HUNTING & GATHERING

Friend Jarvis in North Carolina sent a link to an article at Salon.Com entitled "New research into hunter-gatherers has surprising implications for diet and exercise choices." It reviewed a paper by anthropologist Herman Pontzer and others indicating that specific diet and exercise programs -- such as the Atkin's, vegan and Paleo diets, and Zumba, Crossfit and Pilates exercise trends -- probably aren't as effective as simply relying on a wide variety of foods, and getting more exercise than we might imagine.

The logic sending Pontzer and his team to study hundreds of hunter-gatherer communities was based on the assumption that since we modern humans evolved from ancestors living the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, our current physical and mental needs mostly accommodate that lifestyle, not the ways we currently live. "We were hunting and gathering before we were us... " Pontzer reminds us.

This kind of thinking and evidence gathering has been going on for a long time. One feature about Pontzer's work setting it apart from most other studies is that it considers more than eating and exercise habits. It finds that in communities of hunter-gatherers people enjoy close friendships with one another and maintain strong family bonds. There are low levels of social and economic inequality, and they spend lots of time outdoors.

But, even that has seemed obvious to a lot of us for a long time. For me, the fun part of reconsidering the idea is to play with this question: "If now we find we can't be healthy and happy unless we structure our lives in a way similar to how our distant ancestors structured theirs, wouldn't it have been just as good to stay as we were a million or so years ago?"

We like our modern advances in medical care, communication, and such, but isn't it so that for every good feature of modern society, a new bad feature has arisen? We now have plenty to eat, but our obesity kills us. We know not to be afraid during the solar eclipse, but now we have nuclear bombs. On and on.

As for me, I'm happier to be here, now, than to have lived a million years ago if only because of the easy availability of so much information about things I'm curious about. Hunting and gathering that information has granted me insights, inspirations, awe and a level of spirituality that earlier I didn't know existed. Because of that I'm more enriched and living more intentionally and profoundly than I could have on the African savanna. Our rabbit-clubbing, root-grubbing ancestors may have found their sparsely treed grasslands beautiful, inspiring and worshipful, but how can that compare to what we can feel now, having a much better idea than they of the true enormity, complexity and mysteriousness of things?

But, it seems that most people on Earth either can't or don't want to deal with all those facts about reality's majestic complexity. Also, most folks typically limit their interactions with, and knowledge of, others of their own local community, their own race and culture, and their own belief system, regarding "the other" with mistrust or even fear. There's so many of this kind that sometime they can even elect a president.

Such people -- maybe half of humanity -- well might be happier and healthier than they are today if somehow they could return to a million years ago and in small bands roam the African savanna grubbing roots and clubbing rabbits.

Though I can see that their perspective is important as part of the diversity required for the continuing evolution of the human species and the human spirit, sometimes from my perspective a bit on the left side of the bell curve of human rightness/leftness, I wish I could grant that happiness to all of them.