarly, as you learned in a previous blink, girls who eat lots of meat reach sexual maturity
more quickly and are therefore at increased risk of certain cancers. However, for elderly
women, early onset puberty is obviously a non-issue and eating more meat will likely
increase their strength.

So dietary needs vary dramatically from person to person, but that doesn’t mean food should
be a private affair. Eating today can be a lonely activity. But remember that our ancestors
used to hunt together and share their food communally. This served to strengthen community
bonds and ensured that everyone got a fair share.

To reap these benefits, we should make meals more communal. Doing so can be as easy as
sharing more meals with friends or endorsing pay-what-you-can restaurants. By taking such
actions, we can once again make eating an area of life in which people care for one another.

Final summary
The key message in this book:
The human diet has evolved dramatically over the past few million years. By following
this evolutionary trail, we can understand the factors that shape our modern diets.
While there’s no general dietary prescription that applies to all people, there are some
guidelines that might improve both health and happiness.

Actionable advice:

Sell your car to save your health.

Everyone knows that an active lifestyle is a healthy lifestyle. But as long as we have the
choice, we tend to stick with what’s comfortable. So consider selling your car and forcing
yourself to use modes of transportation that require some exercise.

If you’re not sure it’s a good move for your health, just consider the residents of certain
mountainous islands, on which it was impractical to build roads. Since they never had roads,
traveling by car was never an option. These islanders get around on foot and by bike and, in
the end, they live longer, healthier lives than their mainland peers.

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Suggestedfurtherreading: Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson

Eating and cooking have always been crucial to our survival, but over time they have also
become a subject of cultural and scientific interest. In Consider the Fork (2012), author Bee
Wilson blends history, anthropology and technology to tell the fascinating story of the
evolution of cooking, while also taking a closer look at the creation of cooking tools and how
they have shaped our culture and eating behavior.