Paleolithic Potatoes? Rethinking the Paleo Diet.

The paleolithic diet is based on the principle that we should be eating what our prehisoric acestors ate because that’s what our bodies evolved to thrive on. But our prehistoric ancestors may not have been eating what proponents of the diet think they were eating! . . .

The paleolithic diet includes fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts but stresses animal proteins in the form of cooked meats because of the belief that it was the protein rich meat that was responsible for the development of the very large human brain. Though the diet shuns carbohydrates, new research offers up precisely the opposite conclusion.

Looking at the archaeological, anthropological, genetic, physiological and anatomical data, the researchers uncovered several indicators that it was actually carbohydrates that were the evolutionary avenue to the growing human brain.

The human brain uses a whopping 25% of all of the body’s energy needs. All of that energy comes from glucose. The brain uses 60% of the body’s glucose. Carbohydrates are the most efficient source of glucose for the human body. A low carbohydrate diet would not have allowed evolution to take humans down the path of enlarging brains. Carbohydrates–and especially starches–were a crucial part of the prehistoric diet: it was the carbs that provided the fuel for the evolution of the modern human brain.

The researchers say that it was tubers and roots as well as seeds, certain fruits and nuts and the inner bark of some trees that provided the energy that was needed for the  evolution of the human brain.

The Quarterly Review of Biology 2015;doi:10.1086/682587

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