Seems Like The Calcium Intake Of Hunter Gatherers Would Be Low

[RWilly]

According to dental and skeletal remains, hunter gatherers were taller and healthier than early farmers.

I'm thinking the most common foods (depending on location) if you were a hunter gatherer would be rabbit, fish, crustaceans, tubers, nuts, berries, leaves (many of which have oxalates), eggs if you were lucky and it was the right time of year, and big game. None of that is high in calcium.

Calcium would be mainly from dairy. I would think that early farmers would have had goats and sheep, thus would have higher calcium intakes than hunter gatherers.

Yet, the hunter gatherers have better dental and skeletal remains.

 

[lampofred]

There are many other variables... hunter gatherers probably got more protein than mostly grain eating farmers even though they got less milk. Adequate protein is necessary to actually use calcium. They probably got more sunlight as well, which is also important for using calcium. And grains in general depress metabolism and worsen calcium regulation. Plus leaves are rich in calcium.

 

[Max23]

I had this thought also, but now I think they ate bones to get calcium. Why not go directly for the source of bone material.

 

[Logan-]

How Did Hunter-gatherers Get Their Calcium?

 

[RWilly]

I had this thought also, but now I think they ate bones to get calcium. Why not go directly for the source of bone material.

But there are very few animals that eat bones. Even a dog that gnaws on a bone all day, doesn't make much headway.

 

[RWilly]

There are many other variables... hunter gatherers probably got more protein than mostly grain eating farmers even though they got less milk. Adequate protein is necessary to actually use calcium. They probably got more sunlight as well, which is also important for using calcium. And grains in general depress metabolism and worsen calcium regulation. Plus leaves are rich in calcium.

But many leaves are also high in oxalates, which binds calcium making it unavailable.

How Did Hunter-gatherers Get Their Calcium?

Thanks.

 

[Max23]

But there are very few animals that eat bones. Even a dog that gnaws on a bone all day, doesn't make much headway.

I also think they ate stuff that is not considered edible today, followed their cravings and also the water has a lot of calcium. Plus I think modern human has evolved to eat more calcium because of dairy farming. I think the body uses minerals because of their qualities and doesn´t need to get a certain one necessarily, but some can be replaced.

 

[lampofred]

Also I have heard that the four minerals, calcium, sodium, magnesium, potassium, can be transformed into each other within the body if metabolism is good, so if you're getting an excess of 3/4 of them for example you don't have to worry about a deficiency of the remaining one.

 

[Inaut]

they probably had ample/supercharged vitamin D

 

[Max23]

Also I have heard that the four minerals, calcium, sodium, magnesium, potassium, can be transformed into each other within the body if metabolism is good, so if you're getting an excess of 3/4 of them for example you don't have to worry about a deficiency of the remaining one.

That´s very interesting. I think there are a lot of those mechanisms in the body. The hunter gatherers should be deficient in a lot of things if modern standards are applied. Also some starving people are doing well, so I think they use a lot of other things to replace deficiencies.

 

[DrJ]

Yeah, vitamin D would be way high so they're absorbing nearly all the calcium they get. Plus way less phytic acid to steal the calcium away. Consumption of dairy is an adaptation to northern latitudes to get more calcium in face of much lower vitamin D.

 

[RWilly]

Also I have heard that the four minerals, calcium, sodium, magnesium, potassium, can be transformed into each other within the body if metabolism is good, so if you're getting an excess of 3/4 of them for example you don't have to worry about a deficiency of the remaining one.

I think I've heard Ray talk about transmutation at one point.

 

[RWilly]

they probably had ample/supercharged vitamin D

Yeah, vitamin D would be way high so they're absorbing nearly all the calcium they get. Plus way less phytic acid to steal the calcium away. Consumption of dairy is an adaptation to northern latitudes to get more calcium in face of much lower vitamin D.

Would they have? Farmers would still have spent plenty of daytime hours outside as well.

