Chicken skin has a fair amount of inflammatory O-6 fats, a small amount of which are essential to living. A dark quarter of a chicken with skin has about 5g of O-6 fats, according to nutritiondata.com. A lot of paleo advocates claim that our Paleolithic ancestors ate O-6 fats in a 1:1 ratio with O-3 fats, and therefore, so should we. It's hard to find a lot of O-3 fats to eat, and evidence strongly suggests that more than a small amount of them is harmful. (1) Personally, I think the evidence for the 1:1 ratio is debatable. It's not like there's a huge sample population to be tested, and scientists are extrapolating from tiny bits of physical evidence. But modern research shows clearly that eating a lot of O-6 fat is bad for us.

In modern times, we have a bit more evidence on which to base decisions about how much O-6 fats to eat and in what ratio to O-3 fats. A 1993 rat study suggests that even a 9:1 ratio of O-6:O-3 fats is OK(2). More relevant to humans, It was in the 1930's that doctors began noting an increase in heart disease. Up until that time, Americans ate, on average, about 15 grams (one tablespoon) of polyunsaturated fats (PUFA) per day (PUFAs include both O-6 and O-3 fats.)(3) We have to guess about the ratio of O-6:O-3 fats that people ate, but since nobody was worried about eating chicken skin (or much of anything else) back then, it's probably safe to say that most of that was O-6 fat. For the sake of discussion, let's say that 80%, or 12g, was O-6 fat.

It's pretty easy to eat 12g of O-6 fat in a day, even being strict about your diet. I make all my own food, and I don't eat vegetable oils, except for the occasional spoonfuls of canola-oil mayonnaise (I always mess up making my own mayonnaise with olive oil). I track my eating closely with software for long stretches at a time, and I eat somewhere between 7–15g of PUFA daily, out of a total of 1800–2300 calories. That works out to about 5.6–12g of O-6 fats, or 3–4.5% of calories. If I eat chicken with skin one day, I'll avoid foods high in O-6 fats (eggs and lard, in particular) the next day.

I also supplement with krill oil (1000 mg/day) to make sure I get some O-3 fats every day, and when it's in season, I'll eat wild salmon, which has some O-3 fats.
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1. Masterjohn, Chris. Precious Yet Perilous. Weston A. Price Foundation web site. http://www.westonaprice.org/know-yo...us-yet-perilous. Accessed August 13, 2012.

2. Bourre JM, Dumont O, Pascal G, Durand G. Dietary alpha-linolenic acid at 1.3 g/kg maintains maximal docosahexaenoic acid concentration in brain, heart and liver of adult rats. J Nutr. Jul 1993;123(7):1313-1319.

3. Guynet S. Have Seed Oils Caused a Multi-Generational Obesity Epidemic. Whole Health Source. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.c...nerational.html. April 23, 2010. Accessed September 4, 2010.