Excess protein enabled dog domestication during severe Ice Age winters

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dog-domestication-may-have-begun-because-paleo-humans-couldnt-stomach-the-original-paleo-diet/

by pseudolus • 6 years ago

142 166 6 years ago

scientificamerican.com

kogens• 6 years ago

It's an interesting take, but wouldn't it be more favourable for the humans to simply dry the meat and save it, e.g. for summer where there are enough other food sources to mix it and avoid the protein overconsumption?

Cold, dry areas are ideal for drying meats, like they do with Norwegian stockfish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockfish

m45t3r• 6 years ago

Did they known how to dry meat though?

AlotOfReading4• 6 years ago

Yes, foraging groups in dry climates are quite sophisticated at short-term meat preservation. I know the Hadza for instance regularly dry meat on nearby tree branches or cook it over a fire.

benglish11• 6 years ago

If a dog is useful it may be a better use of the excess protein, especially for nomadic peoples. The dog will carry around all of that extra meat and provide a service. Drying/storing the meat may also attract predators.

cmrdporcupine6• 6 years ago

If you watch Werner Herzog's "Happy People" documentary about trappers in the Siberian Taiga, and see the relationship between dog and man there, it's easy to see how this relationship could have played out. A bit of frozen fish or meat for the dog, but not too much, means protection and assistance on the trap line, and a companion through the winter.

EDIT: My border collie currently lying behind me on a bed is anxiously and steadily watching me because what she really wants me to do is put on my skis and go for a hike in the woods with her. She won't really be happy until I do that.

virgulino• 6 years ago

Herzog's documentary is just a new cut of the original Russian documentary, adding Herzog's old hippie narrative.

The original version is fantastic, and much more authentic. Available on YouTube, with subtitles, on the director's own channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbhPIK-oBvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIdHG9zyrtE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnAF_amhups https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjCs8qi3R0U

xwdv• 6 years ago

Depends, you want to get fucked up by bears?

mc32• 6 years ago

It’s an interesting theory; on the other hand people domesticated birds of prey to assist with hunting as well (falconry).

yesbabyyes• 6 years ago

My pet theory is that corvids and canines were best friends long before humans came around, and that we have hunted all three together, for mutual benefit.

hirundo• 6 years ago

This has a strangely hostile anti-paleo spin given the core finding. Here's the title:

Dog Domestication May Have Begun because Paleo Humans Couldn’t Stomach the Original Paleo Diet

If they let the wolves eat the lean meat they didn't want, doesn't that mean too-much-lean-meat was not a part of "the original paleo diet"? Does she imagine that we had to eat it before we started to domesticate wolves with it?

“Because we humans are not fully adapted to a carnivorous diet, we simply cannot digest protein very well,” Lahtinen says. “It can be very fatal in a very short period of time.”

Yes, if you eat all lean meat you won't last long on that. But nobody thinks that was the paleo carnivore diet that we adapted to. Our ancestors, if current hunter gathers are a guide, ate nose to tail, prioritizing the fatty parts and eating the lean parts only as necessary, else it became scraps for scavengers.

It's like saying we're not fully adapted to a plant-based diet because it's dangerous to eat too much (insert toxic plant food here). Well sure, but that just means we're better adapted to other plants or plant parts. Like we're better adapted to eating a nose-to-tail animal than just the lean meat.

Retric3• 6 years ago

It’s saying that our ancestors where actively avoiding ketosis which is the core of the Palio diet. Rabbit starvation doesn’t mean we can’t eat rabbits, it means we need to eat other things like fat, carbs while also eating rabbits. However, if your hunting rabbits you don’t have a source of fat in hand.

radford-neal• 6 years ago

You need to eat either fat or carbohydrate to go with the protein. If you're eating fat with the protein (and no carbohydrates), you aren't going to avoid ketosis (and you'll be OK).

scythe• 6 years ago

It’s saying that our ancestors where actively avoiding ketosis which is the core of the Palio diet.

Ketosis and rabbit starvation (ammonia toxicity) are completely different things. The reason that there was too much protein in the meat was that there was not enough fat; carbohydrates are simply not available in Siberian winters.

Also, paleo diets don't aim for ketosis. Those are called keto diets, and for most people they're just a short-term rapid weight loss strategy (also useful long-term in epilepsy and possibly some autoimmune disorders). Paleo by contrast is supposed to be a long-term maintenance diet that usually doesn't aim for rapid weight loss.