 

[YamnayaMommy]

I wonder what groups of farmers and hunter gatherers this research is actually based on. The spread of dairying is associated with the Neolithic migrations of the Porto-indo-European-speaking steppe people out of centric Eurasia into Europe and eventually India. These were extremely strong people who basically wiped out all the male hunter gatherers in Europe, which is why the original western hunter gatherer haplotypes are extremely rare in white men today. I doubt they had bad teeth and bones relative to the men they genocided.

 

[gaze]

They weren’t that tall 5’8 at most, but most were 5’5 range and were very stocky (not a desirable body type IMO). Early farmers were short because they didn’t have access to much protein, which is why they farmed in the first place

 

[DrJ]

Would they have? Farmers would still have spent plenty of daytime hours outside as well.

True. Outside farming their phytic acid to bind up their calcium. Plus farming and dairy go pretty hand in hand.

 

[schultz]

How Did Hunter-gatherers Get Their Calcium?

The same threads topics tend to pop up over and over. I am not criticizing, it's just something I've noticed over the years.

Something that wasn't mentioned in the other thread in this subject, which maybe I should have mentioned, is that a high fructose diet uses up phosphate which helps create a better calcium to phosphorus ratio. This probably decreases the level of calci needed, especially combined with higher vitamin D levels.

Ashes could also supply calcium. I mentioned in the other thread that people would burn water hyacinth and consume the ashes to prevent goiter. They didn't know about iodine, but they knew that that practice prevented goiter. People did things that we don't think of in our modern society.

I have a charcoal BBQ in my backyard with a tray for catching the ashes below so the ashes are visible. Wood ashes contain minerals including calcium. I have goats, and anybody who has goats know they can easily escape. This buck I have currently just hops over the fence and wanders around. He always comes to my back porch and eats the ashes from the BBQ (I use wood charcoal, not briquettes).

Interestingly in that other thread I mentioned that termite mounds are a popular source for the practice of geophagy. The study says that this soil is especially high in calcium. It is interesting that people specifically consume this soil without knowing that it is high in calcium.

People figure things out when they don't have to go to work for 8 hours a day and need to survive.

 

[Nicolas Noyola]

if you guys have roasted bones in a fire before you'd know it softens the bones significantly since fires are like 600-100 degrees. even 3 hours at 600 degrees in an oven is enough to make chicken bones edible. So I imagine as long as they cooked the carcass for a while over a fire it would soften the bones. even tiny sardine bones give 300 mg of calcium. so chicken bones could easily give 500mg-100mg, let alone the finer bones from larger game.

 

[RWilly]

Something that wasn't mentioned in the other thread in this subject, which maybe I should have mentioned, is that a high fructose diet uses up phosphate which helps create a better calcium to phosphorus ratio. This probably decreases the level of calci needed, especially combined with higher vitamin D levels.

Ashes could also supply calcium. I mentioned in the other thread that people would burn water hyacinth and consume the ashes to prevent goiter. They didn't know about iodine, but they knew that that practice prevented goiter. People did things that we don't think of in our modern society.

I have a charcoal BBQ in my backyard with a tray for catching the ashes below so the ashes are visible. Wood ashes contain minerals including calcium. I have goats, and anybody who has goats know they can easily escape. This buck I have currently just hops over the fence and wanders around. He always comes to my back porch and eats the ashes from the BBQ (I use wood charcoal, not briquettes).

Interestingly in that other thread I mentioned that termite mounds are a popular source for the practice of geophagy. The study says that this soil is especially high in calcium. It is interesting that people specifically consume this soil without knowing that it is high in calcium.

I think it's interesting to watch where animals naturally go given options. I remember back in my low carb days that I tested to see if my dog preferred his dried dog food with or without bacon fat. Turned out the bacon fat has no appeal, unless there was actual bacon in it.

But you are right to bring up soil, as the water source could have been a great source of calcium too.

 

[RWilly]

if you guys have roasted bones in a fire before you'd know it softens the bones significantly since fires are like 600-100 degrees. even 3 hours at 600 degrees in an oven is enough to make chicken bones edible. So I imagine as long as they cooked the carcass for a while over a fire it would soften the bones. even tiny sardine bones give 300 mg of calcium. so chicken bones could easily give 500mg-100mg, let alone the finer bones from larger game.

I think it would have still been super hard to digest.