The Paleolithic Diet

A short aside from the origins of agriculture... have you ever heard of the palaeolithic diet, more commonly referred to as the paleo diet?

Photo taken from the BHAC website

The diet was founded by Dr. Loren Cordain of the Colorado State University, and is based on the notion that the most beneficial eating habits for human health are the ones that we are genetically adapted to (i.e. the diet of the hunter gatherer). The diet is supposedly associated with a wide range of health benefits from weight control to the reversal of autoimmune disease (Österdahl et al., 2007; Cordain et al., 2005; Frassetto et al., 2009)

So, what can you eat on the paleo diet? In short, modern foods that replicate what our hunter-gatherer ancestors used to eat. The diet is centred around these following food characteristics:

• Higher protein
• Low carbohydrate and glycemic index
• High fibre
• Moderate to high polyunsaturated fats with Omegas 3 and 6
• High potassium, low sodium
• Alkaline
• High vitamin, mineral, antioxidant, and phytochemical content

For example, the paleo diet allows you to eat food items such as grass-produced meats, fish and seafood, fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, nuts and seeds, and oils such as olive, flaxseed, and avocado. A "paleo-friendly" meal could be this lemongrass chicken curry.

If this post has piqued your interest and you'd like to learn more about the paleo diet, check out PaleoHacks' post on the top 25 paleo blogs. Although I do think that consuming more foods rich in vitamins, antioxidants, fibre, etc. is important for overall health, I think I'll be sticking to a more modern diet for the time being. The paleo diet also brings up some environmental questions - for example, if the globe's population increased their intake in protein from animal sources, what would be the consequences in terms of global emissions?  

What are your thoughts on the paleo diet?

The Origins of Agriculture, Part 1

Wheat (source: Wikipedia)

The rise of crops and agriculture marks a major turning point in the story of human subsistence. The transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one where agriculture dominates has fundamentally changed humankind's relationship with its environment and has resulted in significant modifications to the structure and organisation of human populations (Price & Feinman, 2005). But how did it all begin?

Several hypotheses have been brought forward to explain the reason for the origination of agriculture, many of which have been outlined in Current Anthropology's Wenner-Gren Symposium Series (Price & Bar Yosef, 2011). These include the oasis hypothesis (Childe, 1936), the hilly flanks hypothesis (Braidwood, 1960), the population-pressure hypothesis (Binford, 1968), the edge hypothesis (Cohen, 1977), and the social hypothesis (Price & Bar-Yosef, 2010). 

The oasis hypothesis suggests that domestication occurred at oases at the end of the Pleistocene due to increased climatic aridity following deglaciation, while the hilly flanks hypothesis suggests that the earliest domesticated species appear in the original habitats of their wild predecessors. The population-pressure hypothesis, on the other hand, suggests that the imbalance between humans and their food supply created a necessity for agriculture, and expanding on this theory, the edge hypothesis adds that this population pressure was felt most harshly at the edge or boundaries of the habitats of the ancestors of domesticated species. The social hypothesis explores the idea that domestication resulted in social inequality, allowing certain populations to possess a surplus of food. More recently, evolutionary ecological approaches have been used to attempt an explanation for the origins of agriculture, which employ the biological theory of optimal foraging. Greenland ice cores have also been used to formulate hypotheses on the subject, where increases in carbon dioxide levels following the end of the Pleistocene are argued to have favoured agriculture in the Holocene (Bettinger et al., 2010). 

However, the cause of the origination of agriculture is still unclear today, and no single theory can explain why it has occurred. Further research will be necessary to better understand the origins of the global phenomenon that has revolutionised sustenance for human populations.

In the next part of this post, we will continue to examine the origins of agriculture, looking at some of the major centres of agriculture in the Holocene. Until then, I'm leaving you with a map of these centres displaying the earliest domesticated plants and animals, the most ancient including our modern-day staples of wheat and barley appearing in the Fertile Crescent some 10,000 years BP.

Major centres of domestication and dates for earliest plants and animals (Price & Bar-Yosef, 2011)