New food fads and diets seem to be regularly introduced, and one of the most popular in recent years has been the Paleo diet, where people are encouraged to eat as our ancestors did in Paleolithic times. However, a new study has questioned how accurate this diet really is, and has suggested that none of the foods eaten during Paleolithic times are available today.

The team propose a true Paleo diet would have been incredibly varied and solely dependent on the local environment and food available, with our ancestor’s focus being largely on survival. Hence it is impossible to pinpoint a single Paleo diet with little evidence suggesting any food categories being particularly important. Furthermore, the authors suggest that as the early human life span was much shorter than modern-day expectations, it is not possible to know if the diet was healthier, as so many diseases common to old age would not have had time to manifest.