Before agriculture was invented, before animals had been domesticated, and way before people started traveling by boats or conquering empires, our early ancestors lived in the Paleolithic era as hunter-gatherers. The lineage homo lived during the period between 2.5 million to about 12,000 years ago—a period also known as the Stone Age. For millions of years, in this environment hunter-gatherer group of ancient hominins such as Homo habilis or Homo erectus and later Homo sapiens ate foods that they could find in nature.

The dependency that our homo lineage evolved with nature for millions of years still remains within us—it is woven into the fabric of our genes. With this said what they evolved to eat remains relevant. And even though it’s impossible to ever re-create a true Paleolithic diet since many of the plants and animals that our prehistoric ancestors were consuming have long gone extinct, plenty remains to be learned from the prehistoric human diet. We can learn about the foods we ought to be avoiding and just as important about the foods Mother Nature intended for us to eat.