Today it is very fashionable to live a healthy and natural look life. People strive to be closer to nature. And, of course, preference is given to everything natural.
The so-called “ stone age diet" It gained particular popularity in Europe and America. Even many Hollywood stars got hooked on it. One of the founders of this direction is Professor State University Colorado Laurent Cordain.
The main point stone age diets easy to understand from its name. Thus, it implies eating only those foods that were part of the diet of ancient people who lived in the Stone Age. As you know, ancient people obtained food through gathering and hunting. Agriculture and cattle breeding were still in their infancy.
Many scientists believe that such nutrition is very beneficial for the health of modern people. Compliance stone age diets does not require constant calorie counting. Also not limited total quantity food, which is very important for us women, who are accustomed to eating well and often.
You can follow this type of diet for a long time. And this is due to the fact that all offered stone age diet foods are diverse, they contain all the substances that our body needs every day.
As surprising as it may sound, the diet of primitive man was quite varied. The food consumed a lot of fiber, vitamins and antioxidants. Paleolithic people ate large amounts of vegetables and fruits every day. These foods contain phytonutrients and antioxidants. These substances protect against various diseases, even from cancer and problems with the cardiovascular system.
Beans were also an excellent source of fiber, essential for good digestion. Ancient people hunted wild animals and birds and ate their meat. The amount of protein in their diet was about 35%. Moreover, this meat was drier and contained healthy omega-3 fats.
Eating nuts provided the body with healthy fats and various nutrients. Our distant ancestors also ate a variety of herbs, roots and tubers. Only healthy wild honey was used as a sweetener.
It should be noted that all these products were consumed in unprocessed form. Of course, they also absolutely did not contain any chemical additives.
It is important that then there was a different ratio of plant and animal food. Ancient people received 65% of all energy from animal foods, and 35% from plant foods.
In their diet, the proportion of protein was 37%, fat - 22%, and carbohydrates - 41%. Today we get 15% protein, 34% fat and 49% carbohydrates. We can say that modern people consume one and a half times more fat. It should be noted that most of them are unhealthy saturated fats.
Stone Age people received more than 100 grams of fiber per day. Modern man does not even reach the norm of 25-30 grams. In addition, in ancient times people did not salt their food, did not eat mayonnaise, and did not use sugar. All this had a very beneficial effect on their health.
At the core proper nutrition, according to stone age diet, lies in eating large amounts of fiber. It can be obtained from unpeeled vegetables and fruits, as well as from herbs, legumes, grains and root vegetables. Meat, fish, eggs are allowed only in small quantities.
You need to eat as much as possible natural products, without any dyes, preservatives, flavors or flavoring additives.
First of all, you need to give up sugar and other sweeteners. Vegetable fats and simple carbohydrates should be avoided.
It is impossible to completely give up dairy products, although they were not in the diet of ancient people. The only foods you should avoid are saturated milk fats. You need to eat as low-fat foods as possible.
For breakfast - oatmeal porridge with water, to which you can add raisins, grated apple or concentrated apple juice, and a little cinnamon. Low-fat natural yogurt, fresh berries and nuts are also suitable. You can eat a couple boiled eggs, apple and green salad dressed with olive oil.
Lunch - thick vegetable soup, green vegetable salad, low-fat cottage cheese. You can eat, for example, mushrooms stewed with herbs. Brown bread and some nuts are allowed.
Dinner - baked turkey or chicken with stewed vegetables, vegetable curry with brown rice. A salad is suitable, you can eat fruits or berries.
This diet helps in the prevention and treatment of diabetes, obesity and a number of other diseases. improves the performance of everything gastrointestinal tract. Relieves constipation. also reduces the risk of developing oncological diseases. Has a positive impact on cardiovascular system. Allows you to effectively combat allergic diseases. Increases immunity, makes a person more energetic and active.
It also helps get rid of obesity. It helps to reset overweight. At the same time, the person does not experience constant hunger and does not become discouraged because of the need to constantly count the calories eaten. Fiber inhibits the absorption of carbohydrates and regulates insulin levels. All this leads to getting rid of excess fat in the body. Fiber also promotes a feeling of fullness.
