In other words, without carbs, we might not have the brain capacity to contemplate history and evolution and come up with ideas like a pre-agrarian revolution diet in the first place. At the same time human brains began to increase in size, speeding up rapidly from around 800,000 years ago, in the Mid-Pleistocene.
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That’s the takeaway from a study published this month in the Quarterly Review of Biology, in which Dr. Karen Hardy and her research team argue that the growth of the human brain in the past 2 million years was not due only to the harnessing of fire and cooking of meat, as previously thought. (There is some debate within the Paleo community about which starchy vegetables and how much of them are Paleo-approved, but most recommend limiting them if not barring them entirely.).
Contrary to the popular belief, it has been found out that our ancestors included large doses of carbohydrates in their diets, hence pale dieters who have been trying to imitate their diets for a healthy living maybe doing it wrong by avoiding starchy carbs in their diets.
At some point, our ancestors began to cook that meat, providing even more protein and fat.
But the researchers behind this new paper disagree. Compared to primates, humans have more copies of the amylase gene, allowing people to break down carbohydrates better and benefit from the energy boost.
The evidence of early humans consuming carbohydrates as part of their diets comes from the body’s natural enzyme, amylase, which helps convert nutrients from starches, noted Business Insider. Most certainly, they took their carbohydrates from starch plants, which were a lot easier to digest, but contained the same amount of carbs that bread does today. It would not have been possible for the brain to use up about 25 percent of calories they consume without carbohydrates. And if we could, and it was a great energy source, why wouldn’t we?
Professor Mark Thomas had this to say: “Eating food suited to the way our metabolisms evolved is a fantastic idea, but if you buy a book on the Paleo diet it’s probably rubbish”.
Many think of the Paleolithic diet as a remarkably efficient one at the present time as well, as it is considered that what used to be good for our metabolisms back in the Old Stone Age would be good for us nowadays too. During that time period, more amylase would have been needed by our ancestors in order to digest glucose from starchy crops.
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Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, argues that the Paleo Diet, as it now exists, offers only short term solutions to those looking to loose weight.
