The paleo diet, the keto diet, the Dukan diet, the Atkins diet, the LOW-CARB diet, and the carnivore diet… surely you've heard of them, right? All these diets have one thing in common: they rely on human evolution as their main argument to prove that they are the most suitable for us and also protect us from chronic diseases prevalent today. They argue that after the agricultural revolution, foods were introduced that we weren't accustomed to and our genes haven't had time to adapt to yet. Depending on the diet, different foods are excluded, tolerated, or consumed in varying quantities. In the paleo diet, for example, grains, legumes, and dairy products are excluded because they claim these weren’t available to our ancestors. All of them reduce carbohydrate intake compared to the recommendations of the FAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization).
The diets that most drastically cut down on carbohydrates are ketogenic (keto) diets and carnivore diets, with the latter being the strictest as it only allows animal products. In a keto diet, a small amount of carbohydrate is allowed but not too much since the goal of this diet is to put the body into ketosis where our organism primarily uses ketones derived from fat as an energy source rather than glucose derived from carbohydrates. There's controversy among diets regarding fruits, with some including them and others pointing out that they were very scarce in the world of our ancestors. But what evidence do we have today about what our ancestors ate?
Throughout human evolution, different species of hominids have fed on the various resources that nature offered. It is true that vegetables and fruits have always been the basis of primate diets. However, in this article we will see how the human diet has been (and still is) much broader. As the phrase "adapt or perish" suggests, different species of humans (including ours) adapted to various environments and therefore to different resources. We will take as a reference three species from two different genera (Australopithecus and Homo), whose time range goes from 4 million years ago until 30,000 years ago (Martínez Nyman, S.S., 2020, p. 32). Among the australopiths, we will highlight the species Australopithecus afarensis, to which Lucy belongs. Within the genus Homo, we will discuss Homo antecessor and Homo neanderthalensis.
Of the australopiths, in general terms, one could say they had a predominantly herbivorous diet. A diet based on nuts, fruits, leaves, soft vegetables, branches and perhaps some insects (Wynn et al., 2013, p. 10498). Similar to chimpanzees, they might also have hunted or scavenged small mammals. In the case of chimpanzees, cannibalism has been documented as well (Suzuki, 1971, pp. 30-34). An activity that has also been confirmed in the species Homo antecessor. This last one is a species defined in Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain) (Pérez-Pérez et al., 2017, p. 4). We know it was an omnivorous species that included human meat in its menu. There are several hypotheses to explain cannibalism in Homo antecessor, but given that it has been documented in various primate species and even within some insects (such as mantises) (Mateos Cachorro and Rodríguez, 2010, pp. 36-39), it may not have been so unusual in human evolution.
The Neanderthals, well known thanks to numerous discoveries in recent years, were a human species with which the Homo sapiens interbred (Guimarães and Silva, 2020, p. 99). Today we can say without doubt that Neanderthals had great adaptability. They utilized all kinds of resources, both plant-based and animal-based, through gathering, hunting, and scavenging. Their diet varied depending on the ecosystem's resources. In coastal areas, they consumed marine resources. Examples of this are the Gorham’s Cave and Vanguard Cave where there is archaeological evidence of mollusk consumption, amphibians, seals, dolphins, tuna, and sea urchins (Stringer et al., 2008, p. 14323). Similarly, in Figuerira Brava Neanderthals consumed mollusks, eels, conger eel, mullet, sharks, and bream (Zilhão et al., 2020, pp. 4-6). As for terrestrial mammals, they hunted large animals such as woolly rhinoceros, mouflon, horse, or reindeer as well as small prey like turtles, rabbits, hares, and birds (Costamagno et al., 2006, pp. 472-476; Brown et al., 2011, p. 253; Weyrich et al., 2017, p. 359; Daujeard et al., 2019, pp. 997-1000; Marin et al., 2019, p. 22). On the other hand, vegetables were abundant in this human species' diet. Pine nuts, moss, mushrooms, legumes, dates, pistachios, and acorns were just some of the elements included in their meals (Lev et al., 2005, pp. 477-482; Henry et al., 2011, p. 489). Like previously mentioned species, cannibalism has also been documented among Neanderthals through several archaeological evidences (Defleur et al., 1999, pp. 130-131; González et al., 2015, p. 82; Rougier et al., 2016, pp. 3-6).
As we can see, throughout millions of years of human evolution, there has been a wide variety in the diet of different species. Therefore, we cannot talk about a single type of diet as even within one species, geographical variations are found. We inevitably depend on nature and it is undoubtedly the environment that shapes our anatomy and physiology.
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