I read in the book 1493 that the Irish were basically the healthiest Europeans post-potato and pre-famine because potatoes+milk is as nutritionally complete a diet as you could find.
If we limit the scope to macronutriens it is indeed correct.
If you could choose only one food to eat, potatoes would be a wise choice. Every other single food will cause you to become deficient much more quickly.
No, ruminant meat such as beef or steak or even fatty fish such as salmon is a far more complete source of nutrition. Pre-agricultural humans lived almost exclusively on meat for hundreds of thousands of years. Potatoes lack certain essential nutrients meat does not, such as Vitamin D, Vitamin K, heme iron, zinc, omega 3s, etc.
You seem to be ignoring the “gatherer” half of “hunter-gatherer”. I’ve seen no widespread acceptance that pre-agricultural people ate only meat. They would have eaten a large number of plants, nuts, roots, fruits as well as insects and anything else they could find. You can find this in coprolites preserved in habitable caves.
No, the name hunter-gatherer does not imply that 50% of the calories were obtained from plants.
I linked to an article explaining that point, which includes the source and evidence.
Especially during the deep glacial periods of the ice age, which was most of the last 1 million years, humans sustained themselves almost entirely on meat.
Most hominids during most of this period lived outside Northern Eurasia and would have had ample motivation and opportunity to eat plant foods. If you were talking about Neanderthals you would have a point.
Yeah, when we talk of traditional societies eating meat, it wasn't just ribeye and potatoes. Liver, bone marrow, brains -- all of that was consumed and these contain a lot of nutrition that you don't replicate with a steady diet of filet mignon. It's a shame how Americans no longer eat liver.