Avoiding food intake can also help effectively combat obesity. unhealthy fats and sugar. Such weight loss does not harm the body at all. Vice versa, stone age diet aimed at general health improvement. Approximate weight loss is 1-2 kg per week. Weight loss is slow but steady.
Neanderthal skull with ground teeth
The diet of Stone Age people consisted primarily of plant foods. From the found skulls of ancient people, anthropologists can tell about their food. For example, this Neanderthal skull is over 60 thousand years old. His teeth are not rotten, because at that time sweet food was very rare. But from constant chewing of hard plant foods, the teeth were worn down. This suggests that the diet was dominated by hard seeds and nuts, and the grains ground into flour may have contained large amounts of sand, which also wore down teeth.
Ready-made food could literally be found under your feet; you just had to understand what was edible and what was not. Ancient foragers gradually discovered many edible plants and learned where they were most often found. Gathering was usually done by women and children. In summer and autumn one could find seeds, berries, nuts, and edible roots. Gatherers looked for bird nests in tree branches and grass and feasted on eggs. In the lowlands and swamps there were snails and caterpillars.
For dessert there were honeycombs of wild bees. To get them, perhaps ancient people used fire, or rather, smoke from fire, as they still do today. In this photograph, a man from the Mbuti people living in the Congo smokes bees out of their nest with smoke.
Each clan or tribe had its own territory in which they fed. In those habitats where people lived, where there was a change of seasons (in the tropics and near the equator there was no clearly defined change of seasons), perhaps gatherers moved to new places following the appearance of edible food. In the spring they collected dandelion shoots and nettle leaves in forest clearings, by mid-summer they collected fruits and berries, and in the fall they found edible mushrooms.
The larvae of some insects, as well as grasshoppers, beetles, and termites, were eaten and were a valuable source of protein. To this day, insects are part of the diet of Australian aborigines.
The menu of Stone Age people included eggs of a variety of birds - from small quails to giant ostrich eggs. Eggs were one of the most valuable foods that foragers consumed. The egg shells were used for decorations.
After the last ice age, about 12 thousand years ago, the climate became warmer and more comfortable for life. Thanks to the melted glacial waters that filled the lowlands, basins and valleys, lakes arose and rivers overflowed widely. Fish, shellfish, and crustaceans became the new food of ancient people. On the coasts, settlements of people who hunted fishing, fished from primitive boats and from the banks, collected crabs and mussels and turtles in the shallows, and hunted waterfowl. They also used cages-traps woven from flexible willow branches, into which swimming fish fell.
The coast was a source of food for humans all year round. Along the sandy shores and on the rocks, flooded with water during high tides, one could find tasty mussels - mollusks that live inside the closed valves of shells. Scallops and snails lived in the shallows, crabs crawled among the stones, and algae leaves were also eaten.
During archaeological excavations in coastal areas, at the sites of ancient people, accumulations of remains of edible shellfish shells, fish bones and skeletons are often found - the so-called “kitchen heaps”. This “prehistoric garbage dump” can tell a lot about the lifestyle and food habits of ancient people. Sometimes broken tools and shards of broken dishes are found in the same heaps.
During the Ice Age, tundra and cold steppes stretched along the edge of the glacier. Herds of bison, horses, reindeer, and woolly mammoths moved along them in search of food. Ancient hunters used spears, stone axes, and sometimes built animal traps, such as pits, or drove herds into traps. After the Ice Age, it became warmer, and with the spread of forests, hunters began to make arrows and bows, which made it possible to kill animals from some distance. Around 12 millennium BC. ancient hunters attracted domesticated dogs. The prey was used entirely: meat, skins, and bones. The meat was used for food and stored for a rainy day. Clothing was made from animal skins and canopies and roofs were made for dwellings similar to Indian wigwams. Animal fat was used for lighting in primitive lamps, clothing was sewn together with sinew, and parts of tools were held together. Tools, harpoons, and weapons were made from horns and bones.
Hunting a giant mammoth required the combined efforts of several hunters. Mammoths were huge - they reached 5 m in height and weighed more than 10 tons. If the hunt was successful, one carcass of this animal could help feed the clan for several months. Some scientists believe that during the warming period after the Ice Age, it was the hunting of prehistoric people that led to the almost complete destruction and extinction of mammoths. According to another theory, mammoths disappeared due to climate change and lack of food, like many other representatives of megafauna.
