Humans, Food & Feast–Famine
Meal patterns before and after agriculture, with hard limits on what prehistory can prescribe for modern schedules.
Educational only. Not medical advice. See our disclaimer.
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- Part 1: Did ancestral humans “fast”?: Irregular food access is old. A chosen 16:8 is not. What hunter-gatherer and archaeological evidence can and cannot say about skipping meals. Not a paleo protocol. Not medical advice.
- Part 2: Before agriculture: hunting, gathering, sharing: How food moved in camp before farms: hunts that fail, plants and honey that hold the week, and meat that is shared wide. Not a paleo protocol. Not medical advice.
- Part 3: After agriculture: surplus and regular meals: Farms, stores, and grain made more regular meals possible. They did not invent 16:8, and they did not end famine. Not a paleo protocol. Not medical advice.
- Part 4: Circadian rhythm & daylight eating: Light is the main body-clock cue. Meals are a weaker one. Daylight eating is a pattern, not a recovered 16:8 and not a reason to skip dinner under a lamp. Not medical advice.
- Part 5: Hunger is a signal, not a moral test: Hunger from a failed hunt and hunger on a weekday 16:8 are different jobs. Neither is a score of virtue. Not a protocol. Not medical advice.
- Part 6: What we cannot conclude from prehistory: Fossils, ethnography, and “paleo” slogans cannot prescribe 16:8, OMAD, or a meat-only plate. What the evidence cannot do, on purpose. Not a protocol. Not medical advice.
Fasting Fundamentals · How to make fasting easier · Longer fasts · Very long fasts · Using the Clock · Everyday Fasting · History of Fasting · What Research Suggests