The archaeological record shows that hunter-gatherers had an abysmally short lifespan, and were far from healthy... Pretty much every positive development in human health history happened after the advent of agriculture. Hunter gatherers were lucky to live past 30...
I'd guess your 'low carb' diet still had more vegetables and grains than most hunter gatherers had access to...
Most of the statistics about our ancestors having a 35ish life expectancy are skewed by high infant mortality, and high risk of death due to injury or other external ailments (a broken leg on the savannah can easily be a death sentence). A hunter-gatherer who surived those things would tend to live into their sixties or beyond.
Sure, a large proportion of them die at early childhood - "life expectancy" measures takes that into account by definition, as it measures the total average life expectancy; and if you get a 100 kids who live to 70 and 100 kids who die as infants, then the average life expectancy is 35.
It's not about the ancient societies but is relevant because for this discussion the point is not history, but the effects of a hunter-gatherer diet.
http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2...
However there is evidence of populations in pre-agricultural times which had favorable environments and consequently better health.
In fact there was just published by the Smithsonian an interesting article describing findings in the 9000 year old Kennewick Man specimen. Of particular interest was a comment about the condition of the teeth: all intact, no cavities attributed to low CHO diet. Age at time of death was estimated to be 40 years old. Not bad for 9000 years ago.
BTW I'd appreciate references you have to the differences in pre- and early post-agricultural health in human populations. Isolating dietary effects on health is difficult to be sure and a subject I'm always eager to learn more about.
As far as my diet is concerned, vegetables are emphasized, especially the green, leafy kind. (Foods that are relatively high in protein, low in CHO.) I recommend, and practice myself, reducing grains to a minimum.
As you no doubt know, protein, certain fats, a bunch of minerals and vitamins are essential to humans because we can't synthesize certain molecules--we must get them in our diet. Curiously, there is no essential carbohydrate. Our bodies can produce all the CHO it needs from non-CHO sources.
That's not to say CHO intake is not useful, and it is useful as a source of calories. In the past when calories were expensive, less costly CHO sources of calories were valuable, in essence to prevent starvation. In the current era when calories are extremely cheap, high CHO intake is positively dangerous--it's easy to consume a surplus of calories.
Interestingly, the data shows over the last 30 years there has been very little change in dietary fat intake in the USA, but sugars have increased dramatically. The rise in obesity has been attributed to inclusion of sugars in manufactured foods. The idea of decreasing dietary CHO intake, especially sugars, is logical.
Gluten and corn intolerance is common according to reports. Wheat, corn and many other grain products are grass seeds. Grass and its seeds are frequently allergenic to humans, which supports the idea humans are not native grass eaters, hence the advice to minimize it.
*Aristocrats and other people that had high protein intake, security etc.
Do you know as fact that humans when they died did so from malnourishment? It's very possibly more likely due to some kind of famine which tended to happen from natural causes.
Yes, humans could endure longer with vegetation because it's easier to maintain it for longer periods of time in raw form, but were they in better physical health from eating the same thing over and over again? I'd imagine they had horrible vitamin deficiencies during famines.
(I am on a low carb diet with plenty of veg.)
"some of the healthiest people on earth eat vegetable heavy diets..."
That doesn't mean anything. That barely even makes any sense.
Hunter gatherers were lucky to live past 30...
Not true. If you made it past 5-10 years, you were likely to live a fairly full adult life. Infant mortality was very high, but it wasn't like most people dropped dead before 30 if they survived early childhood.
In the Upper Paleolithic, life expectancy at birth was 33 years, and by 15 years of age the total expectancy went up to 54 years.
In Classical Rome, life expectancy at birth was 20-30 years, and by 10 years of age the total expectancy went up to 45-47 years.
In Medieval Britain, life expectancy at birth was 30 years, and by 15 years of age the total expectancy went up to 64 years.
This looks kind of mixed to me. Certainly, as you point out, people weren't "dropping dead at 30". But dying around 45 or 55 is not what people nowadays would call a "fairly full adult life" either.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy...
Certainly in a sociological sense, most people consider the years 60+ to be twilight years where you're not living life to the fullest - whether it's true or not, that's the perception.