Research
Mixed
An ancestral diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in grains and dairy is net base-yielding, which prevents the chronic metabolic acidosis associated with modern acid-producing diets.
Focus on eating more fruits and vegetables and fewer cereal grains and dairy products to keep your body's acid-base balance in a healthy, base-yielding state. This helps prevent the silent, long-term damage to bones and kidneys associated with chronic metabolic acidosis from modern diets.
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
High fruit and vegetable intake and minimal grain and dairy consumption made ancestral diets base-yielding, unlike today’s acid-producing pattern.
Why this rating
Based on retrojected estimates and physiological models of acid-base balance, not long-term RCTs.
Source
The ancestral human diet: what was it and should it be a paradigm for contemporary nutrition?
S. Boyd Eaton · Proceedings of The Nutrition Society · 2006
DOI 10.1079/pns2005471
narrative_reviewCited 200×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Adopting a hunter-gatherer-style macronutrient profile (approx. 35% fat, 35% carbs, 30% protein) with high polyunsaturated fat intake and minimal refined sugars improves metabolic health markers compared to the standard Western diet.Moderate
- Ancestral diets provided significantly higher micronutrient intake (1.5 to 8 times) than modern diets, with the exception of sodium, which was much lower in ancestral times.Moderate
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