Unlike mammoths, musk oxen (or musk oxen) managed to survive after the Ice Age. Currently, these are one of the largest representatives of the fauna living in the tundra. Musk oxen are distinguished by shaggy dark hair hanging from the sides to the ground, rounded sharp horns, and a stocky body. Bisons Numerous caves are often decorated with almost life-size images of bison, as, for example, in caves in southwestern France and northern Spain. These images are almost 18 thousand years old! It was probably at that time that ancient people hunted bison, which were numerous in Eurasia. Now, of that diversity of bison species, only the American bison remains (it was also practically exterminated, but by the end of the 19th century) and the European bison, which lives exclusively in nature reserves.
Illustration copyright Thinkstock
They didn't eat pizza or curry. They didn't know the taste of the cake. They hunted for meat, fished, and collected nuts and berries in the forests. And, according to some sources, Paleolithic people, who lived between 2.5 million and 10 thousand years ago, followed the most suitable diet for modern life.
The argument for the so-called Paleolithic diet is that the human body adapted to life during the Stone Age, and since our genetics have changed very little since then, from a biological point of view we are much better suited to the hunter-gatherer diet that existed before the agricultural revolution.
Specifics may vary depending on the diet version, but in general it is recommended to abstain from dairy products and grain-based foods such as pasta, bread or rice, and some versions also prohibit lentils and beans. Proponents of this diet argue that new diseases - heart failure, diabetes and cancer - arose primarily due to the incompatibility of our modern eating habits with prehistoric anatomy.
But what is the evidence that the food of primitive people is better for us? There are two questions to answer here. First, is it true that we are biologically identical to Stone Age people? And if so, then secondly, does that mean we should eat the same? Would such a diet be healthier for us?
Illustration copyright Thinkstock Image caption Ancient man faced two tasks: to find food and not to become food.Followers of the Paleolithic diet say that the reason we should eat it is because our bodies, especially our digestive systems, are adapted to these foods. It is argued that consuming dairy and other foods that were unavailable before the advent of agriculture challenges both evolution and our bodies. A 2012 Polish study estimates that Westerners get 70% of their daily energy needs from foods that early humans ate very rarely or not at all: dairy products, grains, refined sugars and processed fats.
Evolutionary biologists take a different view. Marlin Zook of the University of Minnesota in the US, author of Paleofantasy, says that because different genes change at different rates, there is no reason to believe that we are genetically identical to people who lived during the Pleistocene era. That's not how evolution works - it doesn't stop after creating the "perfect man." People have never stopped developing. As Zook explains, "Some of the genes we had back in the Pleistocene are the same genes we inherited from ocean-dwelling creatures. Yet no one is asking us to eat like biofilter animals do." ".
Illustration copyright Thinkstock Image caption Prehistoric people didn't eat this. But it’s not a fact that they wouldn’t like itAn example of relatively recent genetic changes that occurred approximately 7 thousand years ago is the so-called persistence of lactase. Babies feed exclusively on milk, but ancient man after the cessation of maternal feeding, it became an unusual food and could cause stomach pain and diarrhea. People began raising cattle for their meat and hides rather than for their milk. But those who managed to digest dairy products without experiencing discomfort could drink cow's milk. This gave them an evolutionary advantage: not only did they have an additional source of food, but also a clean drink. And they survived, passing on to their children a gene variant that helps digest milk. More and more adults could drink milk, to varying degrees in different places.
One way or another, whether we are genetically identical to cavemen or not, there is a possibility that the Paleolithic diet is still healthier for us. Few would argue that eating refined foods all the time is not very healthy, or that we would benefit from eating more fruits and vegetables.
Roughly speaking, if you compare junk food with the Paleolithic diet, the latter will undoubtedly win. But what if you compare it to a healthy diet?
Only a small part of the research is devoted to this. It suggests that we tend to lose weight faster on a Paleolithic diet, but most of these studies cover a short period of time, asking participants to stick to the diet for three weeks or so, and there aren't very many subjects.
One review cited samples of only 10, 29, 14, and 13 people. It's not always easy to convince people to try this diet. One study ended prematurely because no new participants could be found after six months.
