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The Evolution of Diet - Best of

43 images Created 1 Dec 2014

It’s true: We are what we eat—or at least what our ancestors ate. The Evolution of Diet story shows how the human diet has changed over our long history, and how our bodies have adapted—or failed to adapt—to different environments and foods. Could eating like our ancestors make us healthier? Some experts say modern humans should eat from a Stone Age menu. What’s on it may surprise you.
Shot by Matthieu Paley for National Geographic magazine.
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  • Intro_Title_Evo_02_F.jpg
  • Top row: escargots, sardines, and fava beans (Crete); naan in salty yak-milk tea (Afghanistan); fried geranium leaves (Crete); boiled crab (Malaysia); raw beetroot and oranges (Crete); chapati, yak butter, and rock salt (Pakistan). Middle row: dried-apricot soup (Pakistan); boiled plantains (Bolivia); fried coral reef fish (Malaysia); bulgur, boiled eggs, and parsley (Tajikistan); stewed-seaweed salad (Malaysia); boiled ptarmigan (Greenland). Bottom row: grilled tuna (Malaysia); cooked potatoes, tomatoes, and fava beans in olive oil (Crete); rice with melted yak butter (Afghanistan); fried fish with tamarind (Malaysia); dried apricots (Pakistan); grilled impala (Tanzania; photographer’s utensils shown).<br />
Food plates from all over the world.
    Evolution_of_Diet_002.jpg
  • Intro_Evo_Hadza.jpg
  • Young Hadza hunters survey the Yaeda Valley (below). Their families<br />
eat whatever game the hunters bring home.
    Evolution_of_Diet_004.jpg
  • For the Hadza of Tanzania, honey is an essential, concentrated energy source as well as a tasty treat. Foragers like this teenager, Ngosha, find honey by following honey guides, birds that track bees to their tree-trunk nests. Then they light small logs or bundles of brush to make smoke to lull the bees, allowing foragers to get away with the honeycomb. Left image: After a missed shot at wild game, Kapala, a Hadza teenager, pulls out his arrow of an acacia tree.
    Evolution_of_Diet_005.jpg
  • On top of a tree, Saitoti is getting berries, his breakfast for the day. Hadza  are full time hunter-gatherer - they do not grow any food, herd animals or even store any food. When they get up early morning, there is nothing to eat in camp. They just head out in the savannah and feed from nature. It's a lifestyle we all had thousands of years ago - you too, reading this! The Hadza have been living in this area for approximately 40.000 years and have left no impact on their environment. Think about that.
    Evolution_of_Diet_006.jpg
  • Two Hadza hunters looking for lunch with bows and arrows in the African savannah.
    Evolution_of_Diet_007.jpg
  • After a day hunt, a man sleep out in the open. The savannah hold lions, giraffes and sometimes elephants among others.
    Evolution_of_Diet_008.jpg
  • Berries like these Kongolobe (grewia bocilor) are picked by the Hadza during foraging trips and eaten on the spot, rather than being collected to eat later. After chewing off the berries’ thin flesh, the Hadza spit the pits onto the ground, sowing seeds for the next generation of berry bushes.
    Evolution_of_Diet_010.jpg
  • Intro_Evo_Bolivia.jpg
  • An aerial view of the Amazon jungle, home of the Tsimane. The Tsimane of Bolivia get most of their food from the river, the forest, or fields and gardens carved out of the forest.
    Evolution_of_Diet_012.jpg
  • José Mayer Cunay, 78, looks for plantains ready to be picked near his chaco, a half-acre agricultural plot that the Tsimane elder and his son Felipe Mayer Lero created in the Bolivian Amazon using slash-and-burn techniques. Four generations of the family eat the fruit, corn, and other crops grown here, but the foods they prize most must be pursued: fish, fowl, and game. When hunters bag an animal such as an armadillo, they use it all, including the paws.
    Evolution_of_Diet_013.jpg
  • Cutting an Armadillo to boil it. Following a full day in the jungle, Deonicio Nate came back from a successfull hunt with 3 South American coatis and an Armadillo. His family is preparing and eating the animals, a welcomed source of protein.
    Evolution_of_Diet_014.jpg
  • Left: A Tsimane girl picks plantain in her family “chaco” (a field planted using slash-and-burn methods). | Right: Holding plantain cooked over open flames.
    Evolution_of_Diet_015.jpg
  • At the Nate family family field, growing plantain and red corn. Tsimane practice shifting cultivation, using slash-and-burn technic.
    Evolution_of_Diet_016.jpg
  • Following a full day in the jungle, Deonicio Nate came back from a successfull hunt with 3 South American coatis and an Armadillo. His family is preparing and eating the animals, a welcomed source of protein.
    Evolution_of_Diet_018.jpg
  • Gutting a Coati. Following a full day in the jungle, Deonicio Nate came back from a successfull hunt with 3 South American coatis and an Armadillo. His family is preparing and eating the animals, a welcomed source of protein.
    Evolution_of_Diet_019.jpg
  • Flood-driven debris clogs the Maniqui River shallows where Cunay bathes. A great orange tip butterfly, common in the Amazon, casts a shadow on his back. Even in old age – Cunay is 78 - most Tsimane remain lean from walking miles a day to gather enough food to survive.
    Evolution_of_Diet_020.jpg
  • Intro_Evo_Arctic.jpg
  • The 64 residents of the remote east Greenland village of Isortoq still hunt and fish but combine traditional Inuit foods with purchases from the super-market, the large red building in the foreground. A favorite dish: seal dipped in ketchup and mayonnaise.
    Evolution_of_Diet_022.jpg
  • What’s not eaten right away will stay frozen in outdoor sheds; one family’s “freezer” holds the meat, ribs, and jaw of a killer whale and the fore flipper of a bearded seal.<br />
Greenland’s Inuit survived for generations eating almost nothing but meat in a landscape too harsh for most plants. Today markets offer more variety, but a taste for meat persists.
    Evolution_of_Diet_023.jpg
  • The small Inuit settlement of Isortoq in east Greenland (left). A scene from a family fishing trip for arctic cod (right).
    Evolution_of_Diet_024.jpg
  • A hunter goes out seal hunting on a kayak.
    Evolution_of_Diet_025.jpg
  • (L) A seal, recently hunted, will soon be brought to the kitchen. An Inuit girl (R) feeds her brother a bit of liver from a seal their father has just caught.
    Evolution_of_Diet_026.jpg
  • The head of a polar bear is set out to defrost on the dining table.
    Evolution_of_Diet_027.jpg
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