ABSTRACT
More generally, ever since the nineteenth century, the issue of carbohydrates as the major source of energy in the diet has been controversial and diets based majorly on high protein and fat consumption have been promoted, notably by W. Banting and more recently by R. Atkins and T. Noakes, and there is also the socalled Paleo (Paleolithic) diet. e latter, in particular, is based on the premise that humans are not adapted to consume large
quantities of carbohydrates. Notwithstanding this particular controversy, humans possess a carbohydrate-degrading enzyme system, which can eectively hydrolyze available starch into glucose, and additionally have a gut microora that can derive considerable energy from starch, which is resistant to digestion (Lee et al., 2013). Notably, humans seem to have substantially higher copy numbers of the salivary amylase gene (AMY1) than chimpanzees and bonobos may not even have salivary amylase (Perry et al., 2007). Also, there is archaeological evidence, based on the presence of starch granules embedded in human tooth dental calculus, that starchy foods have been signicant components of the human diet since the Iron Age (Hardy et al., 2009). Starch granules have also been found embedded in early Neolithic grinding stones (Liu et al., 2010). Such ndings conrm the importance of starch in the human diet.