Also, the downsides of "too much protein" have been well-known in pretty much every paleo discussion community since forever, since it's a well-known fact of experience among many athletes. The idea that protein toxicity is a problem in practice for paleo is silly (it wouldn't even make the top ten if you listed the real flaws).

I would not advise following paleo diets in the form they're commonly presented -- they place too much emphasis on the wrong things and contribute to the iconoclastic miasma that has been suffocating Western societies -- but the article's comparison is, nonetheless, completely off-base.

AlotOfReading4• 6 years ago

It's important to remember that "paleo" diets have little relationship to what our ancient ancestors actually ate and evolved with. We would have historically not avoided starchy, carb-filled tubers for example, which made up a major portion of the early AMH diet. Additionally, these sites are arctic and near-arctic, where the adapted behavior (and diet) is very different than what it is back in Africa.

dkarl• 6 years ago

I had a similar reaction, not that it's necessarily specifically anti-paleo, but that there was some motivation to cast protein in a negative light. There's a paragraph in the article that seems intentionally designed to become nutritional misinformation, ending with this:

Indeed, if humans eat too much meat, diarrhea usually ensues. And within weeks, they can develop protein poisoning and even die. “Because we humans are not fully adapted to a carnivorous diet, we simply cannot digest protein very well,” Lahtinen says. “It can be very fatal in a very short period of time.”

The next paragraph makes a passing reference to available prey animals often being "nearly devoid of fat," but it doesn't explain that this near complete absence of fat in the diet is necessary to make protein "poisonous."

momirlan• 6 years ago

Does this mean that domestication of raccoons is next ? They seem to enjoy excess protein from urban garbage.

cmrdporcupine6• 6 years ago

As an owner of a border collie, I'm starting to think that certain animals are too smart for domestication. Raccoons, like border collies, might just be better adept at training their humans, rather than the other way around.

:-)

wiremine• 6 years ago

We recently adopted a Sheepadoodle, and this comment really resonated with me. It's a combination of a poodle and an old english sheep dog, which many think are originally from border collies. She's a wonderful animal, but really, really needs mental stimulation! She's got us trained to be sure. :-)

yowlingcat• 6 years ago

Raccoons combine border collie intelligence with /hands/. I'm not sure I'd be able to handle the level of mischief these adorable critters could get up to.

softwaredoug• 6 years ago

I’d imagine that dog domestication also depended on wolves being pack hunting carnivores. One can imagine there’s synergies between a group of humans and a pack of wolves hunting large game.

screye• 6 years ago

isn't that the main theory for Zebra vs Horse domestication?

Heirarchichal structures in Animal societies is directly correlated to suitability for domestication.

csours• 6 years ago

I've been thinking about the ethics of domestication with regard to racoons a lot.

Which makes me also think about the ethics of domestication of other animals, and makes me think about the ethics of "owning" domesticated animals.

I know this is a divisive topic among different people, and I find it to be a divisive topic in my own mind.

sradman• 6 years ago

The paper Excess protein enabled dog domestication during severe Ice Age winters [1]:

Humans are not fully adapted to a carnivorous diet; human consumption of meat is limited by the liver’s capacity to metabolize protein. Contrary to humans, wolves can thrive on lean meat for months. We present here data showing that all the Pleistocene archeological sites with dog or incipient dog remains are from areas that were analogous to subarctic and arctic environments. Our calculations show that during harsh winters, when game is lean and devoid of fat, Late Pleistocene hunters-gatherers in Eurasia would have a surplus of animal derived protein that could have been shared with incipient dogs.

This is based on reference [2] A review of issues of dietary protein intake in humans:

A suggested maximum protein intake based on bodily needs, weight control evidence, and avoiding protein toxicity would be approx. of 25% of energy requirements at approx. 2 to 2.5 g .cntdot. kg-1 .cntdot. d-1, corresponding to 176 g protein per day for an 80 kg individual on a 12,000kJ/d diet [~2800 Cal]. This is well below the theor. maximum safe intake range for an 80 kg person (285 to 365 g/d).

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-78214-4

[2] https://chemport.cas.org/cgi-bin/sdcgi?APP=ftslink&action=re...

