eli5 why we have such complex dietary requirements. Did our ancestors thousands of years ago have extremely well balanced diets?
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We have complex dietary requirements if the success criteria is ‘achieve best possible state of health.’ We have very simple dietary requirements if the success criteria is just ‘don’t die.’ And this makes a lot of sense – we are evolved to be generalist omnivores, able to take advantage of lots of different nutrition sources when they are available. Our ancestors probably had balanced diets over the long run, because they would have eaten a lot of different foods whenever they were available, but day to day they would have seen a lot of lean times and days when the meal of the day was just ‘whatever we have.’
It also depends on which periods of history and which places you’re talking about. Ancient hunter-gatherers would have eaten a variety of wild plants, fruits, meat when it was available. While some historical societies would have subsisted almost completely on bread, a small amount of meat or fish, and some vegetables. Others would have eaten a lot more meat and dairy, if they were dependent on livestock as their main food source. All of them would have gone through times of famine when they would subsist on very little, and probably suffer from disease as a result.
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