The latest study by French anthropologists has proven several theories at once: the first is that the caveman was originally a vegan – over tens of millions of years, during which evolution took place and the biochemistry of the human body was formed, arranged by nature itself for the consumption of plant foods.
The second theory, which many scientists interested in nutrition have circulated in the media as an April Fool’s joke – that thus, we can conclude: the vegetarian branch of humanity died out a long time ago!
A joint group of French researchers from the Higher School of Lyon and the University of Toulouse (named after Paul Sabatier) presented their somewhat shocking discoveries to the public with a publication in the popular science journal Nature.
They conducted a study of tooth enamel from the remains of ancient people using the latest laser technology, and found that the subspecies of primitive man Paranthropus robustus is a “massive paranthropus”, the ancestor of mankind, who ate exclusively fruits, nuts, berries and roots (those that can be picked or dig out by hand), died out millions of years ago due to lack of food (previously, scientists considered it an omnivore).
The representative of another, related, evolutionary branch – Australopithecus africanus (“African Australopithecus”) – turned out to be not so picky, and supplemented their diet with the flesh of dead and killed by large predators of animals. It was this branch that adapted to the famine that then developed into Homo sapiens, “a reasonable man,” which now dominates the earth’s dry land.
The leader of the study, Professor Vincent Balter, said: “In terms of diet, we must conclude that the early Homo (Sapiens, Vegetarian) was omnivorous, while Paranthropus was picky eater.”
This study is interesting from two points of view: firstly, our most distant ancestors were still vegans, and not omnivores, as previously thought, and secondly, it turns out that turning to meat food – historically speaking, was an evolutionarily justified measure ( thanks to this, we survived!), but forced.
It turns out that all of us, in fact, are descendants of Australopithecus, not so picky in food (like Paranthropus), who began to pick up the remains of animals killed by large predators (i.e., learned the behavior of scavengers) – this is how natural selection occurred, which preserved the offspring of omnivores, according to the professor Neil Bernard (author of The Power of Your Plate, a popular healthy eating book).
Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor at Cornell University (USA), explains that if we think in terms of evolution, it was plant foods that made a person the way we see him today, and historically we began to eat meat much later (than formed as a species – Vegetarian). Campbell points out that the biochemistry of the human body has evolved over tens of millions of years, while meat consumption and animal husbandry goes back over 10.000 years—a time period that is disproportionate in its impact on body characteristics.
Kathy Freston, a Huffington Post journalist and vegan nutrition expert, concludes in her article: “The point is that thousands of years ago we were hunter-gatherers, and in times of famine, we did not shun meat, but now there is no need for it. “.
“Despite what we think of ourselves and act like predators, human beings are not natural predators,” agrees Dr. William C. Roberts, editor of the American Journal of Cardiology. “If we kill animals for food, it ends up with animals killing us because their flesh contains cholesterol and saturated fats, which the human body is not designed to consume, because we are originally herbivores.”