HarryHirsch• 6 years ago

Contrary to humans, wolves can thrive on lean meat for months

Does that imply that you feed the dog lean meat and you get to eat a fat dog in return? What does the archaeological record have to say on dog bones?

bsima• 6 years ago

it implies that the humans ate the fat and organs, while the lean meat was given to the dogs

greenie_beans• 6 years ago

i'm reading the book 'Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog' right now. it's about a man who befriends a wild dog and takes him home. he lets the dog live like a wild dog and gives the dog a door to his house so the dog can live as he pleases. the writer has a refreshing approach to caring for dogs. he also explores/refutes a lot of dog origin myths, while engaging with the scientific history of dog study.

very much recommended if you're a dog owner or spend a lot of time outdoors. https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780156034500

cmrdporcupine6• 6 years ago

I can't speak to the nutritional aspect of it, but having attempted various high protein or protein/fat heavy keto diets in the past with varying levels of success I do have to say it doesn't take long before you just get sick of eating meat. The charm of it wears off. Our paleolithic ancestors would have craved and sought out any and all carbohydrate sources, and preserved summer fruits and berries as much as they could have. First nations here in Canada made/make pemmican, a mixture of animal products and berries from the summer, as a winter food, and I'm sure this practice goes back for a very long time.

At a certain point, I'm sure being sick of meat (especially from fairly large and omnipresent megafauna), the services of a companion dog/wolf would have been worth the waste.

Also many northern hunter gatherers eat the contents of the stomach of their kills as a way to get carbohydrates, trace nutrients and vitamins, etc. Between that and a source for furs, leathers, bones (for tool/structure making), one might make more kills than necessary and have excess meat.

k__• 6 years ago

True.

I did a low-carb diet once for three months and lost 10kg.

Most of it because I just couldn't see eggs, cheese, and meat anymore.

Jtsummers8• 6 years ago

Many vegetables and some fruits can still be consumed (though not necessarily much fruit) and maintain a low-carb diet. The other thing to do, or that I did, was to use a variety of spices and herbs. Most add nothing (or very little) with regard to carbs (certainly not the processed sugars low-carb diets aim to avoid) so don't impact the diet overall. And a well-stocked spice cabinet means you can have chicken for a week or even a month and never really have the same meal twice.

nafix• 6 years ago

Just an observation that I've noticed about myself:

* During periods where I am trying to lose weight or not working out much, I tend to not crave meat very much. In fact, eating certain types of meats (for example, steak) would kind of make me experience mild nausea.

* During periods where I am working out a lot (lots of running and heavy weight lifting), I have a strong desire to eat lots of meat and don't tire of it.

For me, the "charm" of meat depends on the physical requirements of what I am doing in some period of time.

ddorian43• 6 years ago

Well you need a lot of protein to gain/maintain muscle mass which you can only get it from meat. (https://burnfatnotsugar.com/p2e/AboutP2E/image27o.JPG)

1_player5• 6 years ago

it doesn't take long before you just get sick of eating meat. The charm of it wears off.

Yes and no. Food stops becoming an enjoyable activity, and just becomes fuel. If you're hungry, in the true sense of the word, you'll have meat and fat and ask for seconds. Fat adaptation works because if you have fat around you, your hunger signals tends to fade as you're already carrying a significant amount of energy.

The fact that carbs and sugar are so sought after is great when you're a paleolithic man, but is the cause of the modern obesity epidemic - it's an energy source than can be easily stored and accumulated around the body, so our taste buds have evolved to encourage us to eat plenty, because it was VERY scarce until recently.

yourkin8• 6 years ago

I have heard this recycled notion about carbs being scarce many times, but in this context it makes little sense. If fat adaptation is so efficient at converting food to energy and there is more fat around than carbs, why would the craving for carbs evolve even? I have also done keto a couple times and my experience is the same — in a month I just can’t stand anymore meat and bacon and going back to a balanced diet feels very good. I also can‘t stuff myself with carbs and start seeking both protein rich foods and fatty. Would question the whole „carbs where scarce, so we evolved to overfeed on them“ dogma. Why would fruits be more scarce for a non predator (as where human ancestors), than meat? It feels like a whole lot is missing in the story.

oblio• 6 years ago

If you're hungry, in the true sense of the word, you'll have meat and fat and ask for seconds.

If you're really hungry you're going to ask for seconds for everything.

Source: Fussy 11 year old me stuck in a summer camp with awful food. The first morning there I refused to eat and after breakfast they took us hiking up some mountains for 4 hours or so. For lunch I asked for seconds of their awful food and I enjoyed it :-)

hinkley• 6 years ago

I think ultimately a lot of the traditional drive to celebrate the changing of the seasons boils down to the change of diet (either improved, or worsened) and the rituals that come after or have to be done before that time.

Spring is here. Any day we can stop eating porridge!

Shivetya• 6 years ago

From my standpoint, I never understood why people focus on the meat side of this diet. I never eat more green vegetables than when I am on a keto type diet. They are everywhere and I even have slight variations into vegetables I do not normally consider.

