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Plant-animal subsistence ratios and macronutrient energy estimations in worldwide hunter-gatherer diets^1,2

¹ From the Department of Health and Exercise Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins; the Human Nutrition Unit, Department of Biochemistry, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; the Departments of Radiology and Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta; the Department of Food Science, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Melbourne, Australia; and the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Both anthropologists and nutritionists have long recognized that the diets of modern-day hunter-gatherers may represent a reference standard for modern human nutrition and a model for defense against certain diseases of affluence. Because the hunter-gatherer way of life is now probably extinct in its purely un-Westernized form, nutritionists and anthropologists must rely on indirect procedures to reconstruct the traditional diet of preagricultural humans. In this analysis, we incorporate the most recent ethnographic compilation of plant-to-animal economic subsistence patterns of hunter-gatherers to estimate likely dietary macronutrient intakes (% of energy) for environmentally diverse hunter-gatherer populations. Furthermore, we show how differences in the percentage of body fat in prey animals would alter protein intakes in hunter-gatherers and how a maximal protein ceiling influences the selection of other macronutrients. Our analysis showed that whenever and wherever it was ecologically possible, hunter-gatherers consumed high amounts (45–65% of energy) of animal food. Most (73%) of the worldwide hunter-gatherer societies derived >50% (56–65% of energy) of their subsistence from animal foods, whereas only 14% of these societies derived >50% (56–65% of energy) of their subsistence from gathered plant foods. This high reliance on animal-based foods coupled with the relatively low carbohydrate content of wild plant foods produces universally characteristic macronutrient consumption ratios in which protein is elevated (19–35% of energy) at the expense of carbohydrates (22–40% of energy).

Key Words: Dietary macronutrients • hunter-gatherers • preagricultural diets • wild foods • game meat • subsistence • energy • Ethnographic Atlas