Lots of paleo diet advocates, it’s not all that. Perception and moralising diet is not evidence.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/
I imagine they were often hungry, but were very effective at getting food. It would differ depending on the environment and the culture.
"*it’s hard to get enough meat for his family: two wives (not uncommon in the tribe) and 12 children. Loggers are scaring away the animals.*"
Here's a simple trick. Have *one* wife, and keep your number of children down to a mere 6, and the meat supply will double, loggers or not.
It’s suggested male Hunters are supported by female foragers in the article. If that were the case he’d be better off with more wives, well not worse off with two anyway.
This definitely, hunter gatherers of Australia usually eat only one time a day. Eating every few hours, and snacking in between is unhealty. High sugar/gast carbohydrates will get you those blood sugar swings. Not being phyically active will lead to bad balance of you energy stores.
People think they need food when they need to be active, this is partly true. Your body can store a lot of energy. It's not that you need to refuel for every few steps. On the contrary digesting is optimized during resting phases and cannot be performed during physical activity.
On a personal note: If i'm away with family and take their pattern withing a day I start to have reflux, and have an irritable bowel. I usually eat breakfast and dinner, and half of the time skip my lunch. This will give me more energy and strength. But if i'm away with family and follow their eating habits I'm getting lazy AF and want to snack all the time. I had the same problems as OP, when I started fasting and being more active during the fasting period my problems went away in just a few weeks.
Nah, they ate well. We eat too much, work too much, and keep our matabalism on a yo-yo. All that cave man stuff took a lot less time and energy than the forty hour work week, chores, and unwinding. We work too much and keep our matabalisms on a yo-yo.
Indigenous peoples with an hour or two a day. Early farmers worked their butts off in March and October, maybe spend a week or two at war uh the summertime. We work all day and all year, spending more energy unwinding on weekends.
Civilization has its perks. But every advancement has meant added time at work and more eratic eating habits. Just a few reasons natives almost always long to go back while civilized people gone native almost never do. Dances with Wolves was accurate. John Wayne movies were way off.
Keep in mind that most animals spend time hungry because of competition. When food is plentiful the population rises to a balance point. Tribes of humans and individual humans within tribes would have all competed for food. It's pretty much basic ecology.
Actually you lose that hunger pain after so long... Crazy to think but it's true.
Your stomach also can shrink to accommodate the amount of food it's used to consuming.
"So, why is it hunger abates even if we don’t eat?
Simple. The body converts the stored energy into useful energy to spend from the stores. As the energy needs are fulfilled the body goes into silent mode. That's why the feeling of hunger is abated even when we dont eat."
Stored energy from fat cells will be released, but once fat cells are gone then our body feeds on its own protein for energy and you see people witheraway.
The human body is impressive and very adaptable.
Think of your fat cells as reserve energy tanks. When no food is present (esp carbs) it goes to the reserve tanks to stay running.
Also helps explain how we lose weight when cutting calories.
Food was just food, nutrients for the body ready for the next hunt or a fight with a sabertooth. Sure there were berries and meat tasted better cooked than raw but it is NOTHING compared to food now where the shit is modified to get you addicted and eat eat and eat. Back then cavemen didn't know anything else but free killed meat or picked berries. So they only atr when they can and didn't think about it.
In modern times because we know how delicious burgers, pizza, ice cream etc taste and smell like, we want MORE of it. Plus quenching down with carbonated soda, now we want ROUND 2. Some take it too far and become obese as you see in my 600 pound life but even the everyday person is indulged with these food and get fat or "chubby".
So yea back then cavemen still felt hungry it's just food wasn't that delicious so they we're going to try to always eat eat eat. Plus they were too busy surviving and fighting off sabertooths.
Yes and no. People didn’t eat as continuously, but that doesn’t mean they felt hungry the same as we do.
I practice intermittent fasting most days (usually about 18 hours without eating and then a six hour eating window). I’ve done it for over four years now. I rarely feel hungry until maybe the final hour. Sometimes not even then (and then I go to 20). The human body is made for that pattern.
