[thomascgalvin]

Some populations almost certainly ate like this at least some of the time, but it's dangerous to talk too specifically about "what life was like back then." There's just too much variation.

We know that periods of fasting are good for us; even setting this study aside, we know that autophagy is stimulated by fasting. This does tell us that our ancestors fasted often enough that our bodies are designed to benefit from it, but we can't draw more specific conclusions like "we should eat for eight hours a day" or "we should eat every other day."

Also, the fact that modern eating patterns cause disease (which is more or less undisputed) does not mean that our ancestors had a perfect plan that we should follow.