The Average Diet of Our Ancestors

• Fruits, roots, legumes, nuts and other non-cereals provided 65-70% of average forager subsistence base
  
• Minimal or no processing and uncooked too!
  
• This “hunter-gatherer” diet likely gave our ancestors levels of vitamins and minerals in excess of today’s standards.
  
• Cancer prevention is not evident with processed cereals.
• In our modern diets, we consume 4000 mg of sodium each day (75% of which is added through processing)
  
• Potassium intake is only 2500-3400 mg each day.
  
• Man is the only non-marine animal to eat more sodium than potassium.
  
• Pre-agricultural humans consumed 768 mg of sodium and 10,500 mg of potassium.
  
• Median blood pressure does not rise with age in populations that eat more potassium and a lot less sodium
• Our hunter-gatherer ancestors received carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables (we get only 23% of our carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables today).
  
• Much of our carbohydrate intake today is in the form of sugars and sweeteners (150 – 160 pounds per year) mostly through refined grain flours.
  
• Fat should be less than 10% with saturated fats at only 6%. There should be no trans fatty acids in our “hunter-gatherer” diet as they ate wild game, not corn-fed beef.
  
• Today’s diet is high in carbohydrate, but low in serum cholesterol. The ratio of polyunsaturated fats to saturated fats is now 0.4 today versus 1.4 in the past.
• 30% of our ancestors’ daily energy came from protein (similar to other primates).
  
• It is now recommended that we keep our protein intake to 12% because of the link between protein and cancer (breast & colon) and atherosclerosis.
• Protein intake is not necessarily bad per se.
• Our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate protein with lots of fruits and vegetables.
• The ratio of protein to carbohydrate affects the relative amount of insulin secreted after each meal.