Should You Follow an Ancestral Diet to Boost Health and Longevity?

[ad_1]

Should You Follow an Ancestral Diet to Boost Health and Longevity? | Legion

“No Return Necessary” Money-Back Guarantee | Free Shipping & Returns | Save 20%

Free Shipping | 100% Money-Back Guarantee“No Return Necessary” Money-Back Guarantee | Save 20%

Home / Blog / Nutrition / Should You Follow an Ancestral Diet to Boost Health and Longevity?

Written by Michael Matthews

Evidence Based

Is eating like our ancient ancestors the key to unlocking maximum health, happiness, and vitality?

On the credit side of the ledger, the “ancestral diet” movement encourages eating a lot of nutritious foods like meat, fish, eggs, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, and it discourages the consumption of highly processed fare and potentially harmful chemicals like artificial sweeteners.

A hop on the good foot. But then there’s the bad thing.

All formulas of “evolutionary eating” involve purportedly-principled-but-actually-arbitrary restrictions that make your diet more cumbersome and less enjoyable (“only eat fruits and vegetables that are in season,” “don’t eat grains, legumes, or dairy,” “never eat vegetable oil,” etc.).

That is, while the lists of what you’re supposed to eat are mostly reasonable, there’s little scientific evidence to support the exclusion of what you’re not supposed to eat:

Dairy products are a good source of calcium, protein, vitamin D, potassium, magnesium, zinc, and several other vitamins, and research shows that they can improve bone health, muscle mass, strength, and weight management.
Whole grains have been shown to reduce inflammation in the body and decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer, and even reduce mortality.
Non-soy legumes decrease total and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels and are a good source of protein, carbohydrate, and fiber.
Vegetable oil isn’t unhealthy per se (the details matter).

Moreover, all of the popular “caveman diets” don’t even represent what early humans actually ate, and even if they did, the rationale for adopting them is fundamentally flawed.

Ancestral advocates often claim that our primitive predecessors were primarily hunter-gatherers, with an emphasis on hunting, but a plethora of research says otherwise.

For example . . .

A study conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology reported that the diet of our early human ancestors, dating from about 2 million years ago, consisted almost exclusively of leaves, fruit, wood, and bark—similar to chimpanzees today.
A study conducted by the University of Calgary found that the diet of ancient Africans (going back as far as 105,000 years) may have been based on the cereal grass sorghum.
Research conducted by the Center for Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology shows that the European Neanderthals ate starchy grains, nearly 44,000 years ago.
Researchers from the Italian Institute of Prehistory and Early History also found that grains were regularly eaten by our Paleolithic ancestors. Their findings suggest that processing vegetables and starches, and possibly even grinding them into flour, goes back as far as 30,000 years in Europe.
Scientists at Oxford University identified tuber in the enamel of a 3-million-year-old Australopithecus tooth, suggesting that even pre-humans may have eaten potato-like vegetables.

We can also look to present-day hunter-gatherer tribes whose customs and lifestyles have remained unchanged for centuries.

The most extensively studied tribe is the Hadza tribe from central Tanzania, Africa. Since the Hadza group resides in the tropical forest, their diet mainly consists of tubers, berries, meat, baobab (a type of fruit), and honey (with honey being the most important).

The Maasai tribe is another relevant example, and studies show that their diet is still based around milk and blood from cows and soups derived from herbs and also contains berries and other wild fruits and honey.

Another hole in the “prehistoric preeminence paradigm” is early humans probably weren’t as healthy as many people think.

In one 2016 study conducted by scientists at Georgia Institute of Technology, researchers studying ancient human genomes found that hereditary disease risks were similar for ancient and modern-day humans.

There was also evidence that ancient pastoralists (farmers whose diet mainly comprised vegetables and dairy products) may have had healthier genomes than hunter-gatherers and that genomes from the recent past are likely healthier than genomes from the distant past.

For instance, the overall genomic health of the Altai Neanderthal (early humans from a region of Siberia) is worse than 97% of present-day humans, and Ötzi, the “Tyrolean Iceman,” had a genetic predisposition for gastrointestinal and cardiovascular disease.

So, to summarize, atavistic eating gets a lot right for the wrong reasons and a lot wrong for the wrong reasons (marketing).

