and as hunter-gatherers we need to walk for distance at least 20 minutes almost every day (automobiles don't just kill us in crashes). .
This is key-though severely understated-and part of what makes the "paleo diet" simply
not paleo at all-not saying that it's a "bad diet"-it's not-in fact, it's a great deal like mine. It's just that the rationale behind it is misplaced and incomplete.
This is how paleothic man hunted before the invention of the spear (earliest example, 400,000 years old, though likely much older) before the invention of the atlatl (pretty solidly late Paleothic) and before the invention of the bow and arrow, very late Paleothic at best. In fact, it's likely that hunts after the invention of the spear also followed such a tactic, though there is some evidence for other tactics like trapping and forcing animals off of cliffs, that also would have required persistence.
Persitence hunting's mechanism is somewhat understated in that article, in that it does not require the high temperatures of the Kalahari. Most mammals cool their bodies by panting-not, as man does, sweating-this limits their ability to run distances. They can run faster than men in spurts, but not over long distances-they
have to stop, whereas a man can jog all day, and run for the better part of it. Imagine not being trained to run a marathon, but standing at the starting line in front of me-and I have a knife. While the motivation to get away from me might be strong enough for you to run quite a ways past your comfort zone-and maybe even comfortably outpacing me-eventually you're going to have to lie down, or turn and fight. This is what it is for deer, antelope, elk, moose, bison, elephants, giraffes, and most of the other mammals we hunt-all that's required is the will to run them down and the ability to track them. Some friends and I actually ran down a deer back in the late 70's, simply to see if we could-I don't recommend this, as it was the worst venison I've ever had to eat..
Such hunting would require a higher ratio of carbs than the "paleo diet" of today: carbs being easier to run on immediately, and the form of energy required for the long runs that were also required to obtain much needed (by this point) meat.
The
consumption of meat in those times also would have followed a different pattern than that described by the diet, which is supported by our culture's technology and ready availabilty of meat products-if your "hunt" consists of "a walk of at least 20 minutes" to the
grocery store, then you haven't really done the work required for that particular reward, have you? Additionally, a "paleo lifestyle" would be seasonal, with higher requirements for such protein and fat in winter, or the Ice Age.
We can see evidence in accounts of North American tribal people, and hunter gatherer bands of Africa:generally, when these people got meat in the form of a large mammal, it was divvied up among the entire band, and they FEAST, as in gorge themselves-though the remainder could be preserved by drying or smoking. We can also see evidence (and support for the "paleo diet") in the Inuit people of the Arctic, whose diet is largely meat, and who are often what we'd perceive as "overweight" but who remain somewhat consistently healthy in terms of blood work and cardiovascular health-in part, likely, because their cold environment requires a larger quantity of fat and protein in the diet, in part because a great deal of the meat that they do consume is higher in Omega-3 fatty acids.
Short answer: if you can't confidently state that you're capable of running for 6 hours, or jogging
all day, if necessary, then it isn't "paleo." If you can do that, then it has to be because
you run daily, and have run that much on a fairly regular basis-and if you can do that, then you've got to be getting closer to 60% of your
daily calories from carbs (yes,
good carbs
) than the "paleo diet" people prescribe.
lol.
.
