Cavemen's Diet Composition: Find Out Whether Paleo Diet Really Consist Of Vegetables Or Not

The concept of Paleo diet is based on the diet that cavemen actually had. It is the nutritional regime that ancestors followed. But there is no enough evidence of the constituents and details of the diet that ancestors consumed.

But one of the northern Jordan valley's sites in Israel has provided some surprising clues to archaeologists regarding the Paleo diet. The ancient human had a major share of plants and veggies along with the fish and meat in their food pattern.

The ancestors would have eaten veggies, nuts, fruits, water chestnuts, berries, olives acorns and seeds 780,000 years ago as stated in Health. This identification of 55 edible plants was a finding by the researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University.

The authors of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences wrote that their knowledge regarding the diet of early hominins was concluded from animal skeleton remains which led them to a bias towards protein based diet.

Ancestors had a varied diet and they settled in one place. Then they would find food for all days of a year.

Naama Goren-Inbar, a professor from the Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem said in a press release that the ancient humans cooked food before they ate and the use of fire is advantageous as many food items are toxic and inedible.

Roasting nuts and vegetables would allow the use of the full plant. They have also discovered that ancient human used fire, carved wood and also made stone tools as written in Today.

There is no balance between meat and plant as to what was consumed more by cavemen. Many of the vegetables and fruits are known to modern world like raspberries, olives, grapes and water chestnuts while some are not known to be consumed like Johnson weed, reeds, and purple loosestrife. Inbar said that they have a literature written after every food item and all are claimed to be edible.

They used mint and fennel for adding spice and flavor. They also had an intake of figs, pears and jujube (an apple-flavoured fruit).