However one point most people miss, you don't have to cut out BBQ or other meat condiments. You would be amazed how far that tablespoon actually goes and you still stay way under your carb limit. Once I discovered this the dieting got immensely easier. Same goes for types of salad dressing; I tend to the mix it yourself variety from Good Seasons.

I do not let myself slip into reasoning "just one slice of bread" is okay though. You do however need to look beyond foods you are used to. Eventually it became a game for me which made the whole process more fun

chlodwig11• 6 years ago

From my standpoint, I never understood why people focus on the meat side of this diet. I never eat more green vegetables than when I am on a keto type diet.

There is a growing group of people who believe in a carnivore diet, not just a keto diet. They have an active subreddit with introductory readings, a FAQ and wiki explaining their reasoning.

http://www.empiri.ca/p/eat-meat-not-too-little-mostly-fat.ht...

https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/wiki/faq#wiki_2._isn.27t_t...

https://www.reddit.com/r/zerocarb/wiki/plants

https://justmeat.co/

The tldr is that they believe we evolved to primarily eat meat, we get the best most bioavailable nutrients from animal sources, and that most plants have various toxins in them to discourage animals from eating them, and that even when cooked these toxins aren't completely destroyed and a lot of people experience low-level inflammation and irritation from plant sources, without realizing it.

chlodwig11• 6 years ago

What kind of meat were you eating and how was it cooked? I did a month of carnivore diet and never got sick of eating rare ribeye steak, lamb ribs, or lamb legs. I think I would get sick of chicken or pot roast or well-done ground beef. That said, I never stopped missing carby meals like mac 'n cheese or cookie dough ice cream.

war102511• 6 years ago

never got sick of eating rare ribeye steak
I think I would get sick of chicken or pot roast or well-done ground beef

Honest question, why do people seem to love rare meat so much? I agree that tough meat doesn't taste good, but I would argue a properly cooked pot roast is about the most tender cut of meat you can find.

Having had what most "foodie" people would call a "properly cooked" just barely above rare steak, I always find it to be unsatisfying.

What am I missing?

sandworm101• 6 years ago

Far far more kills than was necessary for caloric content. This idea that early humans "took only what they needed from nature" is quaint. They took what they could use, which means basically whenever usefulness outweighed the risk of the hunt. I remember an early history class about a buffalo jump. Teacher told us that "all parts of the animal were used." Well, not that giant pile of bones. If the dogs were hungry, or one needed some fresh bones to carve a tool, some large herbavore was killed. Im sure that lots of useful meat was left to the elements, just as with hunters today.

rainbowzootsuit• 6 years ago

Linked below is a PDF of an interesting book about one of the famous buffalo jump sites Head-Smashed-In in Alberta Canada

https://zerocarbzen.com/2015/05/01/imagining-head-smashed-in...

refurb• 6 years ago

That’s probably dependent on the relative abundance. Massive herds of Buffalo don’t require using everything.

Living in the arctic where it’s a lot more effort probably resulted in a more efficient use of the animal.

astrange• 6 years ago

Is there a technique to eating organs I don't know about? I assumed a stomach would be like eating vomit. Liver is still popular to this day, but maybe the animals whose organs we eat don't have as many metabolites in there as I thought.

nkrisc• 6 years ago

I would guess much of it depends on the diet of the prey animal. Eating the contents of a carnivore's stomach would probably be awful, but that of an obligate herbivore is probably not as bad, comparatively, since it would mostly just be plant matter, perhaps slightly fermented.

You only need to take a look at the difference between the feces of carnivore and herbivores. Cow dung or rabbit pellets really aren't all that bad. Wolf or otter feces, as two examples, is pretty vile stuff.

war102511• 6 years ago

I think a lot of eating organ meat involves washing it or soaking it to get the more unpalatable flavors off.

Not something I've really been adventurous enough to try though.

cmrdporcupine6• 6 years ago

It really is cultural. Eating raw seal meat and the contents of the stomach was not considered disgusting by people who grew up with it.

Jtsummers8• 6 years ago

More a technique in preparing it. Just like anything else that may seem unappetizing on its own. Sweetbreads are pretty tasty, and tripe isn't the worst if it's prepared well. Intestine can get tough if not prepared properly, which is not pleasant to me (though my in-laws seem to like it that way).

soperj• 6 years ago

Except pemmican was usually made without berries unless it was being used for ceremonial reasons. It would have been the way to preserve the meat from large game kills, since pemmican lasted for a very long time.

com2kid7• 6 years ago

I do have to say it doesn't take long before you just get sick of eating meat.

