Meat Intake

The scientific evidence that early humans ate meat is very convincing, almost overwhelmingly so.  But the question of how much meat they ate (and how often) is still very much debated.  For the past few years, I have usually included some type of protein/meat with each meal.  Loren Cordain has been a big proponent of this, suggesting that people should consume lean meat at each meal.

Lately, my thoughts on this subject have begun to change.  Igniting this change is some more recent research done by Cordain in regards to  hunter-gatherer meal patterns.  In his latest Paleo diet newsletter, Cordain summarizes the exisiting research on this issue.  A few main ideas emerge: 1) hunter-gatherers ate "breakfast" about only one of every three days; this breakfast was mostly leftovers from the previous day's dinner.  2) They almost never ate lunch.  3)  The largest (and sometimes only) meal of the day was dinner, which included the meat from the day's hunt.

From this evidence, it looks like hunter-gatherers usually only consumed meat once a day, at dinnertime.  The may have consumed a lot of meat during this time, but it was only at one setting and not spread throughout the day.  I'm betting this type of meat consumption has quite a different impact on the body than eating meat 2-3 separate times per day.