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My question has to do with the variety of the diet of humans during the period that our genetic propensity toward certain dietary needs developed. Granted, it does seem that, as omnivores, the options are pretty broad but I was more curious about the diversity of the plants and animals that were the food source in the human (prehuman?) inhabitied areas. Were their likely regional adaptations that melded into what we have today as a result of the mingling of the various regional populations over time? If so, does that have any bearing on how difference people respond as in the example of the weight loss article I posted by Christian Finn?
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Was there likely a common dietary pattern that was filled by particular local available food that was similar in nutrient content? I don't know how plant and animal diversity compares to today so I didn't know if perhaps fewer species were more widespread... or what?
The short answer is that your first scenario is the correct one, not the second. There is no singular "paleodiet" - people ate whatever was available in their particular corner of the world, and different populations became genetically fine-tuned to particular regions.
On the one hand, you can make very broad generalizations, such as humans everywhere (except extreme polar regions) evolved on an omniverous diet including wild game, fruits and vegetables, fish, nuts, and seeds. These provided certain proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, with certain profiles (e.g., certain kinds of SFAs, MUFAs, & PUFAs).
On the other hand, humans can adapt to the food of certain regions. When a population moves into a new area, individuals genetically most suited to that environment are more reproductively successful, and pass-on their advantageous traits to offspring.
But it doesn't happen overnight. Evolution is conservative, and genome changes do not take place without sustained changes in environment and diet. A true genetic equilibrium may take several tens of thousands of years.
This is why people like Loren Cordain have correctly pointed-out that there is a "genetic discordance" - or a discrepancy between our modern sugar/starch-rich diet, vs. what we've eaten for 99.9% of our existence. This discordance has led to various disorders like CHD, diabetes, obesity, etc. In other words, before grains were domesticated 10,000 years ago (wheat, barley, rice, corn), people simply were not able to eat so many carbs. Coupled with the advent of milling during the Industrial Revolution, which removes the fiber from grains, we're living in a world of chronic insulin highs today.
The whole issue of insulin resistance is interesting because some people are more capable of dealing with carbs than others, and this may be the result of the adoption of grain agriculture earlier in some populations and later in others. Some populations have had 1000's of years to adapt to the new foods like cereals and dairy, whereas others like the Inuit and Native Americans have had only a few hundred years. It is these recently acculturated populations who are more prone to hyperinsulinemia and various other disorders.
I was out mowing the lawn just now and my paleobotanist neighbor was out there and I asked her about plant species diversity "back then." She said that plant species - so I'll assume animals, too - were not as diverse so I'm interpreting that to mean that grains consumed in one region would be similar in nutrient content to grains consumed in another region...?
Originally posted by Quercus: I was out mowing the lawn just now and my paleobotanist neighbor was out there and I asked her about plant species diversity "back then." She said that plant species - so I'll assume animals, too - were not as diverse so I'm interpreting that to mean that grains consumed in one region would be similar in nutrient content to grains consumed in another region...?
Cool, you have a paleobotanist neighbor?!
Anyway, not necessarily. E.g., tropical grasses like those in Central America are very different nutritionally than the cereal grasses found across the Middle East and Europe. Corn was domesticated from a tropical grass (teosinte), and it's processed forms (oils and sweeteners) are one of the major reasons why Americans are such fatties today. For one, corn oil has an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of 83 to 1.
Regardless, it wouldn't have been possible for anyone outside the past 2 centuries to have access to these processed form of the grain, so there would have been little difference between the CHO composition of, say, an Archaic population in Tehuacan incorporating teosinte into their diet, vs. a Paleolithic population in Jordan incorporating wild barley into their diet.
Originally posted by Johnka: Cool, you have a paleobotanist neighbor?!
Regardless, it wouldn't have been possible for anyone outside the past 2 centuries to have access to these processed form of the grain, so there would have been little difference between the CHO composition of, say, an Archaic population in Tehuacan incorporating teosinte into their diet, vs. a Paleolithic population in Jordan incorporating wild barley into their diet.
Yeah, and she's been looking for a job for QUITE some time. Know of any openings? It's been fun for me to chat "across the fence," so to speak, about common interests.
So, the CHO's would have been similar across the board, right? Other nutrients would have varied probably as a reflection of the local soil composition. Then the CHO diet of all humanoids in general would have varied primarily by availability of grasses, not the particular species of the local area.
Any evidence of preferences when a variety of foods were plentiful? Just an off-the-wall question.
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