"Take only what you need and leave the land as you found it." -The Arapaho People

The human genome has changed little over the past 40,000 years . Our ancestors developed agricultural practices about 10,000 years ago (see a Timeline). The advent of agricultural marked a chaotic period for our bodies to adjust to these foreign foods. The fossil record shows a massive decrease in average height, health, and rapid increase in disease, obesity, and population for cultures that survived the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a agricultural dependent one. Women on high grain/carbohydrate diets become mature at an earlier age than their hunter-gatherer counterparts; thereby out-breeding and out-producing hunter-gatherers. Without this significant population boom, our diet as we know it could in fact be the same as it was before the advent of agriculture.

Chronic Illness: Diet Related?

A diet high in legumes, carbohydrates, and grains could be making you ill. Why would a diet high in post-agricultural-era foods be detrimental to our health? Because these foods are foreign to our bodies. Our genes have not had the time nor the evolutionary pressures to adapt to these new foods. 

I go into this in detail in my book The Prehistoric Diet available for purchase on this website.