Paleo, vegetarian: what did our ancestors truly eat?

interprete

Sept. 17, 2021

Paleo, vegetarian: what did our ancestors truly eat?

In recent years, proponents of the meat-based, so-called ’paleo’ diet have been pitted against vegetarians, in a fierce face-off in the media and on social networks. Each side brandishes a slew of arguments to assert the superiority of its eating patterns over the other. Lately, more and more of these arguments have focused on the physiological legitimacy of carnivorism on the one hand or vegetarianism on the other.

Paleo advocates insist that their diet is none other than that of our hunter-gatherer ancestors before the advent of agriculture (about ten thousand years ago) who they claim were free from the modern ’diseases of civilization’ plaguing us today. According to them, it is therefore natural to give pride of place to meat, fruit, and nuts (the supposed diet of the average hunter-gatherer of old), while shunning cereals, dairy, and of course sugar and processed food, which did not exist back then [1]. As for vegetarians, they contend, among other arguments, that humankind does not have the hunting instinct found in meat-eating animals, and that human teeth and digestive system are supposedly typical of plant-eating animals, and completely unsuitable for the consumption of meat products [2].

All those claims have long been thoroughly disproved [1]. It is well-established that there is no ’typical’ hunter-gatherer diet, as aboriginal tribes from Venezuela (for example) have a completely different diet from that of certain South-African tribes. Conversely, the mere fact that humans display anatomical advantages conducive to the consumption of some plants in no way means that they must necessarily be incapable of consuming meat.

Of note, however, is another physiological factor that is much less discussed: the acidity of the human stomach. Why is it remarkable? Because it suggests that our ancestors may have displayed scavenging behaviors! Now that’s a piece of information that may give you a new outlook on this endless quarrel...

i hope it makes sense on its own. thanks for your help!so i’ve cut it in two partsthis is the first halfthis is a rather long article

en 1

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secretpostman

Paleo, vegetarian: what did our ancestors truly eat?

In recent years, proponents of the meat-based, so-called ’paleo’ diet have been pitted against vegetarians, in a fierce face-off in the media and on social networks.

Each side brandishes a slew of arguments to assert the superiority of its eating patterns over the other.

Lately, more and more of these arguments have focused on the physiological legitimacy of carnivorism on the one hand or vegetarianism on the other.

Paleo advocates insist that their diet is none other than that of our hunter-gatherer ancestors before the advent of agriculture (about ten thousand years ago) who they claim were free from the modern ’diseases of civilization’ plaguing us today.

According to them, it is therefore natural to give pride of place to meat, fruit, and nuts (the supposed diet of the average hunter-gatherer of old), while shunning cereals, dairy, and of course sugar and processed food, which did not exist back then [1].

As for vegetarians, they contend, among other arguments, that humankind does not have the hunting instinct found in meat-eating animals, and that human teeth and digestive systems are supposedly typical of plant-eating animals, and completely unsuitable for the consumption of meat products [2].

You can use "digestive system" in the singular here, but it doesn't work along with "teeth". It's quite difficult to come up with a natural example, but it would be grammatical to say something like "the human tooth set and digestive system are typical"

All those claims have long been thoroughly disproved [1].

It is well-established that there is no ’typical’ hunter-gatherer diet, as aboriginal tribes from Venezuela (for example) have a completely different diet from that of certain South-African tribes.

Conversely, the mere fact that humans display anatomical advantages conducive to the consumption of some plants in no way means that they must necessarily be incapable of consuming meat.

Of note, however, is another physiological factor that is much less discussed: the acidity of the human stomach.

Why is it remarkable?

Because it suggests that our ancestors may have displayed scavenging behaviors!

Now that’s a piece of information that may give you a new outlook on this endless quarrel...

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Very good indeed.

interprete

Sept. 28, 2021

Thanks a lot Secretpostman :)

In recent years, proponents of the meat-based, so-called ’paleo’ diet have been pitted against vegetarians, in a fierce face-off in the media and on social networks.