For the past few years, people everywhere have been âgoing Paleo.â Websites and social media touting the benefits of eating a âPaleo dietâ and following a.
Evolutionary Anthropology 25:228–231 (2016)
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How To Make Stone Soup: Is The “Paleo Diet” a Missed Opportunity for Anthropologists? MELANIE L. CHANG AND APRIL NOWELL
For the past few years, people everywhere have been “going Paleo.” Websites and social media touting the benefits of eating a “Paleo diet” and following a “Paleolithic life style” serve as calls to arms for health-conscious individuals seeking information about the latest health and fitness trends. Many of these people participate in programs such as Crossfit, which involve major social and life-style modification components and therefore facilitate the dissemination of dietary fads.1 The PALEOf(x)TM conference, which bills itself as “the world’s premier holistic wellness event,” has attracted sellout crowds of thousands of attendees for the last four years.2 Consumers can wear Paleo clothing, download Paleo shopping and exercise apps to their smartphones, order prepackaged Paleo food, prepare it using Paleo cooking implements, or expediently buy Paleo convenience foods from PaleodietTM vending machines3 and “Cultured Caveman” food trucks.4 The Paleo diet is touted by movie stars, reality TV personalities, and professional athletes, including LeBron James and the entire Miami Dolphins NFL team.5,6 Books with titles such as The Primal Blueprint,7 Cavewomen Don’t Get Fat,8 and Paleo Perfected9 (the latter by the stodgy America’s Test Kitchen) are legion, and many are bestsellers.
The modern Paleo movement lives primarily on the Internet, where it is disseminated via dozens of websites, online discussion boards, Facebook groups, and other social networking tools, in addition to more traditional media such as books and newsletters. In mid-2013, the Paleo diet was second in popularity among weight loss diets, surpassed only by the venerable Weight Watchers in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean.10 The
Melanie L. Chang, Portland State University, Anthropology Department April Nowell, University of Victoria, Department of Anthropology
Key words: pop culture; media; evolutionary theory
C 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. V
DOI: 10.1002/evan.21504 Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).
Paleo diet was also the most Googled diet in both 2013 and 201411 (although it fell to third place in 201512). The number of news headlines including the term “Paleo diet” began a steep upward trend only in 2010, hit a huge spike in 2014, and has trended slightly downward with periodic spikes since then. (Over the same period, Google searches for the term “human evolution” remained essentially flat).13 In the context of general diet and wellness trends, the popularity of the Paleo diet may follow naturally from an increasing desire among consumers to eat healthily and know where their food comes from, spurred by books such as Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma14 and documentaries such as Food, Inc. (2008).15 Thus, the Paleo diet is only one of the most recent in a series of dietary fads such as the Atkins, Zone, and Mediterranean diets. However, unlike previous dietary fads, the Paleo diet is
explicitly evolutionary. In this context, the Paleo diet represents an opportunity for dialogue between the public and evolutionary scientists that previous health and fitness trends have not. For the most part, however, evolutionary anthropologists have failed to join the conversation and, when we have weighed in, we have largely been critical.16–18 In our view, this is a missed opportunity. In this essay, we explore how we as paleoanthropologists can use what we know about our evolutionary history to promote a richer, more complex understanding of the biological underpinnings of human health and increase awareness of the utility of evolutionary thinking in everyday life. These endeavors may also underscore the relevance of anthropological study, an especially important undertaking in the wake of recent public critiques of our discipline, which have portrayed anthropology as being impractical and unrelated to real-life concerns.19,20
THE PALEO DIET Unlike most historical diet fads, the Paleo diet has roots in anthropological science. It was inspired and has been informed by the writings of biological anthropologists and anthropologically trained scientists. Interest in recreating evolutionary diets and (to a certain extent) lifeways has a long heritage, and indeed echoes some of the tenets of the 19th- and 20th-century “wilderness cult,” in which “domesticated,” urban elites (urged by, among others, Walt Whitman21) sought to improve their health and lives by returning (in a number of ways, both literal and
