Chapter 8
The Foundation for a Staying Healthy Diet
The “D” word—diet—doesn’t often excite people. This chapter
will give you a clearer understanding of where our diet may have
come from, examines some common components to many popular
diet programs, and then gives some basic rules about what to eat,
how to shop, and what to have in your house.
Where Did the Human Diet Come From?
Our primate ancestors were predominantly tree dwellers who
consumed what is called the “simian diet,” which consisted mainly
of leaves, fruit, nuts, and things that they could gather from being
tree dwellers.^1 They didn’t consume animal products aside from
maybe a few bugs, worms, and things with all the vegetation they
consumed.
When this population exceeded the space or area that was
available in the tree world, they came down on the ground and
started to eat leaves, roots, fruit, nuts, and then eventually flesh
food—first “leftovers” or carrion (dead animal carcass), and then
man learned with the proper tools how to hunt and kill his own
food. This is commonly called the Paleolithic diet, hunter-gatherer
or caveman type of diet, which occurred possibly from 2.5 million
years ago to 10,000 years ago.^2 Modern day hunter-gatherers have
been estimated to obtain more than 50 percent of their daily en-
ergy intake from animal foods. Most of their food calories come
from wild animal products, vegetables, fruits, and nuts.^3