Illustration copyright Thinkstock Image caption Prehistoric people did not damage their eyesight with computersAt the beginning of this year, publications appeared claiming that proof had finally been found that we should eat like Stone Age people. The reason for these statements was the results of a long-term randomized controlled trial. It took two years, but compared to the previous ones, this is enough long term. The sample was also larger than before. The study involved 70 obese postmenopausal women. middle age which amounted to 60 years.
For two years, they followed either the Paleolithic diet or the low-fat Scandinavian diet, which does not eliminate any meals but emphasizes low-fat dairy products and fiber-rich foods such as whole grain cereals. Within each diet, subjects had to adhere to specified ideal proportions of protein, fat and carbohydrates.
So what? Participants in both groups lost weight, but after six months, women on the Paleolithic diet lost more weight and had smaller waists than women on the Nordic diet. It seemed that this diet was better, but then everything changed.
Illustration copyright Thinkstock Image caption A person with an iPad is not the final link in evolution, scientists sayAfter two years, there was no difference in weight between the two groups. The only difference was in the level of harmful fats in the blood, triglycerides, but within the safe range. Participants in both groups admitted that these diets were quite difficult to stick to, and most were unable to maintain the desired balance of nutrients.
So there is no convincing evidence yet that we should eat like prehistoric people.
Of course, there is nothing healthy about eating a diet consisting mainly of refined foods such as white bread and sweet cereals. But this doesn't mean you should avoid all dairy products and grains unless you have specific problems with them.
In a three-week 2011 study, people found it difficult to maintain recommended daily intakes of calcium, iron, and fiber with the Paleolithic diet. But studies are difficult to compare because they don't all study exactly the same diet.
When it comes to weight loss, the advice will always be boring: eat less and exercise more. Perhaps this is why any diet that offers an alternative looks attractive to us. But, unfortunately, the magic pill has not yet been invented.
Legal information. This article only contains general information and should not be construed as a substitute for the advice of a physician or other health care professional. The BBC is not responsible for any diagnosis made by a reader based on material on the site. The BBC is not responsible for the content of other sites linked to this page and does not endorse commercial products or services mentioned on those sites. If you are concerned about your health, consult your doctor.
Apparently, this is associated with the appearance and use of first natural, and then, and most importantly, artificial tools: from primitive to very advanced (flakes, hand axes, digging sticks, stone knives and axes, spears, boomerangs, blowpipes, bows etc.). Proto-people were engaged in gathering (the occupation of mainly women and children), hunting, and, where there were bodies of water, fishing (the occupation of men).
A transition is gradually taking place from an appropriating economy to a reproducing one, that is, from gathering to gardening and field growing, from hunting to cattle breeding. This transition is also marked by the transition of some of the primitive tribes to a sedentary lifestyle.
A life based on the consumption of products taken from nature must necessarily be a vagabond life. The change of place of settlement was due to the fact that it was necessary to keep up with the harvest of certain fruits, or with the peculiarities of the movements of animals and fish. It must be said that the menu of primitive man was very diverse and included everything that could be consumed: not only mushrooms or berries, not only herbs and young shoots of some trees. They ate insects, larvae, worms, mosses, various roots, fruits of various trees and everything that you could imagine. The African continent is rich in flora. It would seem that the savages should have lived in abundance, but this is far from the case. In the best, most well-fed times, primitive people ate no more than once a day. But there have been some better times. Maybe that’s why they lived in primitive times for an average of about 20 years.
For quite a long time, the woman supplied the bulk of the food, and it was through her efforts that the tribe somehow survived. Gathering, although not the most efficient type of activity in terms of the amount of product produced, is nevertheless distinguished by its rather high constancy. For good or ill, a woman brings something every time so that she can somehow feed a hungry family. “When, after an unsuccessful hunt, a man, silent and tired, returns to camp and throws next to him a bow and arrows that he did not have to use, a woman takes from her basket a touching set: several orange fruits of the buriti palm, two large poisonous tarantula farts, several lizards and their tiny eggs, a bat. Small fruits of the bakayuwa palm or uaguassu and a handful of grasshoppers... Then the whole family cheerfully destroys the dinner, which would not be enough to satisfy the hunger of one white man.” Hunting, of course, has much richer results, but the results are not frequent. Especially before the invention of the first remote weapon - the bow. Practically unarmed, not possessing a single superior animal quality, our distant ancestor experienced enormous difficulties in hunting. Success did not follow him. Although, when he managed to achieve his goal, it was a celebration. Probably no civilized person is able to understand what food meant in those distant times, especially abundant food.
