The Hunter and Gatherer Diet... A.K.A. Life before Agriculture

Imagination is the key to life. 

We use it throughout our lives to create the world around us, as well as other worlds to escape from this one. As children, this plane call imagination is more fertile and abundant with life and love, and ideas that could change the world. Actors and writers use their imaginations and empathy to envision the worlds of the past, to bring truth and life to times that have past. A question that has always tugged at me was finally answered by one of my old acting tutors not too long ago: How can we engage the past in a more poignant way, a way that our audiences can see as well as feel?

“What did they eat? What did they hear around them in every space they passed through everyday? What did they see everyday, and not everyday? What historically was happening in their town/city/life around them? Answer these, yes. That is important. But more so is committing to it. Make the food they would eat, and only eat their dietary restraints for 2 weeks. Create their space as best you can, and immerse yourself in their home, their town, and their country. Listen to their music, read things they would read, try some of their chores, and hobbies, and maybe their job a little. There is a difference between method acting and The Method you know. Method acting can help you find the honest details of the world of the play and the characters in that world. The Method is losing who you are, as both an actor and a person, to create someone completely new to live in your body…its like inviting schizophrenia into you.” 

Now I know this is specifically an acting exercise, but I was wondering how I could use it for this blog and for life. I mean, in the fifties they ate things with real butter, high in sugar and saturated fats, but their portion control was excellent. And so different were the 1800s on foods in general. But what about hunters and gatherer from before humans decided to grow their food and cage live stock? That idea has become so relevant for me lately. Not many people can use the earth to feed them anymore.

Do you know the difference, just on sight, on what plants you could eat in a forest and which would kill you instantly?

 Do you know how to purify water, make shelter, start a fire, make a kill, clean it, and cook it without a kitchen to help you? Most people say, nope. And why shouldn’t they, when the Internet has become more common than pickup a book at the public library, or renting a video and the local Blockbuster. But what happens if there is a catastrophe, or an apocalypse, or another war that hits home? How would you survive at all, if you cannot trust the Earth around you to help shelter and feed you? I honestly believe people should have to learn how to hunt, how to gather, how to survive and live out in the forest for days without a radio, cell phone, or computer.

But enough of my pre-tech ranting, for now. What would these pre-agriculture people eat? Well, it is in their name: what they could hunt and gather. Fruits, nuts, berries, plants, bark, and vegetables found in nature with no growth hormones. They would have to set traps for small animals, make nets and poles for fishing, and weapons to hunt bigger game as well as cut and clean them for cooking and other things.

The Cave Man Diet Food Pyramid

So I decided to try something. I know I cannot just bolt into the woods, hoping I could try my hand at hunting and gathering alone without studying up a bit, but I want to try making a few meals the way our ancestors had to. For this next week, I will be making simple breakfasts, no special kitchen tricks or spices, that someone could easily have had before agriculture/when agriculture was just starting out.

Today’s breakfast, you ask?

1 large green apple

1 small nectarine

1 small kiwi

1 small handful of walnuts and almonds (roughly ¼ cup, I think)

and 1 very small chunk of goat cheese (the history of cheese).

Satisfying, filling, healthy, and cheap. I have to admit that these people were very smart survivalists. The whole ‘eating-tree-bark’-thing to survive when food was scarce, and setting traps for wild game like rabbits and squirrels, and chasing deer and other creatures throughout the forests of this planet, just trying to survive their world. And here we all sit, concerned with weight due to physical attractiveness, not health, survival, or the ability to run away from dangers.

So, what happened exactly to us?