Makes sense from an evolutionary viewpoint.

The Palaeo person is out food gathering.  If it is light work (gathering),
he/she may be able to nibble fruit found along the way to keep energy up.
If they can't, they'll be without food for the period it takes to gather.
Then there may be some further time returning home to the tribe plus
sharing, combining and preparation time (shelling nuts, winnowing seeds,
but generally not cooking as fire not generally available for most of the
evolutionary period under question).

If Palaeo is hunting, that's hard and intensive work.  Running after game,
grappling and killing it and dragging it home.  Then there'd be a period of
further moderately hard work while the animal was skinned, disembowelled
and the bones extracted and broken to get at the marrow.  Let alone another
hour or more while the meat was barbecued (if we assume they had fire).

These two speculative scenarios provide the evolutionary fitness basis for
(1) light fruit-type snacks to keep energy up during walking and extended
light labour and (b) a period of a few hours after high-intensity work
before eating a substantial, rich meal.

The point being that Homos adapted to make the best of scenarios like these
over about 3 million years.  It is what our bodies have been designed to
manage, and we haven't changed significantly since we got shaped that way.

Keith

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