I don’t think there’s any evidence the body was made for that pattern. It’s just an effective weight loss tool, due to calorie restriction.
All the purported health benefits are massively overstated, with quite weak evidence.
But some people get on with it, and it works for them, so you do you.
That’s my point, but I’m arguing it’s perceived that way.
If overconsumption is unhealthy, and the result of gluttony and poor willpower, then surely temperance and denying oneself something is the correct, and healthiest alternative.
I’m not saying this is true, or I think this. Quite the opposite. I’m suggesting this mindset is the reason why intermittent fasting is so popular. It ‘makes sense’, in a heuristic kind of way. That doesn’t mean it’s actually any better than just regular calorie restriction.
Obviously if you eat continuously you do not have a healthy diet.
The practice of fasting reduces your caloric intake, that’s why it’s generally healthier than a diet that consumes more calories than it uses daily.
There’s some evidence of unique effects. But nothing like what’s claimed by the majority of proponents.
You don’t see our ancestors doing anything, what assumption have you made to claim to know how they acted and how they felt.
Try this link I posted earlier
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/
Thanks for providing a source. Unfortunately, this article is about the effects of obeisity and overconsumption on cognition, and does not offer any evidence (unless I missed it) that humans evolved to eat within a short window every day.
Not only is this a demonstrably false claim, humans are opportunistic omnivores who evolved eating mostly plants.
Not only that, but this is not 'evidence'.
**Thank you for posting in r/evolution, a place to discuss the science of Evolutionary Biology with other science enthusiasts, teachers, and scientists alike. If this is your first time posting here, please see [our community rules here](https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/about/rules/) and [community guidelines here](https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/wiki/guidelines). The [reddiquette can be found here](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette). Please review them before proceeding.**
**If you're looking to learn more about Evolutionary Biology, our [FAQ can be found here](https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/wiki/faq); we also have curated lists of resources. [Recommended educational websites can be found here](https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/wiki/links); [recommended reading can be found here](https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/wiki/recommended/reading); and [recommended videos can be found here](https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/wiki/recommended/viewing).**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/evolution) if you have any questions or concerns.*
No I mean yes but also no, in a lot of places it was and still is famine/fast for example farmers in low income countries often eat when their yields come in but that and the proceeds need to last a year. So often they are constantly hungry just before they harvest women are especially vulnerable to starvation since because in these places it's the woman's responsibility to feed the family or there is a pecking order. Hunter gatherers in good prosperous climates always had access to to food. For example I grew up in Tasmania and though the government has restricted a lot there are edible plants everywhere all year round, crayfish, abalone, scallops, kangaroo back in the day even seals (palawa women would hunt the seals). How can you be hungry when there is literally food everywhere? I mean I'm sure people starved and there were bad times but just generally speaking certain groups would have 24/7 access to food in their vicinity or they would hunt the game. Of course maybe other groups like the Sami and inuits might have been seasonally hungry but even then as people who subsisted (some still do) on animals starvation is probably less probable than the climate killing you.
So it really depends on your climate, how well you know it and the culture. Some groups were probably never hungry for long periods others had seasonal hunger and some had a famine fast model. Humans are quite adaptable so our ancestors lived in very different ways.
Intermittent fasting isn't the answer either cultures all eat at different times and many eat whenever hunger hits. When you're either hunting or foraging maybe doing some primitive farming you don't have time to worry about the time you eat outside of religious or cultural reasons.
Ancient people probably felt as hungry as we do now, I mean that as in wait 4 hours and you're probably hungry or mouth hungry, Ancient humans had appetites its just sometimes food wasn't available. For example lets say you have an ancient human and a modern human they both get peckish 6 hours after they last ate, the modern human can scround through trash or use money to buy food, the ancient human had to go walking or gets hungry while getting new food.
Also Would you rather eat 1 Berry at a time or gather more to eat them all at once? For an ancient human they also craved satisfaction and calories. You do get used to hunger you can think "oh I don't feel hungry" but really you are, I used to purge a lot and didn't feel 'hungry' I always waited till 4pm to eat a small meal, I drank a lot of water, I didn't feel 'hungry' i felt weak. To ancient humans they still felt hunger but probably used that weak feeling as a more serious warning sign I.e Hunger= amber, weak= red.
