Hunt, an investigative journalist turned health advocate, drew his conclusions after speaking with evolutionary biology experts and anthropologists who conducted bone and fecal analyses on early human fossils to identify exactly what they ate.
These analyses indicated ancient man consumed primarily animal foods such as large game meat, and obviously, no gluten or processed foods.
Hunt, executive producer of the hit 2012 documentary, The Perfect Human Diet, said humans weren’t meant to be obese and sickly. Experts told CJ the alarming epidemics of obesity, diabetes and heart disease became the norm only after the agricultural revolution, when people started eating grains and processed foods en masse.
In one dramatic scene (see below), Hunt and Dr. Loren Cordain, founder of the Paleo Movement, walk along a 100-yard football field using it as a timeline for the evolution of modern humans. Cordain said the first humans that are similar to modern man first appeared at the zero yard line. Over time, humans evolved into a hunter-gatherer species that survived on a diet of meat and wild plants.
Cordain said grains, legumes and dairy did not even appear in our evolution until the last ½ yard line of the football field, with the advent of the agricultural revolution. Processed junk food — now a staple of modern diets — wasn’t part of our diets until the past 100 years, when obesity, diabetes and cancer mushroomed.
In the companion book to his documentary, Hunt set out to find the solution to diet-related obesity and chronic disease, and his findings were shockingly simple: A low-carb Paleo-based diet is the secret to longevity, natural weight loss, age-defying health and disease prevention.
“The most important thing people need to know is that they can take control of their health,” anti-aging health expert and physician Dr. Lane Sebring said in The Perfect Human Diet companion book. “They don’t need to be dependent on the drug companies. We are what we eat. That’s an old cliche, but it’s absolutely true.”
CJ told me we can solve the obesity crisis by adopting the original Paleo diet that helped humans evolve over millions of years. “Scientifically, a diet emphasizing whole cuts of meat, wild plants and nuts, and eliminating grains, dairy, beans and potatoes is the perfect human diet,” said Hunt.
Analysis of 50,000-year-old fossilized fecal samples show Neanderthals ate mostly meat, as evidenced by coprostanol ratios in their excrement, but they also consumed plants, as suggested by the presence of 5β-stigmastanol. The findings were published in the scientific journal PLoS ONE.
While the idea that caveman lived only to age 30 is popular, CJ Hunt said Paleolithic people routinely enjoyed healthy 70-year lifespans, as long as they survived childbirth, early infancy and didn’t die from an animal attack or infection.
The myth that cavemen all died at age 30 came from averaging their “typical” lifespan with the numerous premature deaths of Paleolithic women during childbirth; the routine early demise of children during infancy from infection; and deaths from animal attacks during hunting.
“The Perfect Human Diet” is an informative book detailing the evolutionary underpinnings of the modern Paleo diet. It offers tips for weight loss and disease prevention, as well as 24 delicious Paleo-inspired recipes.
