Nutrition
Humans Are Carnivores
Are humans genetically adapted to eat meat? Recent research suggests millions of years of evolutionary adaptation to animal-based nutrition—and the Hadza people confirm it daily.
Nutrition
Are humans genetically adapted to eat meat? Recent research suggests millions of years of evolutionary adaptation to animal-based nutrition—and the Hadza people confirm it daily.
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Today's topic: Many people are still fascinated by the question of what type of diet humans are genetically adapted to.
Well, you won't find a completely correct answer to that question simply because there are Africans, Europeans, Asians, Inuit, Aborigines, South Americans, and many other ethnic groups living in diverse ecological niches around the world. So there's no single "genetic human." Nevertheless, humans do share a genetic foundation that has been shaped by evolution over millions of years.
Insights into how metabolism has been shaped over time with respect to diet come not only from countless studies (for example here), but also from our "ancestral human" populations themselves. When you ask the Hadza—people with the "oldest" human genes—what "the most important thing in life is," they answer bluntly: "Meat—meat and honey." And: "Hunting: baboons, antelopes, zebras." Many humans before us likely saw the purpose of life as being able to get meat somehow. The Hadza say about this: "We need meat to be happy."
Mind you: A human in the wild actually needs to eat meat (for example, for B12) in order to survive at all.
A recent study by the now-prominent Miki Ben-Dor (whom we mentioned in our book six years ago), who has been publishing for years about our ancestors' diet, now presents a series of "evidence" for why humans are genetically more of a carnivore—in other words, a meat-eater. "How dare Ben-Dor?" vegans might ask at this point.
Here's an excerpt (the full explanation is in the study):
The authors also mention more recent adaptations to increased plant consumption and note that humans were essentially "meat-eaters" for their entire development over the past two to three million years—though recent adaptations to plant consumption are, according to the authors, insufficient for optimal adaptation to it.
In any case: You only need to close your eyes and imagine a human resettling Europe after the last glacial maximum 20,000 years ago and think about what he might have eaten in the wild—hint: probably not bread and pasta. And certainly not "vegan pea protein." And the particularly starchy root vegetables—the potato—didn't exist either.
So, as always: practice beats theory ;-)