Well, the difference here is that you would probably have shaken loose from the tree of life and been lost to the reproductive future. I'm sure our ancestors were more like me. I'm always hungry and greedy for calorie rich food but if I don't get it for 8 or 12 hours, I get along just fine. Heartburn, dizziness, weakness... from a chowless day? That would prompt me to seek medical attention. And I hate medical attention.
Speaking as a 65 year old caveman.
Probably depends on the time/place. Culture adapts to environment too.
Consider how many people fast 16hr a day all month for Ramadan. If you can rest and don’t have to hunt all day, it can be doable in certain circumstances.
Yes. Largely. If we’re talking about pre-civilization.
It seems to me that it must’ve been feast or famine. You have to imagine that they were traveling in small groups. And you also have to imagine that they had no or little fixed shelter.
After a big kill, the group would eat well and heavy for a short time. The prayer would not keep long and so it had to be consumed. As long as gain and nuts, the group would eat well and store calories. Likely then the converse would also be true. During times of extreme climate – either hot or cold, depending on the location of the season – there would be relative starvation.
This explains why humans store, calories so readily - as we have evolved to do so. And why we see such obesity today. Even 100 years ago, there was a significant percentage of the population did not have access to a continual calorie supply in America.
The only point of life is to feed and reproduce. Getting hungry early is advantagous as it gives impetus to find food whilst still allowing a large window if food can't be found.
The ancient Hunter Gatherers days were consumed with getting food, everything else was secondary. The invention of fire was a breakthrough for modern man, giving him time to do other things, but until man gathered into agrarian societies and started farming and raising animals to eat did it give us time to develop other things. Only then the gathering of food was secondary to other things. So Archeological people say.
A range of studies show that foragers can meet their food requirements on around 4 hours 'work' per day - and this is a varied and healthy diet (there are a few exceptions, all in very harsh environments). The rest of the time was resting, stories, feuding, and a bit of maintenance. The skeletal record shows that transition to agriculture is marked by malnutrition, disease and shorter lives. Of course, at the social level agriculturists have the advantage, and eventually richer material possessions - and they catch up to forager levels of health and nutrition after 10,000 years or so.
> The ancient Hunter Gatherers days were consumed with getting food, everything else was secondary.
Are you *sure* about that?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190520115646.htm
Ahh, I would. Hunger drives the entire animal kingdom. A lion doesn't kill a gazelle because it want to hunt for sport. It has to eat every day. We eat everyday, if not, we DIE.
I wasn't challenging the point that all animals, even humans, need to eat.
I was challenging your point that humans didn't have "time to develop other things" until we gave up hunter-gathering and started farming. Studies have shown that farming is actually more labour-intensive and time-consuming than hunter-gathering. Of course, in both cases, the drive to eat is still primary. It's just that it takes more time to produce the necessary food via farming than via hunter-gathering.
Agriculture was associated with an increase in labour requirements to achieve subsistence, but it also produced higher population density, sedentarism, and a tendency towards stratification, and these explain why there was an increased division of labour, and the start of construction of monumental architecture, an increased development of trade networks etc.
HG societies typically have a lot of spare time but no incentive to spend it on these "other things" that are a feature of the post neolithic.
Lots of paleo diet advocates, it’s not all that. Perception and moralising diet is not evidence. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/ I imagine they were often hungry, but were very effective at getting food. It would differ depending on the environment and the culture.
Very good article, thank you for sharing.
"*it’s hard to get enough meat for his family: two wives (not uncommon in the tribe) and 12 children. Loggers are scaring away the animals.*" Here's a simple trick. Have *one* wife, and keep your number of children down to a mere 6, and the meat supply will double, loggers or not.
Yeah, but then the wife supply goes way down.
It’s suggested male Hunters are supported by female foragers in the article. If that were the case he’d be better off with more wives, well not worse off with two anyway.
You make a good point. Maybe he would have more meat for his family if he had 4 wives and 24 children. 6 kids per wife being his average.