There are some oddities in our modern customs. In particular, our attitude towards food: why do people eat all the time? They eat when they gather together for a holiday, they eat when they have buried and have not yet mourned loved one, sit down at the table. There is not a single religion that does not pay attention to how, how much, when and what a person should eat. Isn’t our such close attention to food a reaction to long and for a long time constant hunger that humanity experienced?
Food was a holiday, a triumph of life over death, a pleasure incomparable to any other. Food was an individual victory over all the forces of evil that had gathered to destroy man. K. Lévi-Strauss in “Sad Tropics” describes the state of satiety after hunger this way. He was on an expedition, there was a period of drought, all the game was gone and people were starving. Once I managed to shoot a wild pig. “Meat undercooked with blood had a more stimulating effect on us than wine. Each one ate at least a pound, and then I understood what explained the widespread opinion among many travelers about the gluttony of the “savages.” It is enough to live their lives at least a little to experience insatiable hunger and understand that satisfying it brings something more than satiety - happiness.” There he writes that they soon found themselves in a damp forest, from where the sounds of animals could be heard. “For three days we went hunting in the forest and returned to the camp, loaded with game. We were seized by some kind of frenzy: all we did was cook and eat.”
Unlike animals, primitive people began to process natural products for consumption. The production and use of fire played a big role in this (and not only this). Initially adapting caves for life, man gradually learned to build dwellings (common houses, wigwams, tents, etc.). With the development of special climatic zones, clothing began to develop, including in rather complex forms.
Thus, all the life activity of people was specially and variously processed, designed and improved, in comparison with what natural beings had. In the use and production of food, things, and in the created objects themselves, spiritual experience was clearly embodied, which could not have happened without the development of thinking (at least the so-called “manual”), as well as forms of communication, sign (linguistic) activity.
All this suggests that certain techniques have appeared for processing, creating and using things and signs that do not exist in nature. Non-natural, non-genetic ways of storing and transmitting techniques and skills have also appeared. These were not hereditary behavioral programs, like those of bees or ants. What arose was a seemingly primitive (by our, not always correct, standards), but clearly spiritual activity.
In the life of tribal communities they played a huge role different shapes learning various types activities, including ritual and play forms. In these communities, stable non-natural forms of life, relationships between people, connecting them, and norms of action appeared.
In fact, all the studied communities were characterized by special burials of the dead, special beliefs, visual activities, developed rituals, mythological consciousness, and a variety of magic.
That is, the life of primitive man, in comparison with the life of natural beings, turns out to be specifically (unnaturally) shaped. Forms appear in it that can already be considered forms of culture, thanks to which people artificially integrated into environment, on a basis other than natural beings.
This state became possible and suitable for further development, for the primordial people, the primitive people, perhaps the greatest difficulty in their integration into the world around us. This difficulty consisted in the need to overcome, or, better said, to identify, one’s value status, one’s place in the world.
For a purely natural being there is no such difficulty and cannot be. The animal is identical to itself and nature in itself, therefore nothing like this arises. Proto-man found himself alienated from nature within himself, and in order to remove this alienation, he had to build some construct that would define or give him a place in the world. In other words, a construct that determines the value significance of its current presence. And the creation of such a construct, which carries within itself a function that is not at all explanatory, but, first of all, of an organizing and value-forming nature, creates a real opportunity for the “integration” of the proto-human into the world, determining his place there, including in the activity and food series.
Here, the opposite of the usual process occurs - value does not depend on the place in the natural world, but on the determination of the value of the proto-man, this or that place in the world is formed. But this kind of “reversal” is quite a common phenomenon in the human world. Throughout human history we will see humanity moving further and further along this path.
Thus, the alienation of man from nature can be removed by creating his own value at the expense of an artificial construct that determines the meaning of the proto-man in existence. This construct cannot but be artificial.
