Rethinking ‘Extreme’ Diets: Why Low-Carb is More Natural than You Think

Many people consider low-carb and ketogenic diets to be “extreme,” but they fail to realize that our modern eating patterns, such as consuming three meals a day with rice and noodle-heavy diets, are actually a relatively recent development in human history. For instance, the Han Chinese only adopted a three-meals-a-day structure around the Song Dynasty, roughly 1,000 years ago. In the context of human evolution, which spans approximately 2 million years, this 1,000-year window represents a mere 0.05% of our species’ existence.

Before this shift, the majority of human diets were not based on grains like rice or noodles but on what was available through hunting, gathering, and seasonal access to plant foods—primarily consisting of animal products, including meat and fat, supplemented by available vegetation. In other words, for 99.95% of human history, our ancestors were not eating meals centered on grains and carbohydrates; they were primarily carnivorous or followed a hunter-gatherer diet with periods of fasting, a model far more in line with low-carb or ketogenic principles.

Misconceptions about “Normal” Diets:

Just because modern society is accustomed to a high-carb, grain-dominant diet doesn’t mean it’s natural or typical for the human body. The large-scale agricultural revolution, which introduced staple crops like rice, wheat, and maize, occurred about 10,000 years ago—a blink in evolutionary time. From an evolutionary biology standpoint, our bodies are still largely adapted to the hunter-gatherer way of eating, which involved periods of scarcity and nutrient-dense animal foods, rich in proteins and fats.

The Real “Extreme” Diet:

In contrast, the current norm of consuming carbohydrates in nearly every meal—especially refined grains, processed sugars, and oils—is an extreme departure from the diet humans evolved with. This shift has been associated with many modern health problems, including metabolic disorders, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases, which were virtually unknown to our pre-agricultural ancestors.

Conclusion:

Our dietary habits over the past millennium, and especially over the last few centuries, are anomalies when viewed against the backdrop of human evolution. The ketogenic or low-carb diet aligns much more closely with the nutrient-dense, intermittent eating patterns our bodies are designed to thrive on. Just because modern society is used to eating carbohydrate-heavy meals doesn’t mean this pattern is the biological or historical norm—it’s simply a recent cultural adaptation.

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