Eat a Variety of Food for a Healthy Diet

Prehistoric people ate a more varied diet than most modern people. Early humans were opportunistic omnivores. They lived a hunter-gatherer existence and the source of their food depended mainly on the locale and climate in which they lived. Although we do not know whether the few remaining hunter-gatherer societies today are completely comparable to prehistoric people, we can get somewhat of an idea of what life may have been before the advent of modern agriculture and animal husbandry. When I was studying anthropology in college I researched the Sans/Kung people (Bushmen) who live in the Kalahari Desert in Africa. Before being influenced by modern life, the Sans/Kung people lived a nomadic survivalist existence in the harsh environment in which they lived. There is little water in the Kalahari Desert and so even though the Sans/Kung people do hunt, large game animals are scarce. At least 80 % of their food were plants, including their staple, mongogo nuts as well as berries, the fruit of the baobob tree, bitter melon, various tubers and cactus fruit (hoodia). In fact it has been documented that the Sans/Kung people ate as many as 100 different kinds of plants. The remaining food they ate were insects and small game.

Most modern people have a much more restricted diet. I counted up what I ate yesterday and it came up to about 20 different foods. (banana, blueberries, strawberries, flax, almonds, walnuts, pecans, soy milk, peanuts, kale, turnip greens, spinach, black eyed peas, tomatoes, onions, romaine lettuce, fig flavored vinegar, broccoli, rice and herbal tea). Nutritionists say that the more variety we have in our diet, the better. So I am striving to add even more variety to my diet.