The first milestone on this path, as noted by I. N. Loseva, was the creation of a community on a certain unified basis. And in connection with this internal constitution, it becomes possible to isolate this community as something specific from the amorphous unstructured reality. The basis of community is a certain ritual, which contains the basic positions of the existence of primitive man, such as: the perception of one’s unity, expressed in self-identification as “we”; separation of this “we” from the rest “they”, which are usually perceived hostilely (as O. M. Freidenberg wrote: “Fight is the only category of perception of the world in the primitive hunting consciousness, the only semantic content of its cosmogony and all actions that reproduce it”) ; consolidation and transfer of experience, including aspects of both economic (hunting, cultivation, methods
gathering, making tools, etc.), and social activities (methods of community organization, marriage relations, power structures etc.).
Once, when I was a little girl, my father took me to an archaeological excavation near the Sea of Azov. Scientists have discovered there the ancient Greek city of Tanais, dating back to the fifth century BC. We were surprised that this ancient city found himself deep underground. Over the past 25 centuries, it has gradually been covered with almost 10 meters of land. We had to walk down the steps for a long time to get into its narrow streets and see tiny stone houses surrounded by stone fences. Tanais was so well preserved that it was not difficult to imagine it full of people. I was fascinated by the feeling of physical proximity to ancient life.
We were allowed not only to wander the streets of Tanais, but also to touch some freshly dug up objects. Many small shards and other insignificant things were left lying aside after the scientists carefully examined everything. We found among them many pieces of ceramic dishes covered with curious patterns. But I especially remember a very unusual fossilized fish that looked as if it had recently been dried. I immediately imagined how I would bring this fish, which is two thousand years old, to school with me, but as soon as I touched it, it crumbled into powder.
Not long ago, I experienced equal excitement when reading about recent archaeological discoveries. Article storycalled about the 13 oldest human remains found in East Africa. Scientists determined their age to be 3.6 million years old and called them the “first family.” These primitive people had rounded phalanges of their fingers and, apparently, climbed trees well. Their large molars were covered with a strong layer of enamel, like the teeth of animals that chew a lot of greens. Scientists believe that the first people spent most of their time in trees, where they were better protected from predators and had plenty of food - fruits and leaves. Therefore, they adapted to climb trees.
These first humans, known as Australopithecus, lived in East Africa. At that time, this area was covered with tropical forests. It is clear why our ancestors lived in the tropics - frequent rains, high humidity and warm weather provided an abundance of food all year round. From people who have visited tropical forests, I have heard amazing stories about the countless variety of fruits - about their bizarre shapes, sizes and colors. They say some of them even grow straight from tree trunks. The diversity of fruit plants in tropical forests reaches almost 300 species, very few of which have been cultivated.
Sweet juicy fruits attract not only birds and animals, but even fish when the fruit accidentally rolls into the water. Thanks to this abundance, many terrestrial animals of the tropics live in the canopy of trees. There is such grace for them all year round that some animals never bother looking for food on the ground. (I think I could live like this too, if only I could take my computer with me!)
Based on existing studies, it is logical to assume that the food of the first people consisted of the following components:
* fruits, due to their abundance and diversity;
* green leaves, since most tropical plants are evergreen, have broad leaves, are edible and extremely rich in nutrients;
* inflorescences, since most fruit trees bloom with bright flowers that are sweet and nutritious;
* seeds and nuts, as they are an important source of protein;
* insects, as they make up more than 90% of all animal species in the rainforest, and most of them are edible and nutritious. Some insects fell into the food of primitive people directly from fruits;
* bark, since tropical trees have extremely thin and smooth bark, which is often edible and aromatic (one example is our popular cinnamon).
Primitive people were more intelligent than other inhabitants of tropical forests - they took the most valuable fruits and other types of food than other animals could get for themselves. Because people had more food, they reproduced faster. With the increase in the number of people, there was inevitably a shortage of food. As plant food became more and more scarce, primitive people began to eat small animals first, and then switched to large ones.
