HISTORY116 - Evolution of the Human Diet
“What we eat,” “what we shouldn’t eat,” and “what we should eat” get a lot of play these days. Many people think that much of the food that we eat today is harmful, causing obesity and health problems. It made me wonder how we (as humans) got to this uncomfortable place. So, I decided to investigate the subject. This blog will cover the evolution of the human diet, from the time of the earliest humans to the present. After a brief review of human evolution, to put the history of what we’ve been eating over the millennia in perspective, I’ll cover the diets of early human species, and then modern humans (homo sapiens). I’ll highlight the beginning of eating meat, and controlling fire and the start of cooking - and talk about the impact on human evolution. I’ll talk about the Agricultural Revolution, some dietary snapshots of early civilizations, the globalization of diets, the Industrial Revolution, and finally our modern diet and its unhealthy impact ...