Arthur De Vany's Evolutionary Fitness Art's Blog on Fitness, Health, Aging, Nutrition and Exercise

In her comprehensive talk on FORA.tv Teresa Steele covers a few million years of evolution of the human diet. It is virtually identical with the one I put together as I researched my book. The use of fresh water foods in the Rift Valley is one of the themes I emphasize as does she. This moves humans up the trophic chain. Early humans were close to Neanderthal in their carnivory, but their use of fresh water sources of foods, such as catfish and crocodiles (yes, crocs, as was also seen among the Seminoles of Florida), put their nitrogen intake above wolfs. We are carnivores in our evolution.

Early on, she notes the amount of meat humans consume. To do this on modern meats with our low energy expenditures, while adding fats as many in the Paleo community recommend, leads to problems in managing energy balance. The modern energy landscape is entirely different from the Paleo energy landscape and that has to cause some departure from a purely Paleo diet. The problem now is excess energy intake relative to energy expenditure. I think exercise has now become more important than food intake in managing health and lean body composition. Yet, we do not have time to do a lot of exercise. Hence, some depature from Paleo intakes is warranted.

I don't think we can live and work in the modern world and spend enough energy eating modern meats while adding fat to our dietary intake using lard, butter, and manufactured vegetable oils, and still remain as lean as we ought to be. So, that is my answer to those who think I fear fat and don't eat as other Paleo eaters do. That may be true, but I have sound reasons for that and nearly 30 years of experience in reaching the conclusions I have put in the book. For what it is worth, I am evidence that the diet I put forth works. So is my wife and many members of the EF community.

I am not Officially Paleo, nor is anyone else but for some fools. No one knows what Paleo is even in the human evolutionary record. I regard my diet as one based on modern research on metabolism and gene expression that is informed by evolutionary reasoning and evidence. It is also the result of my long experience and my proven results. When the evidence is there, I go beyond the human evidence to those preserved metabolic pathways that span a billion or more years, far beyond the human existence.

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