(If reading this has got you thinking ancestral dieting isn’t right for your circumstances and goals, take the Legion Diet Quiz, and in less than a minute, you’ll know exactly what diet is right for you. Click here to check it out.)

+ Scientific References

Heaney, R. P. (2009). Dairy and bone health. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 28 Suppl 1, 82S-90S. https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.2009.10719808
Josse, A. R., Tang, J. E., Tarnopolsky, M. A., & Phillips, S. M. (2010). Body composition and strength changes in women with milk and resistance exercise. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 42(6), 1122–1130. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0B013E3181C854F6
Van Loan, M. (2009). The role of dairy foods and dietary calcium in weight management. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 28 Suppl 1, 120S-129S. https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.2009.10719805
Masters, R. C., Liese, A. D., Haffner, S. M., Wagenknecht, L. E., & Hanley, A. J. (2010). Whole and refined grain intakes are related to inflammatory protein concentrations in human plasma. The Journal of Nutrition, 140(3), 587–594. https://doi.org/10.3945/JN.109.116640
Katcher, H. I., Legro, R. S., Kunselman, A. R., Gillies, P. J., Demers, L. M., Bagshaw, D. M., & Kris-Etherton, P. M. (2008). The effects of a whole grain-enriched hypocaloric diet on cardiovascular disease risk factors in men and women with metabolic syndrome. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 87(1), 79–90. https://doi.org/10.1093/AJCN/87.1.79
De Munter, J. S. L., Hu, F. B., Spiegelman, D., Franz, M., & Van Dam, R. M. (2007). Whole grain, bran, and germ intake and risk of type 2 diabetes: a prospective cohort study and systematic review. PLoS Medicine, 4(8), 1385–1395. https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PMED.0040261
Jacobs, D. R., Marquart, L., Slavin, J., & Kushi, L. H. (1998). Whole-grain intake and cancer: an expanded review and meta-analysis. Nutrition and Cancer, 30(2), 85–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/01635589809514647
Jacobs, D. R., Andersen, L. F., & Blomhoff, R. (2007). Whole-grain consumption is associated with a reduced risk of noncardiovascular, noncancer death attributed to inflammatory diseases in the Iowa Women’s Health Study. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 85(6), 1606–1614. https://doi.org/10.1093/AJCN/85.6.1606
Bazzano, L. A., Thompson, A. M., Tees, M. T., Nguyen, C. H., & Winham, D. M. (2011). Non-soy legume consumption lowers cholesterol levels: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Nutrition, Metabolism, and Cardiovascular Diseases : NMCD, 21(2), 94–103. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.NUMECD.2009.08.012
Henry, A. G., Ungar, P. S., Passey, B. H., Sponheimer, M., Rossouw, L., Bamford, M., Sandberg, P., De Ruiter, D. J., & Berger, L. (2012). The diet of Australopithecus sediba. Nature, 487(7405), 90–93. https://doi.org/10.1038/NATURE11185
Mercader, J. (2009). Mozambican grass seed consumption during the Middle Stone Age. Science (New York, N.Y.), 326(5960), 1680–1683. https://doi.org/10.1126/SCIENCE.1173966
Henry, A. G., Brooks, A. S., & Piperno, D. R. (2011). Microfossils in calculus demonstrate consumption of plants and cooked foods in Neanderthal diets (Shanidar III, Iraq; Spy I and II, Belgium). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(2), 486–491. https://doi.org/10.1073/PNAS.1016868108
Revedin, A., Aranguren, B., Becattini, R., Longo, L., Marconi, E., Lippi, M. M., Skakun, N., Sinitsyn, A., Spiridonova, E., & Svobodah, J. (2010). Thirty thousand-year-old evidence of plant food processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(44), 18815–18819. https://doi.org/10.1073/PNAS.1006993107
Hardy, K., Brand-Miller, J., Brown, K. D., Thomas, M. G., & Copeland, L. (2015). THE IMPORTANCE OF DIETARY CARBOHYDRATE IN HUMAN EVOLUTION. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 90(3), 251–268. https://doi.org/10.1086/682587
Challa, H. J., Bandlamudi, M., & Uppaluri, K. R. (2022). Paleolithic Diet. StatPearls. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482457/
Marlowe, F. W., & Berbesque, J. C. (2009). Tubers as fallback foods and their impact on Hadza hunter-gatherers. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 140(4), 751–758. https://doi.org/10.1002/AJPA.21040
Kimondo, J., Miaron, J., Mutai, P., & Njogu, P. (2015). Ethnobotanical survey of food and medicinal plants of the Ilkisonko Maasai community in Kenya. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 175, 463–469. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JEP.2015.10.013
Berens, A. J., Cooper, T. L., & Lachance, J. (2017). The Genomic Health of Ancient Hominins. Human Biology, 89(1), 7–19. https://doi.org/10.13110/HUMANBIOLOGY.89.1.01
Knipper, C., Reinhold, S., Gresky, J., Berezina, N., Gerling, C., Pichler, S. L., Buzhilova, A. P., Kantorovich, A. R., Maslov, V. E., Petrenko, V. G., Lyakhov, S. V., Kalmykov, A. A., Belinskiy, A. B., Hansen, S., & Alt, K. W. (2020). Diet and subsistence in Bronze Age pastoral communities from the southern Russian steppes and the North Caucasus. PloS One, 15(10). https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0239861

