What about the Omega-3 and Omega-6 imbalance?
The modern human diet is vastly different from that of our ancestors. For them food gathering comprised hunting, fishing and foraging for seeds, berries and other edibles. As a consequence human beings evolved on 'natural' foods supplying a diet that was low in total fat and saturated fat, but contained a balance of Omega-6 and Omega-3 essential fatty acids.
The emphasis gradually moved away from hunting/gathering towards cultivating the land, but the greatest diet changes have occurred in the past 50 or so years. As a result of our increasing reliance on cereals, processed foods and, most significantly, vegetable oils and spreads, compounded by a decreased consumption of oily fish and grass-fed meat, today this ratio is about 10:1. Modern Western diets are therefore deficient in Omega-3 compared with the diet on which humans evolved and their genetic patterns were established.