The instinctive desire to possess food resources is deeply embedded in the consciousness of most living beings on our planet. We can find many examples of reflexive defense of territory among a wide variety of inhabitants of the Earth. Not long ago I visited a chicken farm in California. I was surprised that the tips of the birds' beaks were cut off. The farmers explained to me that such a measure was necessary, because whenever the chickens become crowded in the cage, they begin to cruelly peck each other incessantly. I noticed that, even despite the measures taken, some birds continued to fight and many of them were bleeding. I remembered watching chickens in my grandmother’s yard as a child. They had plenty of space and never pecked at each other.
I once participated in a seminar on the behavior of wild chimpanzees. Speaker Hogan Sherro had a PhD in anthropology from Yale University. He described how he lived in the jungles of Africa, observing the behavior of these animals. Chimpanzees proved to be loving and caring in everyday life, but everything changed when it came to defending their territory. Approximately every 10 days, male chimpanzees went “on patrol,” bypassing the borders of their “domains” and brutally killing any aliens from other chimpanzee families who encroached on their territory. I believe that the first people behaved in a similar way.
As the number of primitive people increased, the amount of food consumed grew rapidly. Over the course of 3,000,000 years, once abundant food sources became depleted, and the territories of East and Central Africa became severely overpopulated. Eventually people were forced to move in all directions, beyond the rainforest. By the time the species was formedHomo sapiens (Homosapiens), about 120,000 years ago, our ancestors were forced to migrate to the Middle East, South Africa, Europe, Central Asia and finally to the New World. This movement lasted for many centuries. Researchers estimate that people migrated to new territories, moving about 1.5 km every 8 years.
The further people moved away from the tropics, the scarcer the most nutritious vegetation became, and its availability began to depend on the seasons. Like all living beings trying to survive, the body of primitive people began to adapt to the changing climate and available food. You can often hear discussions about whether primitive people ate meat. There can be no doubt that they ate meat. I think you and I would eat too if we had to face such cruel conditions.
Nowadays, from time to time we hear stories of survival of people who happened to get lost in the wild. From these stories we learn how those who managed to survive had to eat unusual food - insects, lizards, raw fish, mushrooms, and sometimes even their own shoes. Most of these people only managed to survive for a few weeks. By comparison, 200,000 years ago people had to survive the long, cold winter months year after year. They were forced to overcome long periods hunger, and many of them died from exhaustion. Ancient people had no choice but to useanyfood to survive. There is no doubt that they tried to eat everything that crawled, flew, ran or swam. Catching a bird (or eating its eggs), an insect or other small animal was much easier than catching a large animal, but small prey was not enough even to feed one person, not to mention a large family. The meat of a large animal was enough to feed a large group of people for several days. So the ancient people needed to master various hunting skills.
Nevertheless, the first people always instinctively gravitated towards plant foods when they became available, because plants, especially greens, as evidencewits modern science, are a vital source of nutrients for humans. In addition, collecting plants was not as difficult and dangerous as hunting. People collected and ate a large number of different plants, including leaves, fruits, roots, nuts, seeds, berries, inflorescences, mushrooms, sprouts, bark, algae and much more. We can only guess how many different plants they consumed, perhaps thousands. Anthropology professor Daniel Moerman, in his book “Ethnic Botany of the American Indians,” describes 1,649 species of edible plants that were used by the American Indians. This is why in history textbooks, primitive people are called not only “hunters,” but also “gatherers.”
To imagine how the first people discovered grains, and later bread, I imagine myself in a forest 200,000 years ago. I'm barefoot, I'm cold, hungry and scared. What would I do? After an unsuccessful insect hunt, I would probably look through the dry grass. I would probably find several different grains there. I would probably taste them. These grains would probably be better than nothing, but some of them might be too hard to chew. If I were smart enough, I would find a rock and try to crush the grains to make them easier to eat. If I happened to do this in the rain, over time I would realize that crushed grains mixed with water taste better. I would repeat this process again and again until I invented flatbread, bread, porridge and other products. For thousands of years, people ate their “bread” raw. The first bread was nothing more than crushed grass seeds mixed with water and “baked” on stones heated by the sun.
Since primitive people had limited means of storing plant food in cold weatherFor the first half of the year, they were forced to hunt more in winter. My guess is that most of the meat went to the males, while the females, who were almost always pregnant or lactating, could not hunt much (nor could small children). If they did not eat up the leftover meat after the males, they had to supplement their diet with plant food even in winter, when it was scarce and less nutritious.
