Hunter Gatherer

A hunter gatherer is a human who procures food from hunting and gathering - in contrast to procuring food by mass agriculture and/or the domestication of animals. Hunting and gathering cultures reigned supreme before the advent of agriculture - so for the largest portion of human prehistory.

The Neolithic Revolution (i.e., the agricultural revolution) developed in different cultures and regions at different times - varying from as long ago as 15,000 years B.P. to as recent as 6,000 years B.P. There are still aboriginal tribes that remain hunter gatherers, mostly in very remote regions ... and these are dwindling every decade.

The term, "hunter gatherer", while a commonly used term in academic, archaeological, anthropolical, and popular publications, has many spelling variations - all referring to and meaning the same thing. Some of these spelling/grammatical variations are: hunters and gatherers, hunters-and-gatherers, hunters-gatherers, hunter-gatherer, H-G's, H-G, hunting and gathering, etc.

A Hunter Gatherer Diet

The hunter gatherer diet is analogous to the Paleolithic diet, the Paleo Diet, the caveman diet, the stone age diet, etc., and consists of trying to replicate this ancestral diet for health benefits. Hunters and gatherers, when on their native diet, have been cited as almost universally without the modern diseases of civilization. In many historical accounts, western peoples are amazed at how vital the old were, and how ailments such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, auto-immune diseases, obesity didn't exist in these cultures until they started switching to our modern, western diet.

Below is an excerpt from an article by Dr. Cordain and other scientists about a Hunter gatherer diet and heart disease:

The paradoxical nature of hunter-gatherer diets: meat-based, yet non-atherogenic

"Field studies of twentieth century hunter-gathers (HG) showed them to be generally free of the signs and symptoms of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Consequently, the characterization of HG diets may have important implications in designing therapeutic diets that reduce the risk for CVD in Westernized societies. Based upon limited ethnographic data (n=58 HG societies) and a single quantitative dietary study, it has been commonly inferred that gathered plant foods provided the dominant energy source in HG diets. METHOD AND RESULTS: In this review we have analyzed the 13 known quantitative dietary studies of HG and demonstrate that animal food actually provided the dominant (65%) energy source, while gathered plant foods comprised the remainder (35%). This data is consistent with a more recent, comprehensive review of the entire ethnographic data (n=229 HG societies) that showed the mean subsistence dependence upon gathered plant foods was 32%, whereas it was 68% for animal foods. Other evidence, including isotopic analyses of Paleolithic hominid collagen tissue, reductions in hominid gut size, low activity levels of certain enzymes, and optimal foraging data all point toward a long history of meat-based diets in our species. Because increasing meat consumption in Western diets is frequently associated with increased risk for CVD mortality, it is seemingly paradoxical that HG societies, who consume the majority of their energy from animal food, have been shown to be relatively free of the signs and symptoms of CVD. CONCLUSION: The high reliance upon animal-based foods would not have necessarily elicited unfavorable blood lipid profiles because of the hypolipidemic effects of high dietary protein (19-35% energy) and the relatively low level of dietary carbohydrate (22-40% energy). Although fat intake (28-58% energy) would have been similar to or higher than that found in Western diets, it is likely that important qualitative differences in fat intake, including relatively high levels of MUFA and PUFA and a lower omega-6/omega-3 fatty acid ratio, would have served to inhibit the development of CVD. Other dietary characteristics including high intakes of antioxidants, fiber, vitamins and phytochemicals along with a low salt intake may have operated synergistically with lifestyle characteristics (more exercise, less stress and no smoking) to further deter the development of CVD." (from the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition)."

The above is an excerpt from an article by Dr. Cordain and other scientists about a Hunter gatherer diet, and its potential in the fight against heart disease.

The Paleo Diet is the modern way to simulate a Paleolithic Diet!