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figurative) to nature.22 However, the origin of the modern Paleo diet is often traced back to the publication of a 1985 New England Journal of Medicine article titled “Paleolithic Nutrition: A consideration of its nature and current implications” by Eaton and Konner.23 This article and the book that followed it, The Paleolithic Prescription,24 inspired protein-heavy, carb-light diets such as the Zone and Atkins diets. However, the Paleo diet itself, as currently defined, did not become a grass-roots movement until the late 2000s.25 In The Paleolithic Prescription, Eaton, Shostak, and Konner24 reconstructed what they considered to be an authentic prehistoric diet. They used data on six diverse modern hunter-gatherer diets drawn from the literature, ranging from the !Kung San to the Greenland Inuit to Australian Aborigines. While these groups exhibited wide variation in the nature of the foodstuffs and the proportions of different food groups consumed, these data were effectively merged to produce a single reconstruction of the “average” Paleolithic diet, which Eaton, Shostak, and Konner24 considered to be comparable to what they referred to as the “average” North American diet. This Paleolithic diet comprised about 65% plant-based foods and 35% animal-based foods. However, many current interpretations of the Paleo diet do not follow this guideline. While the specific components of various “Paleo diet” formulations differ depending on which popular authority one follows, “going Paleo” generally involves “focuses on eating food the way we ate before the last 10,000 years.”26 Most proponents strive to follow a program described by Loren Cordain, a health scientist with a Ph.D. in physical education, who is one of the foremost celebrities of the modern Paleo movement. According to the program, it is “based upon everyday, modern foods that mimic the food groups of our preagricultural, hunter-gatherer ancestors.”27 Thus, most current Paleo diet programs are based on reconstructions of or seemingly logical deductions about the nature of hominin diets during the Paleolithic. The
general goal is to approximate a preagricultural diet, although most popular programs appear to canonize dietary models based on the Middle Pleistocene, drawing, in particular, on older paleoanthropological reconstructions of Neandertal diets. (As one proponent stated, “we are eating the dietary proxies of the aurochs, wild jungle fowl, and the like.”28) In practice, these goals are accomplished by consuming fresh, unprocessed foods and large amounts of animal products (usually excluding dairy), as well as nonstarchy fruits and vegetables. Although scientific knowledge of Paleolithic diets is extremely imperfect, it certainly is true that at least some popular practices do not accurately reflect what we currently know. “Going Paleo” often involves entirely avoiding grains, which are considered “agricultural” and therefore are not part of a natural diet, and most dairy foods, which humans would only have had access to after animal domestication. There is a general belief, related to “evolutionary mismatch” perspectives on modern disease patterns, that humans have not evolved to adapt to modern agricultural diets. However, as Konnor himself pointed out,29 evolutionary geneticists have discovered a slew of genetic changes in different modern populations. These changes indicate recent adaptations to food sources, including the oft-verboten dairy (lactase persistence)30 and grains (amylase gene duplications).31 Overall, recent discoveries relevant to Paleolithic diet reconstructions have tended to broaden, rather than narrow, the array of foods that were on the menu at one time or place or another.32
A MISSED OPPORTUNITY? The difference between the Paleo diet and previous popular diets is that it is associated with a movement that, at its heart, is grounded in an explicitly evolutionary perspective. Devotees appropriate the language of religious proselytizing when spreading their message, using words and phrases such as a “commitment” to a “Paleo way of life” and helping others “go Paleo.” (Fig.1) (In fact, drawing on quasi-scholarly books such as Original Thin: The Paleo Diet in the Bible and Ancient Literature,33 there is even vigorous on-line debate about whether one can be Christian and follow the Paleo diet). But while an ever-increasing segment of the North American population engages in discussions of the role of evolution in human health via the Paleo movement, most biological anthropologists have failed to join the conversation, which was originally started by biological anthropologists. Thus, medical doctors, nutritionists, and other nonanthropologists are left to represent the current expert voices in this debate. While their input is welcome and informative, our viewpoints and contributions may be seen as uniquely valuable. When we have joined in, our contributions have often been framed in such a way that they have been perceived by the Paleo community as adversarial.16,34 Perhaps many paleoanthropologists have tended to ignore this public discourse because they think it is not founded in science or because we find it “silly” and “beneath” us. The responses that we do make, when we join the conversation, may reflect these feelings. However, while we may sometimes unkindly smirk at the dietary practices and language used by
^ telperronian-style backed knife marketed toward Paleo diet-following Figure 1. Modern Cha “foodies.” Source: http://www.dezeen.com/2013/03/18/primitive-knife-by-michele-daneluzzofor-del-ben/.
