PALEO IS A FLINTSTONE FANTASY

'Big farmer' has changed our digestive capabilities... and that's just one of the reasons why you can't eat like a caveman

- PROF GILES YEO

Most non-communicable diseases are diet-related, including obesity and its associated illnesses. Because the prevalence of obesity is a contemporary problem, some argue that our modern diet, based on agriculture, is to blame. This is the so-called 'paleo' movement.

'Paleo' is a contraction of Palaeolithic, the period from about 2.6 million years ago to 10,000 BC (the Stone Age). The paleo premise is that for most of human existence, we were hunter-gatherers. Then the agricultural revolution changed our diet and our current problems with diet-related illnesses occur because we haven't yet adapted to it. Hence the suggested solution of to return to a 'paleo diet'.

There are two main problems with this argument. First, there is no single paleo diet, because there were no singular Palaeolithic people - hunter-gatherers ate whatever was available to them. Second, the contention that humans haven't had time to adapt to an agricultural diet is simply incorrect, because when the right selection pressure is present, humans can adapt (and have) in just a few thousand years. Three examples of such adaptations are our ability to consume large amounts of starch, milk and alcohol.