To understand what humans adapted to eat primarily, I suppose. One of my gripes is reading ‘studies’ of modern hunter gatherers who eat this or that carb food which may or may not have even existed in its present form during the Pleistocene. Then that example being used to make a generalization about ‘humans evolving’ to eat said carbs - eg starchy fibrous tubers. In her blog, Amber O’Hearn talks about a couple of egregious examples of this sort of nonsense. One here.
There is, in fact, a serious hypothesis that humans are what we are (big-brained bipedal primates) because our ancestors started eating cooked fibrous tubers 2 million years ago. Even though said tubers require long and slow roasting to extract any nutrients at all (very little) and there’s zero evidence of prehumans and humans using fire more than 800kya or consistently for cooking more than 400kya. One so-called researcher used the standard potato, probably purchased at her local super, as an example of a starchy tuber which cooked yields nutrients. What she apparently does not know is that potatoes are native to the Andes of Peru and Bolivia and our hunter gatherer ancestors in Africa were not eating them 800kya, 400kya or even 20kya.
All around our Pleistocene ancestors were grazing herds of mega fauna and we’re supposed to think that they wasted time and energy digging up roots. Even the Hunza today, who are used a a prime example of tuber eating hunter gatherers consider tubers ‘starvation/survival’ food eaten only when in dire need.
What it tells me, so far, is that we evolved and adapted to living primarily in ketosis. Doing so is our natural metabolic state and therefore leads to our best chance of overall health, well-being and longevity. Just my opinion.