While I was doing research investigating “The China Study,” I came across a great Jared Diamond article from the late 1980’s. I highly recommend reading any of his books, specifically “Guns, Germs and Steel.” Diamond is a professor at UCLA and has ton extensive research into the paleo era of human existence. The article I am referring to specifically details the time frame of humanity when the majority of native tribes gave up hunting and gathering for the sedentary agriculture life.
Within “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race,” Diamond talks about the changing of the diet, lowering of leisure time, higher levels of autoimmune diseases found from bone lesions, as well as increasing levels of sexual inequality along with humans becoming shorter. What I am most interested is the change in the diet.
At this time, Diamond argues the diet changed from a meat based, plant foraging diet to a diet much higher in cereal grains and carbohydrates. These individuals became malnourished due to the fact that their extensive use of plant life instead of wild animals ceased to contain the appropriate amounts of vitamins and minerals. Diamond also compares elite/royal human remains to those of the commoners and finds a unique comparison. The royalty undoubtedly ate better, they were taller, had fewer bone lesions, lived longer and contained significantly more teeth in their mouth (1 missing instead of 6) when compared with their lower minions. This most likely was a direct cause of excess labor and diet.
Interestingly enough, Diamond argues that agriculture brought about deep class/societal divisions. When humans were hunting and gathering, there was minimal amount of stored foods and concentrated food sources. Instead, the tribes needed to work together on a daily basis to obtain their food source at an optimal level. With the rise of farming, humans could hoard food and eventually use this food to impose control/command over a portion of the population. The basis of his argument then becomes the idea that farming can support more people than hunting, however the existence is at a lower quality of life, in regards to nutrition and social quality.
George Armelagos points out in his article, “Genomics at the Origins of Agriculture” that agriculture did indeed bring about “food surpluses, craft specialization, art, religious hierarchies, writing, social hierarchies, urbanization, and the origin of the state.” The earliest consumption of grains was based around fermented drinks and utilizing domesticated animals and plants as pieces of wealth and royalty, eventually becoming staples in the everyday diet.
Interestingly enough, there was a move in dietary consumption during the Paleolithic era. At the middle portions of the era, Armelagos reports that humans tended to exploit slow moving prey, such as mollusks and tortoises. However, as humans progressed and their brains grew from the protein/fat consumption we were able to develop weaponry and begin preying on “fast moving” prey. This hunting process was more intensive but the animals that were targeted were able to handle the harvesting due to their rapid abilities of adaptation. As Armelagos points out, harvesting the fast moving prey leads to a 10-fold greater level of exploitation prior to complete extinction in comparison to the slow moving prey. Along with the evolution of hunting animals, the plant lif e consumed/domesticated was based solely on what that area already supported in the wild. For example, the Mediterranean regions supported figs and olives, which led to the early domestication of these two crops and the early introduction to that diet. This is important to understand and consider with the quality of soil and what is actually native to each region and their particular soils.
In regards to the domestication of animals, the goat and pigs tend to be considered the earliest domesticated animals. It is also believed that the domestication of cows came at probably three different points: 1. domesticated in India 2. another domestication point in Europe and Europe and 3. another domestication point in Japan.
What does all this mean? When humans began farming our diet changed a bit…from a predominantly meat based diet to a meat based diet that utilized stone ground grains and fermented grains. I suspect this holds true for dairy as well. The earliest dairy products were consumed raw and/or fermented and both dairy and grains may have been in our diet for nearly 15-20,000 years. The key is to find meat products that are raised in a way that is closest to their biological markers…meat raised as close to “wild” as possible. This means grass fed livestock, animals outside, chickens out on pasture, etc. Supplement this diet with healthy, organic vegetables such as leafy green vegetables and soaked tubers.