Diet Flashcards
What is Palaeolithic?
This is the Old Stone Age where society was hunter gatherers with no agriculture. This was approximately 2 million years ago up until the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago.
What does the modern USA diet consist of?
2/3 of the daily calories come from dairy products, cereals, refined sugars, refined vegetable oils and alcohol. All these foods were not available in hunter gather societies but appeared with the invention of agriculture and industry.
What was a Palaeolithic diet in Africa?
Humans were omnivores so had significant amounts of meat and vegetables and a very varied diet with 100’s of food types. Meat was from wild animals which is very different to domestic animals. Wild animal meat is lean and fibrous.
How does the Palaeolithic diet compare with the modern diet?
The palaeolithic diet has more protein, more vitamins and more minerals. It has more fibre, different fats and not much saturated fat. It also had less carbohydrates and little sugar. Our food preferences have evolved from a different diet to modern day, and our instincts reflect a different food environment.
What did Eaton (2006) suggest?
That understanding ancstral human diets might advance traditional nutrition science.
What are the estimates for ancestral diets?
35% if energy from fats, 35% from carbohydrates and 30% from proteins.
What did high fruit and vegetable intake mean?
There was a high fruit and vegetable intake and minimum grain and dairy consumption, meaning ancestral diets were base-yielding, unlike todays acid-producing pattern.
How many carbohydrates do contemporary Americans consume?
50% of daily energy intake is from carbohydrates whereas ancestral carbohydrate consumption was 35% of total energy intake.
What are our main sources of carbohydrates?
Cereal grains and dairy products, whereas our ancestors had no dairy products and rarely used grains.
What do findings suggest about our human ancestors?
That they had a greater energy intake and a greater energy expenditure than nowadays.