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laypeople interested in approximating Paleolithic diets to improve their health, there remains an unmet desire among this community to gain knowledge about the science behind studies of ancestral subsistence that, as conduits of information and public educators, we should not ignore. As one Paleo proponent stated: “Evolutionary biology has much to teach us about how we should eat and live for best health. It would be good for evolutionary biologists to spend themselves for the worthy cause of identifying those truths.”35 This is not to say that it is inappropriate to criticize aspects of the Paleo movement that seem misguided or based on flawed understandings of our evolutionary past. Nevertheless, it may be important to revisit our tone and recognize that our responses should not be framed and, indeed, may be not perceived the same way they would if we were speaking to colleagues at an academic conference. Robb Wolf, a former biochemist, author,36 and major figure in the Paleo movement, said, “What I have sensed from the anthropology community is an almost. . . annoyance that upstarts from outside that Guild have the temerity to talk about this stuff and try to apply it in an actionable way. . .. If I could wave a magic wand I’d hope for a bit less prickliness on the part of the medical anthropology community on this topic. Even more so, I’d hope that these folks could realize they, not our current medical system, have the insights on how to fix what ails us. If we could get them to understand just how important their understanding of the past is, we might have a much better future.”34 In other words, members of the Paleo movement want to know what evolutionary anthropologists think; what they don’t want is to be “debunked” or talked down to. Shouldn’t we be happy that consumers are searching for evolutionary guidelines about how to live their lives? There certainly are challenges to addressing these unmet desires, not the least being that while Paleo proponents tend to want specific, actionable dietary recommendations,37 current evidence offers only limited reconstructions38 of
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what was on the Paleolithic menu, with available reconstructions being quite specific as to time and place.39 However, even if we cannot answer such specific questions, explaining what we do know and how we know it would increase public understanding of evolutionary science, and this is by far the more critical objective. Recent surveys suggest that 42% of Americans hold creationist views of human origins, with a further 31% believing that evolution has occurred, but only under the guidance of a supreme being. Despite numerous highly publicized fossil discoveries and scientific breakthroughs in paleoanthropology, these numbers have changed little over the past 30 years.40 These figures reflect the general devaluing of science and scientific knowledge that has characterized recent popular and political dialogues.41,42 The influence of the “antiscience” movement in North America has real consequences, not just for the general public, but also for practicing anthropological scientists who rely on public funding to conduct research. It is important not only to act as adversaries countering creationist and anti-science perspectives,43,44 but also to act as ambassadors of our discipline and conduits for insights that can inform members of the general public about the relevance of evolutionary thinking to their everyday lives. The Paleo movement represents an opportunity for public engagement and dialogue that our discipline has largely failed to take advantage of; we should not squander future opportunities. As paleoanthropologists, we have a public responsibility to use what we know about our evolutionary history to promote a richer, more complex understanding of the biological underpinnings of human health and to increase awareness of the relevance of anthropology during what is a socially and politically difficult period for the both discipline specifically and science in general.
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25 Goldstein J. 2010. The New Age cavemen and the city. The New York Times, January 8. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/fashion/10 caveman.html 26 http://ultimatepaleoguide.com/#The History of_the_Paleo_Diet 27 Cordain L. n.d. http://thepaleodiet.com/thepaleo-diet-premise/ 28 Pendergrass K. 2014. Interview with Michael Pollan. Paleo Movement Magazine, January 31. http://paleomovement.com/michaelpollan-paleo-interview/ 29 Konnor M. 2016. Confessions of a Paleo diet pioneer. 2016. The Wall Street Journal, January 20. http://www.wsj.com/articles/an-evolutionaryguide-revised-on-what-to-eat-1453306447. 30 Gerbault P, Liebert A, Itan Y, et al. 2011. Evolution of lactase persistence: an example of human niche construction. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 366:863–877. 31 Perry GH, Dominy NJ, Claw KG, et al. 2007. Diet and the evolution of human amylase gene copy number variation. Nat Genet 39:1256– 1260. 32 Lippi MM, Foggi B, Aranguren B, et al. 2015. Multistep food plant processing at Grotta
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40 Newport F. 2014. In U.S., 42% believe creationist view of human origins. Gallup, June 2. http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx 41 Otto SL. Antiscience beliefs jeopardize U.S. democracy. Sci Am November 1, 2012. http:// www.scientificamerican.com/article/antisciencebeliefs-jeopardize-us-democracy/ 42 Achenbach J. 2015. Why do many reasonable people doubt science? National Geographic, March. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ 2015/03/science-doubters/achenbach-text 43 King BJ. 2016. There’s no controversy: let’s stop failing our children on evolution. NPR Cosmos and Culture. http://www.npr.org/sections/ 13.7/2016/07/28/487737404/there-s-no-controversylets-stop-failing-our-children-on-evolution. 44 King BJ. 2016. When science stands up to creationism. NPR Cosmos and Culture, August 11. http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/08/11/ 489513355/when-science-stands-up-to-creationismwhat-it-means-and-doesn-t-mean. C 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. V