I got tired of avocados first. After several years, I still can't stand them! But keto is a lot more than meat, it is nuts and berries, dairy[1], and lots of green leafy vegetables.

The # of things I can't eat on keto comes down to bread, potatoes, rice, and super sugary fruits, but it isn't like the 170 grams of sugar (!!!!) in 1/2 a watermelon was ever good for me.

[1] https://www.darigold.com/darigold-fit/

coolgeek• 6 years ago

But keto is a lot more than meat, it is nuts and berries, dairy[1], and lots of green leafy vegetables.

This is the crux of it. You can have a very varied, and very flavorful experience on keto (or its variations).

I got tired of avocados first.

This is where we have to part ways. I can see avocados, alone, getting old quickly. But I could eat guacamole every day for the rest of my life and never tire of it.

downrightmike• 6 years ago

If you don't eat enough fat with the protein, you will still starve. You can't survive a winter on winter hare as they have no body fat left. https://www.fieldandstream.com/story/survival/survival-myths...

Apofis• 6 years ago

I would die without Salads and other veggies... meat only would get old very fast for me. If I don't have a very heavy garden salad for too long I feel really weird and my cravings for vegetables are through the roof.

nabla9• 6 years ago

This seems to support self-domestication hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-domestication

Scarps left by humans generated differential survival environment where less aggressive, more cooperating individuals were able to get closer and closer humans and get the best bits. At some point most domesticated individuals could form bonds and cooperate with humans. Eventually humans could take over and use selective breeding to finalize the process.

bjornsing• 6 years ago

Tame canines can guard against predators and interlopers, carry supplies, pull sleds and provide warmth during cold nights. But those benefits only come following domestication. Despite more than a century of study, scientists have struggled to understand what triggered the domestication process in the first place.

Is it so hard to believe that early humans could imagine the benefits and purposefully domesticated canines? I mean, we’ve gone to the freaking moon, for no immediate benefit at all... Humans do a lot of things for the hell of it.

ekidd• 6 years ago

I once read an article by a man who raised an undomesticated wolf. It's a huge hassle and not exactly safe. But he wound up with a relatively loyal animal that disliked being separated from him. (And which routinely wrecked his house.)

If you spend your life hunting game animals with a spear, then maybe a barely tamed wolf seems like a reasonable risk in comparison?

wtetzner2• 6 years ago

I imagine it would offer protection for nomadic hunter-gatherers.

sunstone• 6 years ago

Yes I have a feeling dog domestication went along these lines. The first were wolf puppies that were raised with the tribe and were imprinted on this "pack" as their own as they grew up. Dogs and humans made an effective combination. The dogs could look after and protect small children, a huge benefit. Dogs might be able to partners in hunting. And finally dogs would be excellent "house alarms" when enemies are nearby.

hnick5• 6 years ago

By all accounts hunter-gatherer societies had a lot more free time than we do, and no Netflix. Personally, I'd absolutely do this just to see what would happen.

jere• 6 years ago

Nutritional deficiencies came from the absence of fat and carbohydrates, not necessarily protein. Indeed, if humans eat too much meat, diarrhea usually ensues. And within weeks, they can develop protein poisoning and even die. “Because we humans are not fully adapted to a carnivorous diet, we simply cannot digest protein very well,” Lahtinen says. “It can be very fatal in a very short period of time.”

What? This seems flat out wrong. Carbohydrates are the only macronutrient you can live without. Regardless of the long term health outcomes, many people live for years on carnivorous diets.

The first sentence might be talking about our past digestive systems, but the rest is about the present.

abfan11276• 6 years ago

I have to agree with you. Having lived a zero-carb lifestyle for years in my late 20s (losing a ton of weight and becoming the most athletic I'd ever been in my life), either that line is patently false or I'm a super hero.

Jtsummers8• 6 years ago

The line in question:

Because we humans are not fully adapted to a carnivorous diet, we simply cannot digest protein very well

So you spent years of your life eating nothing but meat, maybe eggs? You never had dairy, never had fruits (bananas, apples, oranges, lemon in or on something), never had vegetables (carrots, onions, leafy greens) in that time period?

adrian_b2• 6 years ago

"zero-carb" may be true, but that does not mean that you have eaten only proteins. If that would have been true, you would have been dead.

The meat of most domestic animals is fatty, most cheese & other dairy is fatty, eggs have a lot of fat in the yolk.

