Prehistoric Diets: were they better than ours?
We romanticise ancient diets. The image is appealing. Strong bodies, wild food, no diabetes, no obesity. But the comparison between Neolithic eating and modern eating reveals something more complicated than nostalgia.
Allow me to explain.
The Neolithic era, roughly 10,000 to 3,000 years ago, marked the agricultural revolution. For the first time, humans farmed.
They ate whole grains, legumes, seasonal vegetables, fruits, some dairy, and whatever meat they could raise or hunt.
Nothing was refined. Nothing was engineered for palatability. Food had one job.
Fuel the body.
Our genome has changed very little since the beginnings of agriculture. Genetically, we are still in the Stone Age. We are still adapted to diets built on wild game, fish, and uncultivated plant foods.
Yet what we actually eat today looks nothing like that. The modern shift is not just about processing.
It is about signal corruption.
Neolithic food sent clear biological signals. High fibre slowed glucose absorption. Diverse micronutrients fed enzymatic pathways.
Seasonal variation prevented overconsumption of any single compound. The body received information it knew how to use.
Modern ultra-processed food sends noise. Engineered combinations of fat, sugar, and salt activate reward pathways without delivering nutritional content.
Your brain registers pleasure. Your cells register deficiency. Both things happen at once.
There have been studies to this effect. Young people in modern societies have significantly higher rates of obesity, hypertension, insulin resistance, and atherosclerosis.
But the Neolithic diet was not perfect either. Cereal-heavy early agricultural diets brought malnutrition, reduced stature, poor bone health, and dental disease.
Monoculture, eating the same foods, also carried risk.
The real lesson is not to eat like a Neolithic farmer. It is to eat like food has a purpose beyond entertainment.
Whole. Varied. Recognisable.
Your body has not changed its expectations. Only your plate has.
Eat whole food. Eat as much as you need, no more. Eat diversity, the more the better.
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