Paleolithic Diet: Study Says Cave Man Ate Carbohydrates

The Paleolithic diet, which prioritizes the consumption of red meat, became fashionable in the United States, where it was created, and in Europe. And followers of this menu believe that the lack of carbohydrates helped drive the growth of the human brain over the past 800,000 years. Isso until this new search comes out:

According to a study published in the journal Quarterly Review of Biology, researchers found that carbohydrates were available to cavemen in the form of tubers, roots, seeds and certain fruits. In fact, they believe that it is precisely because of the ingestion of these ingredients that our brain developed so quickly. A doctor karen hardy, responsible for the study, explains that a diet based exclusively on meat would not have been enough to increase the growth of the ancient man’s brain, because the process requires a large amount of glucose. And what would be the best way to get that glucose? Betting on carbs.

That’s not to say that eating a bag of potato chips is going to do your brain any good, but that incorporating healthy carbs into your diet like beans, sweet potatoes, yams, and cassava is likely to give you more energy and health than simply cut out the entire food group.

For the nutritionist and biochemist pharmacist Gabriel de Carvalho, it is important to remember that the diet of Paleolithic man was directly related to an environmental issue. That is, he did eat carbohydrates – those available in each region. “The man of that time did not have a regulated diet, nor did he eat four meals a day and rich in nutrients. The big question is: what carbohydrate supply did they have? Seasonal. They didn’t consume the same type of food all year round, as with us, ”he explains.

“In some places, more meat was consumed, and in other areas, fish. But the roots have always been part of the world’s diet, ”he says. The important thing, according to him, is to consider that men were concerned with the energy that such food would provide. Therefore, when they hunted an animal, the first parts consumed were the viscera, because they are full of fat.

What then did not have in the Paleolithic diet: cereals, legumes, sugar, soft drinks, fried foods and animals raised with cereals.

What existed: fruits, but completely different from what we know today. They were less sweet, smaller and lower in carbohydrates. Vegetables of all kinds, roots, oilseeds, meat and eggs.