An interesting fact is that the domestication of plants began more than four thousand years earlier than the domestication of animals, despite the fact that the process of growing plants was much more complex than the domestication of animals. The first people did not have rakes or shovels, not to mention the means of irrigating fields. The collected seeds were very difficult to protect from rodents and birds. But somehow the first people managed to plow, and sow, and weed, and water, and reap, and transport what they grew long before they were able to use the help of domestic animals. Compare how much easier it would be to tame a few wild goats.
However, the first signs of cultural gardening date back to the 11th century BC, and possibly earlier, while animals began to be domesticated 4,000 years later, in the 7th century BC.
Thus, plant foods were most likely the most essential component of the diet of our ancestors. Anthropological research shows that agriculture developed rapidly simultaneously in different regions. This confirms the value plant products for ancient people. For example, in the 11th century BC, people began to use wooden scythes edged with silicon to collect wild cereals.
Eight thousand years ago, wild wheat and barley were grown in ancient Egypt. At the same time inhabitedThe people of (modern) Switzerland grew lentils, and on the island of Crete, ancient farmers grew almonds). Seven thousand years ago, Mesoamericans began growing pumpkins, peppers and avocados. Five thousand years ago, the Chinese began cultivating soybeans. They used 365 types of herbs in their cooking (which is about 10 times more than what our local health food store can offer). Four thousand years ago, Mesopotamian farmers grew onions, turnips, beans, leek and garlic.
Plant foods, especially greens, have remained an essential component of the human diet from ancient times to the recent past, especially for people of limited means. Peasants ate a large amount of greens. The classic of Russian literature Leo Tolstoy in his famous book “War and Peace” wrote: “The Russian peasant does not starve when there is no bread, but when there is no quinoa” (nowadays quinoa is considered a weed). Another example can be found in the book of the German poet I.-W. Goethe, who made the following observation: “Peasants everywhere eat thistles.”
In Russian and Bulgarian, a person who sold greens was called a “greengrocer.” Currently, this word is completely forgotten and can only be found in old books and dictionaries. The fact that the term is still listed in dictionaries indicates its relatively recent use. From classical literature we know that greengrocers flourished only 150 years ago, but now they have disappeared.
You can find many other facts that directly point to the popularity of fresh plants in the diet of our ancestors until recent centuries, when the consumption of boiled and refined foods increased sharply.
For many centuries, people considered meat to be the most healthy food perhaps due to its stimulantgood taste and a long-lasting feeling of satiety. However, most people could not afford meat and ate it only occasionally. Upper-class people ate animal foods - game, fish, beef, pork, lamb, poultry and eggs - almost daily; so they often had overweight and suffered from many degenerative diseases. But even the richest people consumed large amounts of fruits, vegetables and greens in different types, which is obvious from the 14th century recipe given below.
Translation of the recipe
Salad. Take parsley, sage, green garlic, shallots, lettuce, leeks, spinach, borage, mint, primrose, violets, green onions, leeks, fennel and garden cress, rue, rosemary, purslane; wash them clean. Clean (remove stems, etc.). Tear into small pieces with your hands and mix well with raw vegetable oil; add vinegar and salt and serve.
This recipe, which has come down to us from the 14th century, is the earliest example compiled in English. Most recipes at that time were created for the menu of the upper class. According to the strict ethics that was observed in the Middle Ages, the menu included the necessary “sequence of serving to the table,” according to which most household members were entitled to only the first course of dishes. The most delicious dishes were served only to the main members of the family. Interestingly, it was natural to eat the healthiest foods first (salads), leaving the heavier and sweeter foods for the end of the meal.
In addition to the fresh fruits and vegetables that people in the Middle Ages ate during the summer, they stocked their cellars with fruits and vegetables.for the winter. They fermented barrels of cabbage, pickled mushrooms, pickled tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, apples, beets, turnips, cranberries, garlic, and even watermelons. Prepared vegetables were usually stored in wooden barrels in cellars. Both rich and poor people stored root vegetables, dried mushrooms, dried herbs, apples, nuts and dried fruits for the winter. They prepared from animal food dried fish, dried meat and salted lard. An important source of vitamins were the juices of various pickled fruits and berries and wine. Most of the food in the cellars was raw.