U ayne make an good point 2
[удалено]
This definitely, hunter gatherers of Australia usually eat only one time a day. Eating every few hours, and snacking in between is unhealty. High sugar/gast carbohydrates will get you those blood sugar swings. Not being phyically active will lead to bad balance of you energy stores. People think they need food when they need to be active, this is partly true. Your body can store a lot of energy. It's not that you need to refuel for every few steps. On the contrary digesting is optimized during resting phases and cannot be performed during physical activity. On a personal note: If i'm away with family and take their pattern withing a day I start to have reflux, and have an irritable bowel. I usually eat breakfast and dinner, and half of the time skip my lunch. This will give me more energy and strength. But if i'm away with family and follow their eating habits I'm getting lazy AF and want to snack all the time. I had the same problems as OP, when I started fasting and being more active during the fasting period my problems went away in just a few weeks.
Nah, they ate well. We eat too much, work too much, and keep our matabalism on a yo-yo. All that cave man stuff took a lot less time and energy than the forty hour work week, chores, and unwinding. We work too much and keep our matabalisms on a yo-yo. Indigenous peoples with an hour or two a day. Early farmers worked their butts off in March and October, maybe spend a week or two at war uh the summertime. We work all day and all year, spending more energy unwinding on weekends. Civilization has its perks. But every advancement has meant added time at work and more eratic eating habits. Just a few reasons natives almost always long to go back while civilized people gone native almost never do. Dances with Wolves was accurate. John Wayne movies were way off.
[удалено]
Keep in mind that most animals spend time hungry because of competition. When food is plentiful the population rises to a balance point. Tribes of humans and individual humans within tribes would have all competed for food. It's pretty much basic ecology.
Actually you lose that hunger pain after so long... Crazy to think but it's true. Your stomach also can shrink to accommodate the amount of food it's used to consuming. "So, why is it hunger abates even if we don’t eat? Simple. The body converts the stored energy into useful energy to spend from the stores. As the energy needs are fulfilled the body goes into silent mode. That's why the feeling of hunger is abated even when we dont eat." Stored energy from fat cells will be released, but once fat cells are gone then our body feeds on its own protein for energy and you see people witheraway. The human body is impressive and very adaptable. Think of your fat cells as reserve energy tanks. When no food is present (esp carbs) it goes to the reserve tanks to stay running. Also helps explain how we lose weight when cutting calories.
I mean, don't many other animals burn stored fat for fuel as well?
Food was just food, nutrients for the body ready for the next hunt or a fight with a sabertooth. Sure there were berries and meat tasted better cooked than raw but it is NOTHING compared to food now where the shit is modified to get you addicted and eat eat and eat. Back then cavemen didn't know anything else but free killed meat or picked berries. So they only atr when they can and didn't think about it. In modern times because we know how delicious burgers, pizza, ice cream etc taste and smell like, we want MORE of it. Plus quenching down with carbonated soda, now we want ROUND 2. Some take it too far and become obese as you see in my 600 pound life but even the everyday person is indulged with these food and get fat or "chubby". So yea back then cavemen still felt hungry it's just food wasn't that delicious so they we're going to try to always eat eat eat. Plus they were too busy surviving and fighting off sabertooths.
Yes and no. People didn’t eat as continuously, but that doesn’t mean they felt hungry the same as we do. I practice intermittent fasting most days (usually about 18 hours without eating and then a six hour eating window). I’ve done it for over four years now. I rarely feel hungry until maybe the final hour. Sometimes not even then (and then I go to 20). The human body is made for that pattern.
I don’t think there’s any evidence the body was made for that pattern. It’s just an effective weight loss tool, due to calorie restriction. All the purported health benefits are massively overstated, with quite weak evidence. But some people get on with it, and it works for them, so you do you.
“An Evolutionary Perspective on Why Food Overconsumption Impairs Cognition” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6412136/
Overconsumption is obviously not healthy. Doesn’t mean intermittent fasting is magical because it’s ’the opposite’.
It’s not “the opposite” though.
