"We're looking at modern surrogates for Paleolithic peoples," said Stanley
Eaton, S. Boyd Eaton's son and research assistant. "They get little diabetes
and cancer, and they don't get osteoporosis. They get a lot of injuries
caused by their active lifestyles. Their overall life span is shorter than
ours, but their health during life is better than ours."

S. Boyd Eaton and his fellow researchers concluded that late Paleolithic
people got approximately 34 percent of their calories from protein, 45
percent from carbohydrates, and 21 percent from fat. In contrast, our modern
diets are made up of about 15 percent protein, 52 percent carbohydrates and
33 percent fat.

Though early man ate a lot of meat, we probably can't view that fact as
license to go on an all-prime-rib diet. Eaton and others stress that wild
game has a very different nutritional content from domesticated animals.
Today's cattle have 30 percent or more fat, while wild African herbivores
have only about 4 percent fat.

Not only that, but the types of fat are different. Today's beef is high in
saturated fat, but wild game has little saturated fat and is much higher in
the heart-friendly omega-3 fats found in some fish.

Except for Eskimos and others in cold areas, hunter-gatherers use many types
of wild plants for food, consuming roots, nuts, seeds, fruits, flowers and
edible gums. Such a profusion of plant foods would have given early man a
diet that was extremely high in fiber -- beyond today's recommended level of
25 grams per day.

"The average fiber content in the hunter-gatherer diet would have been
mind-boggling compared to what we eat," said UCSD's Norcross. "The estimated
daily fiber content was 45 grams, which is far more than people trying to
increase the fiber in their diet would be able to obtain today."

Prehistoric diets also probably would have been high in calcium and vitamin
C and extremely low in sodium.