For much of the 11,500 years that humans have roamed Utah, obesity has not been the problem.

On the contrary, simple survival was the greater worry in an arid landscape of high desert and towering mountains. For hundreds of years, indigenous peoples lived on what the land could provide, and the white pioneers learned from them.

Paleoindians, believed to have lived here from 11,500 and 8,500 years ago, are thought to have feasted on big game such as mammoth and bison, said Renee Barlow, an anthropologist at Salt Lake Community College.

Archaeological evidence includes projectile points that probably were used for hunting. The catch would be roasted over fire, she said, and berries and roots may have rounded out the diet.

The area's next residents, archaic Indians, expanded the menu, Barlow said. "It looks like a huge broadening of the diet to include everything that was around. It looks like seeds became a major part of the diet."

About 50 seed species - including salt bush, pickle weed and goose foot - were made into mushes or ground into meal. Barlow said in winter, a pine nut mush could be left outside to create a frozen treat.

Hunting continued, with bighorn sheep, deer, elk, bison, birds, rodents and even the occasional grasshopper among the potential entrees.

A later group, known as the Fremont to archaeologists and as Newenucyou or Mookweetch to some tribes, brought a new twist: crops. "We've got the addition of corn, beans and squash," Barlow said.

The Fremont also gathered serviceberry, gooseberry, lemonade-berry, juniper berry, chokecherry and elderberry.

Archaeologists and modern tribes disagree over the ultimate fate of the Fremont about 1,000 years ago. Many archaeologists contend they abandoned the area, while several tribes claim the ancient Indians as their ancestors.

Utah's early modern tribes appear to have dropped agriculture and returned to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, Barlow said.

The Northern Utes ate a mix of native plants, seeds and game, according to A History of the Northern Ute People, written by Fred Conetah, a Ute, in 1982.

When the Utes acquired horses in the mid-1600s, they expanded their hunting range in pursuit of antelope and buffalo. Rabbit and squirrel were hunted during the winter months, and the Utes also relied on dried meats and berries.

Spring and summer brought fresh plants to eat and the mountain streams brought fish, which was either eaten fresh or dried, and there were choke cherries and sunflower seeds.

Then there was the sego lily bulb, savored by indigenous peoples and Mormon settlers alike. When the pioneers encountered crop disasters, such as the 1848 cricket infestation, Indians taught them how to dig up the bulbs, which can be prepared like a potato, said Mary A. Johnson, president of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

"It truly saved their lives," Johnson said. No wonder the plant now is the state flower.

The early settlers reintroduced agriculture with intricate irrigation systems that watered wheat and corn. And like other inhabitants, the pioneers used dandelions, gypsum weed and yellow dock to flavor soups. They picked pine nuts, sunflowers, chokecherries, sage and elder berries and hunted cougars, elk, mountain lions, deer and rabbits.

The settlers also brought livestock, including sheep, cattle, chickens and pigs. "When they killed a pig, they used every part but the squeal," Johnson said.

In those early days, families often shared meager meals.

"None of them look fat, do they?" Johnson asked a visitor to Salt Lake's Pioneer Memorial Museum while walking past photos of pioneers. "They worked hard and didn't have much food."

As farming became more reliable, and as cities started to grow, food gradually became more available.

When the Zion's Cooperative Mercantile Institute, or ZCMI, started in 1868, it would take farmers' crops as payment. Much of that was then sold to other customers, and eventually, a grocery store opened on Salt Lake City's Main Street, according to ZCMI: America's First Department Store.

By the 1890s, fruit and vegetable growers from Davis and Salt Lake counties were peddling their goods on the streets of Salt Lake. By 1911, the Salt Lake Market Grower's and Fruit Grower's Association formed and set up a more organized produce market on 200 West that offered footstuffs ranging from rhubarb to melons to asparagus, according to The Grower's Market Co., a history of the group.

A national highway system, refrigerated railcars and trucks, and eventually airplanes, helped bring the world of food items that are available now to Utah and other once-isolated areas.

glavine@sltrib.com