Is Eating Like Your Ancestors Making You Healthier?

7 days ago
6 min read

Illustration of nine primate skulls in various views on a white background. The skulls are detailed, showcasing different angles.

Every few years, a new “back to basics” food trend comes along and lately, it feels like ancestral eating is having a moment.

From paleo to carnivore to influencers claiming we need to “eat like our ancestors,” social media is full of people gnawing on raw liver, pouring raw milk, and promising that this is the key to perfect health.

It sounds simple enough: go back to the way humans used to eat, before industrialisation “ruined” food.

But as with most wellness trends, the truth is far more complicated.

On the How To: Fitness Podcast, I took a closer look at the science, the history, and the myths behind ancestral eating.

You can listen to the full episode here:

🎧 Episode 55: Is Eating Like Your Ancestors Making You Healthier?

The problem with “ancestral eating”

Let’s start with a basic fact: there is no single “ancestral diet.”

Our ancestors lived in wildly different climates and ecosystems. Their diets depended on what was available — plants, grains, roots, fish, small game, and whatever could be foraged or hunted. Some groups ate more meat, others relied heavily on plants, tubers, and grains. There was no universal “caveman menu.”

Yet, modern versions of ancestral eating often suggest that humans were primarily meat-eaters who avoided grains and legumes. That claim doesn’t hold up when you look at the evidence.

Archaeological research shows that early humans were skilled gatherers as well as hunters. Starch granules from tubers, grains, and legumes have been found in fossilised dental plaque that predates agriculture by tens of thousands of years. Our anatomy also supports this. Humans have longer digestive tracts, teeth suited for chewing plants, and trichromatic vision that helps identify ripe fruits and edible leaves. We even evolved extra copies of the amylase gene, which helps us digest starch.

In short: we are built to eat a variety of foods, not just steak and organ meat.

The myth of the perfect past

Part of the appeal of ancestral diets is nostalgia. There’s comfort in imagining a time when food was pure, simple, and natural. But this story leaves out some important context.

Our ancestors did not eat to optimise health or longevity. They ate to survive. Life expectancy for most of human history was around 30 to 40 years. Infectious disease, injury, and childbirth were far bigger threats than diet.

The idea that ancient diets were “healthier” simply because chronic diseases were rarer ignores the fact that people didn’t live long enough to develop them. Heart disease and cancer are largely diseases of ageing, not of moral failure.

It’s also important to remember that nearly every food we eat today has been modified through thousands of years of selective breeding. Modern fruit, vegetables, and grains are more palatable, less bitter, and much larger than their wild counterparts. Bananas, lettuce, and broccoli as we know them didn’t exist in the Paleolithic era. So when people say “eat what your ancestors ate,” they’re chasing an idea that’s biologically and practically impossible.

The rise of modern “ancestral” influencers

The current wave of ancestral eating has roots in early 20th-century ideas from dentist Weston A. Price. He believed that modern “Western” diets caused disease and jaw deformities, and that traditional diets were inherently superior. His observations were interesting, but his conclusions were flawed and often laced with pseudoscience.

Today, the Weston A. Price Foundation continues his legacy with a highly selective interpretation of his work, promoting raw milk for infants, rejecting vaccines and fluoride, and encouraging extremely high saturated fat intake. These positions run counter to decades of established nutrition and public health research.

Then there’s Paul Saladino, better known as the Carnivore MD, who built an entire brand around the claim that plant foods are harmful. He preaches an “animal-based” lifestyle built around meat, liver, fruit, and raw dairy, while warning that vegetables are toxic. Ironically, he’s admitted to adding carbs back into his own diet after suffering health issues on strict carnivore.

Both Price and Saladino have built large followings by selling a nostalgic, rebellious vision of “natural” health, one that rejects mainstream science and offers simple, confident answers in a world that feels uncertain. But their advice doesn’t always line up with evidence.

The truth about “modern” food

One reason ancestral diets feel appealing is because they highlight a real problem: the rise of ultra-processed foods. Over the past century, our diets have changed faster than our biology can keep up with. Many of us rely on calorie-dense, low-fibre foods that are convenient but not particularly nourishing.

However, the solution isn’t to reject all modern food. Additives, preservatives, and fortifiers often make food safer and more accessible. Preservatives like ascorbic acid (vitamin C) prevent spoilage, emulsifiers keep foods stable, and fortification adds nutrients like iron and folic acid that prevent deficiency.

These compounds have long safety records and are tightly regulated. The name might sound intimidating, but that doesn’t make them dangerous. After all, cyanide is natural, and oxygen stabilisers in bread are synthetic — yet one is deadly and the other is safe.

So rather than drawing a hard line between “ancestral” and “modern,” the focus should be on overall dietary quality: eating a balance of whole or minimally processed foods most of the time, while understanding that convenience foods have a place too.

Why context matters

One of the biggest differences between us and our ancestors is our food environment. They spent most of their day sourcing, preparing, and eating food. We live in a world where food is engineered to be delicious, cheap, and available 24/7.

It’s not about willpower, it’s about biology meeting abundance. Our brains evolved to seek out energy-dense foods for survival, not to resist them. When you pair that wiring with constant advertising and stress, moderation becomes genuinely difficult.

That’s why the conversation about health has to be grounded in modern life. Most of us cannot forage for dinner between meetings, nor should we have to. The goal isn’t to copy the past; it’s to build realistic habits that work in the present.

Lessons we can actually take from ancestral eating

When you strip away the pseudoscience, there are some genuinely useful lessons we can borrow from the idea of ancestral eating:

Eat more variety. Our ancestors’ diets were diverse and seasonal. More diversity in your diet means more fibre and a healthier gut microbiome.
Cook more often. Food preparation connects you with what you eat and helps you make more balanced choices.
Eat fewer ultra-processed foods. Not because they’re evil, but because whole and minimally processed foods usually leave you feeling more satisfied.
Respect individuality. Genetic differences mean that people respond differently to foods. There is no single “perfect” human diet.

What the fossil and microbiome evidence really show is that humans evolved to thrive on a wide range of foods. Flexibility and adaptability, not restriction, are what helped us survive.

Final thoughts

It’s easy to romanticise the past, but our ancestors didn’t have a secret diet that modern humans have lost. They ate what they could find, and that flexibility is exactly what made our species so resilient.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to eat fewer processed foods or to connect more with where your food comes from. But if someone tries to sell you the “one true ancestral diet,” it might be time to question their motives — and maybe their supplement line.

Health isn’t about eating like a caveman. It’s about eating like you, here and now, in a way that feels sustainable, nourishing, and real.

🎧 Listen to the full discussion on the How To: Fitness Podcast here: 👉 Is Eating Like Your Ancestors Making You Healthier? or if you prefer you can watch me and Kate recording the podcast in this video.