A dive back into our ancestral eating past reveals quite a bit more about nutrition, weight loss, and interior health than you might think. Imagine: you’re stationed behind a tree, a pre-historic stone tool in your hand.









You remember learning the Paleo era was the first era for human-made tools, but this weird arrowhead attached to a stick is wholly different from your neat spatula and high-tech skillet, your own food tools back in your cozy kitchen. The fight-or-flight hormone has taken hold of you. You’re hungry: and there’s a beast coming toward you. You understand instinctively: you’ll die if this beast doesn’t die. You’ll starve, and your family will starve. It’s simply the evolutionary way.

Phew. Sounds stressful, doesn’t it?





But truly, the Paleolithic era was no easy time for humans. Back then, we only ate what we could catch, hunt, or gather on our wayward walk through the then-nomadic world. We had no real homes; we had no real direction. Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, in which you can only have self-actualization and true happiness when you are safe in your environment with proper food and drink. It’s safe to say, via this hierarchy, these Paleolithic ancestors of ours weren’t exactly living the dream. Probably living past the age of forty due to exterior weather elements was next to impossible.





Therefore, let’s get to the root of the Paleolithic Era, the reason we draw our eyes to this specific grouping of centuries. During the Paleolithic Era, these people were healthy. They were strong; they were lean. And they weren’t exactly reading nutrition labels or counting calories. How did they do it?

The Paleolithic Era, the years between 2,600,000 to 10,000 B.C.E., was the initial Homosapien period; Homosapien is the scientific term for the modern-day human. Suddenly, after many years of evolutionary alterations, we had arrived. During this time, as mentioned, humans began to utilize stone tools to kill game and gather vegetables and fruits; as a result of our then-diet, the general human digestive system created its very unique structure.





Evolutionary speaking, our current digestive system is still living in the Paleolithic Era. Talk about living in the past, right?

The first farmers appeared in about 9,500 B.C.E., and this Agricultural Revolution immediately undid everything the Paleolithic era’s people had done correctly with regards to food intake. Our ancestors began to settle down, farm their food, and incorporate grains and carbohydrates into their diets. It was a less stressful existence, sure, but our digestive system was not ready for this carb-rich lifestyle.

Flash forward thousands and thousands of years, to our present day. We are living in a carbohydrate-laden society, one that looks to packaged and processed foods a full 31% more frequently than natural fruits and vegetables.





At least 1 in 4 people in both the United States and Great Britain eat a formation of fast food every single day, and about 52% of Americans proclaim that doing their taxes is a whole lot easier to comprehend than the idea of losing weight through better nutrition.



