Food and History (Part 2)
Early humanoid diet consists the majority of the plant foods (Cordain, 2002). These people sharing similar characteristics to chimpanzees and bonobos connected with a focus on harvesting and eating underground storage organs like tubers rather than hunting and eating meat. They had developed the technologies to dig with sticks in order to find tubers (Ungar & Teaford, 2002). Plant based foods such as fruits, leaves, gums, and stalks probably comprised at least 95% of their dietary intake, with insects, eggs, and small animals making up the remainder. Protein had contributed a greater proportion of total energy, but much more were sourced from vegetable rather than from animal (Popovich et al., 1997). Simple carbohydrate intake would have been less which would be coming mainly from fruit. Little or none came from refined flour and sugar, leading sources for current humans. There would have been relatively more starch and other complex carbohydrates for consumption. The Dietary fiber intake used to be somewhere around 200 grams versus 20 grams a day in these modern days (Milton, 1993).
Colonic fermentation of this fiber, by gut flora, probably made a significant contribution to daily energy intake because the resultant volatile short-chain fatty acids are subsequently metabolized by intestinal epithelium and, especially, in the liver. Daily intake of vitamins and minerals is likely to have been considerably greater than at present, with the likely exception of iodine, consumption of which would have varied with geographic location according to oceanic proximity, volcanic activity, prevailing winds, and rainfall. Consumption of sodium was only a fraction of that currently consumed and had also been substantially less than that of potassium (Denton et al., 1995). Availability and consumption of phytochemicals, like that of vitamins and most minerals, were likely to be greater than for modern Americans and other westerners.
Total fat intake, especially of serum cholesterol raising saturated and trans fatty acids, were greatly below current American and European levels; cholesterol intake would have been minimal. Within the polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) category, partition between the omega 6 and omega 3 families would have been reasonably equal or skewed slightly toward the omega 3. Polyunsaturated fatty acids from plant sources like; Linoleic Acid (LA, C18:2, omega 6) and α-Linolenic Acid (ALA, C18:3, omega 3) were predominantly consumed whereas, intake of Arachidonic Acid (AA, C20:4, omega 6) and Docosahexenoic Acid (DHA, C22:6, omega 3), were comparatively low (Eaton, 1998).
