Paleolithic Nutrition Revisited

Abstract The nutritional needs of today’s humans arose through a multimillion-year evolutionary process, during nearly all of which genetic change reflected the life circumstances of our ancestral species (Eaton & Konner, 1985). But, since the appearance of agriculture 10,000 years ago and especially since the Industrial Revolution, genetic adaptation has been unable to keep pace with cultural progress (Neel, 1994; Rendel, 1970). Natural selection has produced only minor alterations during the past 10,000 years, so we remain nearly identical to our late Paleolithic ancestors (Tooby & Cosmides, 1990), and, accordingly, their nutritional pattern has continuing relevance. The preagricultural diet might be considered a possible paradigm or standard for contemporary human nutrition (Burkitt & Eaton, 1989; Eaton & Konner, 1985; O’Dea & Sinclair, 1983).