What did paleos actually eat, the anthropologists view

[andyswarbs]

This is a TED talk by Christina Warriner which goes into the "facts" around what paleoithic man and woman actually ate. It attempts to put a reality check against the views promoted by paleo books and websites.

This is definitely not a straightforward meat-is-bad-for-you talk. It also goes heavily into how both animals and plants these days are simply not what they used to be. So how plants before were much more fibrous, more poisonous and so on. It covers who was at the top of the food chain, using isotope analysis. The talk finishes by trying to examine what we can really learn from paleoithic and indeed neolithic diets. Enjoy!

youtube.com/watch?v=BMOjVYg...(Not working as expected?)

[TheAwfulToad]

Pretty good video. Only thing that bothers me is that she equates "let's all eat lots of meat!" diets with Paleo, when in reality the Paleo community is far more diverse than that and (in the main) actually adheres to the philosophy she describes at the end: seasonal eating; eating what's available from nature and what can be stored without detrimental nutritional effects; avoiding processed food.

She is quite right that paleolithic people would have eaten different things during different seasons and would have migrated when necessary (the modern equivalent would be international trade in foodstuffs). Again, many Paleo adherents recognise this and follow an 'eat with the seasons' rule.

Personally I find the "Paleo" moniker slightly irritating, but I'm broadly in agreement with their approach. The meat fanatics are wingnuts, as far as I can tell.

Incidentally, her assertion about 'lean meat' is probably not true. Animal factories today (I'm not going to dignify them with the term 'farms') use drugs and dietary control to achieve meat far leaner than the animal would have in real life, because that's what the markets demand. Animals maintain a fat layer for the same reason humans do - for energy storage and thermal control - and at certain times of year they'd have a very significant fat layer. Wild pigs, for example, can become almost as fat-laden as their domestic cousins. We also know for a fact that hunter-gatherer societies prize animal fat for its keeping qualities and nutrient density, and they hunt when animals are fattest. It seems likely that paleolithic people would have had the same attitude.

[Cooper27 Administrator]

Wow, the bit at the end with the sugar cane is pretty eye opening!