I'm sure you guys have discussed Loren Cordain on here before but i was watching him on youtube saying our paleo ancestors ate low fat wild meat and so we should also eat that way for health and wellness. I know most on the atkins diet eat high fat meats as it helps in energy production, so what should we eat as far as a true paleo diet goes..... high or low fat meats.

Thanks!!

I think most of us don't agree with Cordain about the animal fats.

True paleo is low fat/lean meat. I eat a ton of whitetail deer, wild turkey and wild rabbits. Farmed turkey and chicken breasts are a staple of my diet. Not too big into the seafood, but I do like eating cod, tuna, shrimp, scallops when I get the chance. I rarely eat beef/pork/lamb, although I would in the near future like to try some beef organ meats

Matt

Paleo man did not eat lean meats. They preferred the fat to the muscle because fat will keep you going for longer periods of time. Endurance was the name of the game.

Ever hear of rabbit starvation? That is lean meat with too low fat. Dangerous.

Lean meat doesn't mean no fat. Rabbits and squirrels are very lean, yes, and you'll get rabbit starvation if you *just* eat that. Deer, moose, bear, and elk, very lean by todays standards, still contain enough fat to avoid the starvation. If primitive man ate only the fattiest cuts of meat there would be all kinds of waste and I can't see them doing that-you would think they'd consume the whole thing, even the leaner parts. But that's just my $.02

Matt

I focus on leaner cuts/meats myself. Just bought about 80 lbs of grass fed beef for that reason. wild animals are much leaner then the grain fed ones that line our supermarket shelves today.

I know many do not agree with Cordains lean meat approach. it makes sense to me. lets agree to disagree.

Thanks to all who answered and enjoyed reading the debates over the issue.

Let me throw a curveball on fat consumtion and see what you all think.......did evolution want us to consume alot of fat since we not only produce lipase to break it down but we also produce bile for that purpose and evolution has also created an storage organ for bile known as the ''gallbladder'' so i'm wondering that maybe we should consume high amounts of fat because of that?

Thanks again everyone!!
harry

I suppose I am in the minority on this issue, because I DO agree with Loren Cordain. Here is a chart showing fat and calorie content of wild game compared to feed lot animals.

http://www.gamesalesintl.com/

*If this link doesn't take you directly to the comparison chart, scroll down and look for About Wild Game Meats & Health at the bottom of the page.

Well, there's always the Inuit who eat a lot of whale blubber and fatty sea animals. I'm sure for any HG society that the fattiest bits are probably the choicest ones and that hunting in the summer was probably the best time because things were fat and tastiest.

Yeah, people who have been on low fat diets tend to get gall stones. If the bile doesn't get released it gets sludgey and crystallizes.

Oh, the Gall of It All

Sometimes I wonder if those who criticize Cordain have even read his books. He states in his book that early humans loved fat and marrow. He also stresses the right type of fats, not NO fat. His books are full of beef and pork recipes as well as many recipes for offal which he apparently LOVES considering he has a recipe for Rocky Mountain Oysters (testicles) in one of his books.

He preaches against saturated fat. That's what some of us think is wrong. Check the FAQ on his web site if you're in doubt.

I am not trying to be critical here but I am SO tired of hearing about the Inuit.
They for one are not necessarily representative of how many, if not most paleolithic people lived. For one thing, despite the fact that much of the world was locked in an ice age, there were many humans still living in sub-Saharan Africa, south India and perhaps even Australia at the time. Inuits most likely did not migrate to what is now called North America until the very end of that ice age or later. So in many ways these people were not even a part of the vast part of the paleolithic age. Also, modern Inuits are having problems with their traditional diet now because of modern environmental pollutants that come to lodge in the fatty part of the animals they eat.

He preaches a good ratio between Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids. That is what is important. He knows you can't eat meat without getting saturated fat. However, you don't need to eat saturated fat just to eat it either. I have read both his books thoroughly as well as many of his peer reviewed scientific papers. I not only have read his website, but get his newsletter.

When we talk about Innuit, we're not talking about how they currently eat but how the explorers to the area lived with them and adapted to their way of eating, like Steffanson.

I realize that, but we are also talking how WE should be eating today and the environment is polluted today.

I am sure there will always be a controversy, so I suppose those of us on both sides of the issue will just have to agree to disagree.