ABSTRACT
We embarked on our hominin evolution ca. 7 million years ago (MYA) (Brunet et al. 2005; Zollikofer et al. 2005) equipped with a set of basic nutrient requirements and features of digestive physiology already shaped by 30 million years of earlier evolution as anthropoid primates (Hohmann 2009; Milton 1999). Th ese inherited features ‘set limitations on the types of foods they could successfully exploit’ and, in the hominoid line, required that ‘dietary quality be kept high for a physically active and highly social lifestyle’ (Milton 2002, p. 113). Given that these general adaptations operated for many millions of years, it is not surprising that we inherited from our anthropoid primate ancestors an instinct for ‘sensory specifi c satiety’, which favours the consumption of a variety of foods or food classes (dietary diversity) and precludes the overconsumption of individual foods ( Johns 1999, p. 30). More specifi cally, ‘humans are well adapted for lean meat, fi sh, insects and highly diverse plant foods without being
dependent on any particular proportions of plants versus meat’ (Lindeberg 2009, p. 43).
