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Unfortunately, it seems like nothing but bad news for paleo dieters lately, at least when it comes to actual evidence of what Paleolithic humans ate.
In case you’ve somehow avoided hearing about the Paleo diet, here’s the breakdown: Paleo adherents eschew processed food, saying that they refuse to eat anything our Paleolithic ancestors wouldn’t eat. They eat meat, fish, and pre-agricultural fruits and veggies.
There are worse diets, of course. But it’s still a fad diet, and it seems more and more that the premise of it crumbles under investigation.
Now it seems that there’s yet another reason that the premise of the Paleo diet is flawed: our ancestors seem to have eaten processed food after all.
A group of researchers from the University of Florence in Italy found a mortar and pestle form the Paleolithic era. This tool was found to have oat residue all over it—up to 250 starch grains per square centimeter.
The tool that was found is identified as being about 32,000 years old. It was studied twice for food residue.
What does this mean for Paleo dieters? They’re right in some respects. Paleos did eat lots of plants.
But not only did Paleos eat grains, but they may even have ground those grains into flour—with heat, even.
Yep, that’s right: Paleos ate processed foods. One of the authors of the study, led by Marta Mariotti Lippi, stated that “the inhabitants of Grotta Paglicci…were the most ancient population to use a method that involves at least four subsequent steps in preparing plants for consumption.”
That’s a pretty shocking find.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Paleo dieters, or any of us really, should be eating highly processed foods. But hey, if our ancestors ate oatmeal, it’s probably fine for us to do it, too.