Legion Featured Author

Mike Matthews

Mike Matthews is the founder of Legion as well as the author of several award-winning fitness books, including Bigger Leaner Stronger, Muscle for Life, and The Shredded Chef.

His simple and science-based approach to building muscle, losing fat, and getting healthy has sold over a million books and helped thousands of people build their best bodies ever, and his work has been featured in many popular outlets including Esquire, Men’s Health, Elle, Women’s Health, Muscle & Strength, and more, as well as on FOX and ABC.

You can find Mike on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.

Our Most Popular Evidence-Based Articles

Our “No Return Necessary”
Money-Back Guarantee

If you don’t like something of ours, guess what happens next?

No, we don’t request you deliver it to a PO box in the Gobi Desert by carrier pigeon. Nor do we ask you to fill a cursed inkwell with orc’s blood and demon saliva and then use it to complete reams of return forms written in ancient Cyrillic script.

We just . . . wait for it . . . give you your money back. Holy moo cows. And that means you can say “yes” now and decide later.

Free Worldwide Shipping & Returns

Many companies use shipping and handling fees to increase their profit margins, but here at Legion, we hate profits, so our shipping is free!

Okay, so we do dig on profits, but we also go in for happy customers, and free shipping works like gangbusters. So, if you live in the United States, your order ships free regardless of order size, and if you live elsewhere, your order ships free when it’s over $199.

Why the restriction on international orders? Unfortunately, shipping abroad is very expensive, and if we didn’t require a minimum order size, we’d lose a lot of money. But! We’re also hustling to improve our international logistics and will be passing our savings along to our international customers.

Also, if you don’t absolutely love our stuff for whatever reason, we don’t request you deliver it to a PO box in the Gobi Desert by carrier pigeon.

We just . . . wait for it . . . give you your money back. No returns. No forms. No nonsense. Holy moo cows.

That means you can say “yes” now and decide later. You really have nothing to lose.

Clinically Effective Doses

Many ingredients in supplements don’t have any scientifically validated benefits, and many ingredients that do are often underdosed to the point of irrelevance.

That’s why we only use the choice ingredients and precise doses shown to be effective in peer-reviewed scientific studies.

Clinically Effective Doses

You need more than great ingredients to make great products—you also need proper doses. That’s why we use the precise doses of ingredients shown to be effective in peer-reviewed scientific studies.

100% Natural Ingredients

“Natural” doesn’t always mean “better,” but in many cases, natural ingredients are superior to artificial ones for various reasons, including purity, safety, and efficacy.

That’s why all of our ingredients in all of our products come from plant and animal sources, including sweeteners, colors, and flavors.

Made in USA

If you want to ensure the supplements you’re swallowing every day are safe and effective, you want products produced in the USA.

That’s why all of our supplements are made in America in NSF-certified and FDA-inspected facilities that operate in accordance with the Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) regulations.

Lab Tested

Did you know that supplements can contain dangerously high levels of toxins like lead, arsenic, and cadmium?