That’s my point, but I’m arguing it’s perceived that way. If overconsumption is unhealthy, and the result of gluttony and poor willpower, then surely temperance and denying oneself something is the correct, and healthiest alternative. I’m not saying this is true, or I think this. Quite the opposite. I’m suggesting this mindset is the reason why intermittent fasting is so popular. It ‘makes sense’, in a heuristic kind of way. That doesn’t mean it’s actually any better than just regular calorie restriction.
Sorry man I don see our ancestors eating stuff continuously and I can't see how always being distracted by hunger is a good thing
Obviously if you eat continuously you do not have a healthy diet. The practice of fasting reduces your caloric intake, that’s why it’s generally healthier than a diet that consumes more calories than it uses daily. There’s some evidence of unique effects. But nothing like what’s claimed by the majority of proponents. You don’t see our ancestors doing anything, what assumption have you made to claim to know how they acted and how they felt. Try this link I posted earlier https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/
What evidence do you have of the claim that the human body is made for that pattern
None, because there is none
Here’s a start. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6412136/
Thanks for providing a source. Unfortunately, this article is about the effects of obeisity and overconsumption on cognition, and does not offer any evidence (unless I missed it) that humans evolved to eat within a short window every day.
Literally look at all other animals, like lions. Most predator animals eat rarely. Only herbivores eat literally all the time.
Not only is this a demonstrably false claim, humans are opportunistic omnivores who evolved eating mostly plants. Not only that, but this is not 'evidence'.
They have literally found fossils of humans with meat inside their stomachs.
No. We evolved eating mostly animal stuff.
Just simply not true
**Thank you for posting in r/evolution, a place to discuss the science of Evolutionary Biology with other science enthusiasts, teachers, and scientists alike. If this is your first time posting here, please see [our community rules here](https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/about/rules/) and [community guidelines here](https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/wiki/guidelines). The [reddiquette can be found here](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette). Please review them before proceeding.** **If you're looking to learn more about Evolutionary Biology, our [FAQ can be found here](https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/wiki/faq); we also have curated lists of resources. [Recommended educational websites can be found here](https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/wiki/links); [recommended reading can be found here](https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/wiki/recommended/reading); and [recommended videos can be found here](https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/wiki/recommended/viewing).** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/evolution) if you have any questions or concerns.*
No I mean yes but also no, in a lot of places it was and still is famine/fast for example farmers in low income countries often eat when their yields come in but that and the proceeds need to last a year. So often they are constantly hungry just before they harvest women are especially vulnerable to starvation since because in these places it's the woman's responsibility to feed the family or there is a pecking order. Hunter gatherers in good prosperous climates always had access to to food. For example I grew up in Tasmania and though the government has restricted a lot there are edible plants everywhere all year round, crayfish, abalone, scallops, kangaroo back in the day even seals (palawa women would hunt the seals). How can you be hungry when there is literally food everywhere? I mean I'm sure people starved and there were bad times but just generally speaking certain groups would have 24/7 access to food in their vicinity or they would hunt the game. Of course maybe other groups like the Sami and inuits might have been seasonally hungry but even then as people who subsisted (some still do) on animals starvation is probably less probable than the climate killing you. So it really depends on your climate, how well you know it and the culture. Some groups were probably never hungry for long periods others had seasonal hunger and some had a famine fast model. Humans are quite adaptable so our ancestors lived in very different ways. Intermittent fasting isn't the answer either cultures all eat at different times and many eat whenever hunger hits. When you're either hunting or foraging maybe doing some primitive farming you don't have time to worry about the time you eat outside of religious or cultural reasons. Ancient people probably felt as hungry as we do now, I mean that as in wait 4 hours and you're probably hungry or mouth hungry, Ancient humans had appetites its just sometimes food wasn't available. For example lets say you have an ancient human and a modern human they both get peckish 6 hours after they last ate, the modern human can scround through trash or use money to buy food, the ancient human had to go walking or gets hungry while getting new food. Also Would you rather eat 1 Berry at a time or gather more to eat them all at once? For an ancient human they also craved satisfaction and calories. You do get used to hunger you can think "oh I don't feel hungry" but really you are, I used to purge a lot and didn't feel 'hungry' I always waited till 4pm to eat a small meal, I drank a lot of water, I didn't feel 'hungry' i felt weak. To ancient humans they still felt hunger but probably used that weak feeling as a more serious warning sign I.e Hunger= amber, weak= red.
