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The Evolution of Diet - Best of

59 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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  • (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
  • After feeding his sled dogs, Bent Igniatiussen stashes seal meat in his basement for his family.
    Evolution_of_Diet_028.jpg
  • A sled dog licks the dorsal fin of a killer whale. After Inuit butcher the game they bring home from hunting and fishing trips, some is used immediately, and the rest is stored in sheds. Later, Inuit use the choice cuts to feed their families and other morsels to feed their sled dogs.
    Evolution_of_Diet_029.jpg
  • Intro_Evo_Bajau.jpg
  • Her face dusted in bedak sejuk, a cooling powder made of rice and pandan leaves, Alpaida paddles out to visit friends in stilt houses. The teen and her family belong to the tribal group known as the Sea Bajau because they live year-round on their lepa-lepas, handmade houseboats.
    Evolution_of_Diet_031.jpg
  • A Bajau fisherman clutches an octopus he speared after diving from his boat. Except for a dish made of ground cassava, all the Bajau’s food comes from the sea. A Bajau baby (left) naps by a pan of abalone that will be his family’s dinner.
    Evolution_of_Diet_032.jpg
  • Left: A mother and her sons grab an early dinner of fish and cassava diner at the stern of her houseboat, or lepa-lepa. Large birds are kept as pets, much like we keep cats or dogs on land. Right: A coral fish is speared by a Bajau fisherman. The Bajau free dive, mostly catching coral fish. Fish such as tuna live in waters too deep to be hunted.
    Evolution_of_Diet_033.jpg
  • A family cooking diner of coral fish, over a fire. Bajau family living all year round on a Lepa, a traditional houseboat.
    Evolution_of_Diet_034.jpg
  • Tarumpit about to get lunch, diving from his dug-out canoe.
    Evolution_of_Diet_035.jpg
  • Tarumpit spears a fresh catch.
    Evolution_of_Diet_036.jpg
  • Intro_Evo_Kyrgyz.jpg
  • The Kyrgyz of the Pamir Mountains in northern Afghanistan live at a high altitude where no crops grow. Survival depends on the animals that they milk, butcher, and barter. Yak herd.
    Evolution_of_Diet_038.jpg
  • A Kyrgyz man brings a tray of tea to welcome a guest.
    Evolution_of_Diet_039.jpg
  • No, it's not make-up, and it's not retouched. Her cheeks burned by the bitter cold, Marbet, a 7-year old Kyrgyz girl, just returned from gathering the yak herd in her camp, in the middle of winter. With an estimated 50% child mortality rate, life is harsh up at 14.000 feet in the Pamir mountains of Afghanistan. (Left) A goat is slaughtered at a wedding.
    Evolution_of_Diet_040.jpg
  • Bowls and cakes of kurut are spread out to dry. The product is made by boiling yak milk for hours over a low fire until it’s reduced to a paste, forming it in containers or shaping it by hand into cakes, then drying it in the sun. Once hardened, the dry cakes can be stored for use in the winter, when fresh milk is less plentiful. They’re steeped in hot water to rehydrate them. Kurut can also be kept in the mouth for hours, like a local shepherd’s chewing gum.
    Evolution_of_Diet_041.jpg
  • A Kyrgyz woman strains milk with her hand, removing yak hair and other debris. Herders in the Shimshal Pamir, a remote part of northern Pakistan bordering China, tend their flocks. Yaks, goats, and sheep are fattened for months in summer pastures so that they can survive and provide food through the winter.
    Evolution_of_Diet_042.jpg
  • Ayeem Khan wears boots borrowed from her father and the red veil of an unmarried Kyrgyz girl, to be traded for a white one when she weds. Twice a day she milks the family’s yaks; some milk curd will be dried for use in winter, when yaks give less.
    Evolution_of_Diet_043.jpg
  • A yak has been slaughtered, Little Pamir, Afghanistan.
    Evolution_of_Diet_044.jpg
  • Intro_Evo_Mountains.jpg
  • Below the Altit fort and above the Hunza river, a woman tends to her potatoe field. In the old fortified village of Altit, over 1000 years old, Hunza region.
    Evolution_of_Diet_046.jpg
  • In the remote village of Shimshal, Baba Jan’s family gathers together to prepare dinner: chai and chapatis sprinkled with apricot oil.
    Evolution_of_Diet_047.jpg
  • A group of Wakhi women comes back from their daily excursion across the Hunza riverbed to gather fodder and wood for their cooking fires.
    Evolution_of_Diet_049.jpg
  • Preparing a dinner of maltashtze giyalin (Hunza pancakes), to be served with mulberry syrup and a cup of rock-salted milk tea.
    Evolution_of_Diet_048.jpg
  • Rubina Ismail and Yahyah Naig pluck and cook ducks in the village of Shimshal.
    Evolution_of_Diet_050.jpg
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