That’s why we test every ingredient of every supplement we produce for heavy metals, microbes, allergens, and other contaminants and ensure they meet the strict purity standards set by the FDA.

Naturally Sweetened & Flavored

While artificial sweeteners may not be as dangerous as some people claim, studies suggest that regular consumption of these chemicals may indeed be harmful to our health.

That’s why all of our supplements are naturally sweetened and flavored and contain no artificial food dyes, fillers, or other unnecessary junk.

Science-Backed Ingredients

Many ingredients in supplements don’t have any scientifically validated benefits. That’s why we only use choice ingredients shown to be effective in peer-reviewed scientific studies.

No Chemical Junk

“Natural” doesn’t always mean “better,” but in many cases, natural ingredients are superior to artificial ones for various reasons, including purity, safety, and efficacy.

That’s why all of our ingredients in all of our products come from plant and animal sources, including sweeteners, colors, and flavors.

Waiver and Release of Liability

In consideration of the services and/or products offered by Legion Athletics, Inc. (“Legion”) including, but not limited to, nutrition plans, exercise routines and coaching, and in addition to the payment of any fee or charge:

I knowingly and voluntarily enter into this waiver and release of liability and hereby waive any and all rights, claims or causes of action of any kind whatsoever arising out of my use of Legion’s services and/or products, and I hereby release and hold harmless Legion and its consultants, officers, contractors, agents, owners and employees from any and all responsibility, liability, cost and expenses, including for injuries, damages or disorders (physical, metabolic, or otherwise), resulting from my use of Legion’s services and/or products.

I understand that fitness activities including, but not limited to, strength, flexibility, and cardiovascular exercise, with or without the use of equipment, are potentially hazardous activities that involve a risk of injury and even death, and I am voluntarily participating in these activities and using equipment and machinery with knowledge of the risks involved. I hereby agree to assume and accept any and all risks of injury or death related to said fitness activities.

I understand Legion’s services and products are not meant to treat or manage any health conditions or circumstances, and I acknowledge that Legion has recommended I obtain a healthcare provider’s approval for my use of Legion’s services and/or products, through regular physical examination(s) and/or consultation. I acknowledge that I have obtained my healthcare provider’s approval or have decided to use Legion’s services and/or products without such approval and hereby assume all responsibility for my use of said services and/or products.

I understand that results from using Legion’s products and/or services are not guaranteed, and I agree to not hold Legion liable for any outcomes or lack thereof.

OUT OF STOCK

Security Check

Please click the checkbox below. We apologize for the inconvenience.

If you don’t absolutely love this product, just let us know, and we’ll give you a full refund on the spot. No forms or return necessary.

Analyzed for purity and potency in a state-of-the-art ISO 17025 accredited lab by Labdoor™, the gold standard of third-party lab testing.

Analyzed for purity and potency in a state-of-the-art ISO 17025 accredited lab, the gold standard of third-party lab testing.

This product doesn’t just “contain natural ingredients’’—every ingredient is naturally sourced from plants and animals. This product contains no artificial or synthetic substances of any kind.

Fact Checked

Our scientific review board of nutritionists, dietitians, molecular biologists, doctors, and other accredited experts is responsible for reviewing every article, podcast, and video we produce to ensure they’re evidence based, accurate, trustworthy, and current.

Thanks to their connections, credentials, and academic experience, this team of MDs, PhDs, and other professionals has access to a wealth of research published in the largest and most prestigious journals in the world.

This allows them to not only review individual studies but also analyze the overall weight of the evidence on any and all topics related to diet, exercise, supplementation, and more.

If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, misleading, out-of-date, or anything less than factual, please let us know in the comments section of the article in question.

Evidence Based

We follow a detailed, rigorous, multi-step process to create content that meets the highest standards of clarity, practicality, and scientific integrity.

First, our research associates provide our editorial team with accurate, up-to-date, proven scientific evidence.

Then, our editorial team uses this research to draft articles and outlines for podcasts and videos.

Finally, our scientific review board reviews the content to ensure all key information and claims are backed by high-quality scientific research and explained simply and precisely.

If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, misleading, out-of-date, or anything less than factual, please let us know in the comments section of the article in question.