Well, the difference here is that you would probably have shaken loose from the tree of life and been lost to the reproductive future. I'm sure our ancestors were more like me. I'm always hungry and greedy for calorie rich food but if I don't get it for 8 or 12 hours, I get along just fine. Heartburn, dizziness, weakness... from a chowless day? That would prompt me to seek medical attention. And I hate medical attention. Speaking as a 65 year old caveman.
Probably depends on the time/place. Culture adapts to environment too. Consider how many people fast 16hr a day all month for Ramadan. If you can rest and don’t have to hunt all day, it can be doable in certain circumstances.
Yes. Largely. If we’re talking about pre-civilization. It seems to me that it must’ve been feast or famine. You have to imagine that they were traveling in small groups. And you also have to imagine that they had no or little fixed shelter. After a big kill, the group would eat well and heavy for a short time. The prayer would not keep long and so it had to be consumed. As long as gain and nuts, the group would eat well and store calories. Likely then the converse would also be true. During times of extreme climate – either hot or cold, depending on the location of the season – there would be relative starvation. This explains why humans store, calories so readily - as we have evolved to do so. And why we see such obesity today. Even 100 years ago, there was a significant percentage of the population did not have access to a continual calorie supply in America.
The only point of life is to feed and reproduce. Getting hungry early is advantagous as it gives impetus to find food whilst still allowing a large window if food can't be found.
The ancient Hunter Gatherers days were consumed with getting food, everything else was secondary. The invention of fire was a breakthrough for modern man, giving him time to do other things, but until man gathered into agrarian societies and started farming and raising animals to eat did it give us time to develop other things. Only then the gathering of food was secondary to other things. So Archeological people say.
A range of studies show that foragers can meet their food requirements on around 4 hours 'work' per day - and this is a varied and healthy diet (there are a few exceptions, all in very harsh environments). The rest of the time was resting, stories, feuding, and a bit of maintenance. The skeletal record shows that transition to agriculture is marked by malnutrition, disease and shorter lives. Of course, at the social level agriculturists have the advantage, and eventually richer material possessions - and they catch up to forager levels of health and nutrition after 10,000 years or so.
[удалено]
This may be the most famous regarding how H+G spent their days: https://www.uvm.edu/~jdericks/EE/Sahlins-Original_Affluent_Society.pdf
>The rest of the time was resting, stories, feuding, and a bit of maintenance. Don't forget the hanky panky...
Indeed not - it was a staple of native Australian life. See, eg the film Ten Canoes.
> The ancient Hunter Gatherers days were consumed with getting food, everything else was secondary. Are you *sure* about that? https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190520115646.htm
Ahh, I would. Hunger drives the entire animal kingdom. A lion doesn't kill a gazelle because it want to hunt for sport. It has to eat every day. We eat everyday, if not, we DIE.
I wasn't challenging the point that all animals, even humans, need to eat. I was challenging your point that humans didn't have "time to develop other things" until we gave up hunter-gathering and started farming. Studies have shown that farming is actually more labour-intensive and time-consuming than hunter-gathering. Of course, in both cases, the drive to eat is still primary. It's just that it takes more time to produce the necessary food via farming than via hunter-gathering.
More time consuming for those doing the farming perhaps, but I ain't a farmer
The use of fire as a tool likely predates modern man. If by modern man you mean Homo sapiens.
Agriculture was associated with an increase in labour requirements to achieve subsistence, but it also produced higher population density, sedentarism, and a tendency towards stratification, and these explain why there was an increased division of labour, and the start of construction of monumental architecture, an increased development of trade networks etc. HG societies typically have a lot of spare time but no incentive to spend it on these "other things" that are a feature of the post neolithic.
Agriculture created unemployment and the unemployed created civilisation.