What type of nuts did our hunter/gatherer ancestors eat?

Question

I'm sick of being unhealthy and eating chemicals and not food. I'm thinking of shifting towards a more 'caveman' diet. I know nuts were an important part of our ancestors (before the agrilcultural revolution) diet. So what type of nuts did they eat? Or what types of foods similar to nuts?

Answer 1

they probably ate off each other's nuts

EDIT**

I know wat u mean about the chemicals man, but I have shifted my **it as well, buy pistachios, dates, all sorts of mixed nuts, umm dried fruits

Answer 2

they ate whatever they could find

Answer 3

They ate the same foods you eat now... without the salt or preservatives. Not to say it was a healthier diet. They ate what they could catch or find.....

one of the main differences though was they got more exercise and more sleep....

Answer 4

"Cavemen" were Blood Type "O", so in addition to eating both raw & barbequed animal flesh, they ate tubers, roots, berries, bird's eggs, honey, leaves, and wild grasses, such as clovers and rye...

And coastal cavemen experimented with shellfish!

Cultivated nuts as we have today, were probably pretty rare, and acorns are poisonous unless ground up and soaked in water (Which was a process that came much later)...

"Cavemen" were Hunter/Gatherers, not farmers!

Anyway, nuts that could be found in the wild were; walnuts, almonds, pistachios, macademia, Brazil nuts, filberts, chestnuts, cashews, pine nuts, and various kinds of seeds that we today process into "nut butters", such as sesame/tahini, could qualify...

Depending on which part of the world one lived...

Nuts are an excellent form of non-animal fat, essential to a balanced diet!

Answer 5

depends on what part of the world you live in.

Answer 6

Whatever they could find.  I think you would likely approach a primitive diet closer bu focusing more on fruits and berries.

We evolved in a tropical type climate where fresh fruit was so available that we did not need to be able to synthesize vitamin C.

We also are omnivores and about one third of the primitive diet was animal in origin. some of the current primitive tribes make most of this out of bugs and grubs, but almost any animal does fine.

About 1/3 of your calories should be fats, mixed between animal and plant fat or oils.

You need the fats to be able to digest proteins and the fat soluble vitamins like vitamin D.

1/3 of calories means about 1/6 by weight, so it is not as greasy as you might think. Most bread is far richer in fat content than that.

Answer 7

mostly what ever they could find by the area they were living. Probably any nut they found that wasn't a poison.

Our cavemen ate meat too.  Killed animals for meat to eat just like our generation does.

Answer 8

Here's my best educated guess:

40% of calories from yams and similar tubers

10% of calories from fish and shellfish

20% of calories from meats

10% of calories from green leafy things

20% of calories from colorful fruity things

Based on the assumption we're talking about the population of humans living along the west and north-west coasts of the Indian Ocean around 100,000+ years ago.

Answer 9

must not have been their own

Answer 10

If you are looking for some good things to shift to eating as a snack or to supplement your diet (it is a little difficult to center a diet around nuts) then I would suggest perhaps acorns or walnuts. Also pistachios and almonds are another good idea. I know they don't qualify as nuts but pumpkin and squash seeds as well as sunflower seeds are actually very healthy. I eat a decent amount of acorns and walnuts each day so I can understand why you would want to include them in your diet and I find pistachios irrestable. As far as what our hunter/gatherer ancestors ate, I know in Africa there is a type of nut that is gathered on a reagular basis but I don't know what the name is. I know my European ancestors, besides acorns and walnuts also gathered chestnuts right before winter as they provided a good source of calories over the winter. However, I don't know how easy it is to get chestnuts anymore. Also if you are looking to change to more natural foods you should switch to using honey where possible instead of sugar. If you use sugar use brown and not white. Brown sugar is actually very good in coffee and is natural whereas white sugar is bleached. There are of course breads and vegetables that are organic and naturally made. You might try looking at a Whole Foods store.