What did humans eat before the Neolithic?

[Farstar]

I am interested about keto diets. And some people doing keto diets argue that before Neolithic, people (assumed to be hunter-gatherers) were mostly eating animals (meat, fat, bones ...) but they were not eating plants, since the calorie content of "natural" plants was so low, that it did not make sense to gather them, from an energetic point of view.

What it seems true is that Neolithic brings the agricultural revolution, and then people start eating more plants, seeds ... and it is true, I think, that life expectancy goes down then.

Is it known how mesolithic people were eating? What are the proportion of meat/fish and plants in their diets?

 

[Angela]

I am interested about keto diets. And some people doing keto diets argue that before Neolithic, people (assumed to be hunter-gatherers) were mostly eating animals (meat, fat, bones ...) but they were not eating plants, since the calorie content of "natural" plants was so low, that it did not make sense to gather them, from an energetic point of view.

What it seems true is that Neolithic brings the agricultural revolution, and then people start eating more plants, seeds ... and it is true, I think, that life expectancy goes down then.

Is it known how mesolithic people were eating? What are the proportion of meat/fish and plants in their diets?

It depends where they were living. Hunter-gatherers in North Africa ate a lot of hazelnuts. Hunter-gatherers in the Levant ate lots of plants, because they were blessed to live in an area blessed with them, like wild wheat, pulses, etc., along with figs if I remember correctly, and nuts.

I recently posted a paper which showed that even in Europe the hunter-gatherers ate more plant food than had been realized. If I can find it using the search engine, I'll post the link.

https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...000-years-ago?highlight=diet+hunter-gatherers

 

[Tutkun Arnaut]

I am interested about keto diets. And some people doing keto diets argue that before Neolithic, people (assumed to be hunter-gatherers) were mostly eating animals (meat, fat, bones ...) but they were not eating plants, since the calorie content of "natural" plants was so low, that it did not make sense to gather them, from an energetic point of view.

What it seems true is that Neolithic brings the agricultural revolution, and then people start eating more plants, seeds ... and it is true, I think, that life expectancy goes down then.
Is it known how mesolithic people were eating? What are the proportion of meat/fish and plants in their diets?[/QUOTE






I have had such question in my mind for a long time, but I did not go as far as you go. I was interested what did Europeans eat before Columbus. Keep in mind that some food we everyday use today in Europe to feed masses was not available. Tomatoes, potatoes, corn the most basic food in today's menu was not available back then. My personal opinion is that many foods humans were eating back then are extinct today, the way mammoths and other animals are. They basically collected and not planted the seeds of plants so I would think the majority of what people were eating in neolithic is extinct, we will never know

 

[Angela]

Here is the paper about the fact that Mesolithic European hunter-gatherers did eat plant foods. As I said in a prior post about the diet of hunter-gatherers, it had seemed odd that there was selection among hunter-gatherers for the mutations which make carbohydrates easier for humans to eat if they didn't eat carbohydrates. Well, it seems we just had a distorted view of their diet.

Imo, our mutations and even the size of our colons indicates we evolved to consume both plant and animal life, and that's fine with me. If people want to go to the trouble of trying to get the right nutrition while being a vegetarian, or even a vegan, I respect their choice; just don't impose it on me.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-26045-9

 

[New Englander]

Each other lol