Even if you did not eat any carbs, your food must have included enough fat to provide more calories than the protein content. Otherwise you would have had quickly severe health problems.

lnanek2• 6 years ago

You are right, in modern times, carbs are generally considered bad. But some people trying all protein diets do report diarrhea. Doctors don't generally refer to it as too much protein, though. They refer to the problem as too little fiber.

Also, some arctic explorers tried living on all meat, and suffered vitamin deficiencies such as scurvy. So, while meat is a complete protein, unless you are eating fresh liver meat from a fresh kill, you are going to need some source of vitamin C at the minimum. Except for liver, meat isn't actually a great way to get fat soluble vitamins either.

mnl• 6 years ago

Be careful with liver if you get it from polar bears for instance. You could get seriously ill (even die) because of hypervitaminosis A.

hyperpallium2• 6 years ago

'Rabbit starvation" https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning

pemmican fixes it, a mix of 50-50 protein-fat plus berries.

lhorie2• 6 years ago

From what I've read, protein poisoning is supposed to be a result of _exclusively_ eating exceptionally lean meats (e.g. rabbit) at the exclusion of everything else for prolonged periods of time (such that your body reserves get depleted). Beef and pork have relatively high fat content so you'd be unlikely to develop it from eating them in modern high protein diets, and even on a rabbit-only diet, it's supposedly possible to minimize the risk by also consuming the animal's organs.

For what it's worth, I first heard of protein poisoning from a survivalist, who was talking about extreme scenarios where there's very few calories available for consumption at all (e.g. winter survival in tundra)

There are certainly other well documented cases of nutritional deficiencies caused by lack of certain foodstuff (e.g. scurvy in ships in the 15th century, due to usage of copper ware, which denaturates vitamin c) so it wouldn't be strange to develop other nutritional deficiencies with a highly unbalanced diet.

dan-robertson• 6 years ago

I think scurvy in the 15th century was due to not including anything that might have vitamin C in the provisions. It was scurvy in the 19th and early 20th century that was due to copper pots (no one noticed because ships were much faster so sailors didn’t get scurvy), the wrong citrus juice (I don’t recall whether they had lemon or lime juice but they had the one with less vitamin C and called it by the name of the fruit with more), tinned food (babies on land were getting scurvy because the canning process destroyed vitamin C and they were only fed canned food), and contemporary doctors not really believing that scurvy was caused by the deficiency of anything.

loosetypes2• 6 years ago

I recently caved and watched the latest season of Alone, which takes place in the Canadian Arctic, on Netflix. It basically matches the non-canine related aspects of this article.

Contestants were sent home months-in, despite having excess meat stores from hunting/fishing, because of dangerous weight loss levels. They were literally starving to death even while eating excessive amounts of protein.

There’s a separate question of how “true” the show is (looking at you Bear Grylls!) but I believe the diet aspects were done in coordination with doctors.

wtetzner2• 6 years ago

I haven't seen the show, so I'm curious about what those contestants were eating. Did they eat the full animal, nose-to-tail?

Footkerchief• 6 years ago

As happens way too often, the confusion is from pronoun abuse. "It" refers to protein poisoning, not to the set of all carnivorous diets.

adrian_b2• 6 years ago

Maybe the article was not clear enough, but what is correct is that you cannot eat only proteins to cover all your energy needs.

Significantly more than 50% (e.g. 2/3) of the calories you eat must come from either fat or carbs, it does not matter which, as long as it is not protein (it does not matter for preventing protein-caused problems; depending on what kinds of fat or carbs you eat, they might cause other problems).

A mixture like pemmican, which is 1/2 dried meat + 1/2 fat, has probably around 2/3 of its calories from fat, so it is perfectly OK as the only food for extended durations.

While the animals hunted by them did not have much fat in their meat, ancient humans usually took care to not waste the fatty bone marrow and brain, which were a major source of fat for them. Nevertheless, those animals still contained much more proteins than fat, so it is very likely that the humans could not eat all the meat, so they probably ate the best parts, leaving the rest to scavengers.

adamc2• 6 years ago

This made me laugh. Admittedly, I don't eat much meat, because I get sick of it so easily. Somehow I imagine roots and berries were a sought after alternative.

aszantu2• 6 years ago

in the past, dogs were also used as a food source, with the excess protein from big game, they might have fattened up the dogs they would eat?

aritmo• 6 years ago

"excess protein" is more interesting in a scientific paper than "offal and bones".

Excess protein enabled dog domestication during severe Ice Age winters

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