Hungry for burgers and fries?

Hungry for burgers and fries? Take a tip from your prehistoric ancestors and try a bison burger instead. Paleolithic humans feasted on the beasts and led a healthy life – if a wild animal didn’t get them first.

The “caveman diet” could work for you, too, a handful of researchers say. Why? Bison and such free-roaming animals fed on grasses, not grain. A slab of grass-fed bison meat has a healthier mix of fats than even the leanest beef.

To get the scoop, Web MD turned to S. Boyd Eaton, MD, who has been investigating the diet for nearly 25 years. He and several colleagues have reviewed what is known about the diets of 229 Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies, taken from The Ethnographic Atlas.

The caveman diet is based on what our ancestors probably consumed 40,000 years ago. Eaton and others believe it will help us ward off many modern ailments such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

Carbohydrates were big, but obviously not of the donut-breakfast cereal-bread variety. Hunter-gatherers had no choice but to forage for fruits and vegetables. They might not have had potatoes, but they had roots and tubers.

Protein was big in Paleolithic times, with up to 30% of the diet being meat – much more than is recommended today, says Eaton. “The nature of the fat in meat was quite different from what we can obtain now, “Eaton tells WebMD. “There was much less saturated fat in wild game.” There also was less omega-6 fats in the meat and more omega-3 – a healthier form of fat.

The American Heart Association advises eating sources of food that have high levels of omega-3. Bison meat has been analyzed and found to have higher omega-3 content- but only if the animals have been grass-fed.