Paleo and Sat Fat Amount

[Arien Malec]

Originally Posted by Darryl Shaw

According to Cordains research saturated fats account for 10 - 15% of energy in the average hunter-gatherer diet.

Reading the article (thanks for the reference, BTW) depending on the time of year (e.g., eating animals fattened for winter), "typical" hunter-gathers consumed up to nearly 18% saturated fat.

That amount can be higher seasonally for hunter-gather societies who ate higher than the median range in animal. Cordain's table inexplicably stops at the 65% of animal derived nutrients range, despite that (55-65%) being the median, not the upper range of nutrient ratios, but includes data well below the median.

Unless I'm reading this wrong, the 10-15% saturated fat calculation is biased toward the lower end of what typical h-g societies ate.

It should also be noted that the Masai eat and inhabitants of the Tokulau ate staggering amounts of saturated fat with no ill effects.

[Bill Ennis]

Darryl;
Thanks for posting that book chapter ; it was very interesting. What book is that out of ?
Bill

[Darryl Shaw]

Originally Posted by John Kilbane

Speaking of Sat. fat, is ghee considered healthy like grass-fed butter? Anyone ever tried it?

As ghee and butter are both dairy foods which were unavailable to stone age hunter-gatherers they aren't included in the paleo diet.

[Darryl Shaw]

Originally Posted by Arien Malec

Reading the article (thanks for the reference, BTW) depending on the time of year (e.g., eating animals fattened for winter), "typical" hunter-gathers consumed up to nearly 18% saturated fat.

That amount can be higher seasonally for hunter-gather societies who ate higher than the median range in animal. Cordain's table inexplicably stops at the 65% of animal derived nutrients range, despite that (55-65%) being the median, not the upper range of nutrient ratios, but includes data well below the median.

Unless I'm reading this wrong, the 10-15% saturated fat calculation is biased toward the lower end of what typical h-g societies ate.

It should also be noted that the Masai eat and inhabitants of the Tokulau ate staggering amounts of saturated fat with no ill effects.

I suck at math so I may be reading it wrong too but I think the reason the % saturated fat is biased towards the lower end of the scale is because he excluded data where the protein content of the diet was over 35.1% of energy. In the discusion at the end of the article though Cordain states "The present data suggests that the normal dietary intakes of saturated fatty acids that conditioned our species genome likely fell between 10 to 15% of total energy.".

I just did a quick search to see if I could clarify things and found Cordains response to Katharine Milton's editorial article (Link) where she highlighted some flaws in Cordain's Ethnographic Atlas data. -

Within the nutritional community, it is common knowledge that the quantitative and qualitative lipid composition of domesticated meats is vastly different from that found in wild game. Game meat contains lower proportions of fat, especially saturated fat, than does meat from grain-fed domesticated animals, even on a whole-carcass basis (5). Nowhere in our article did we recommend that people should eat high-fat, domesticated livestock. Our take-home messages were that hunter-gatherer diets were higher in protein and lower in carbohydrate than are current Western diets or dietary guidelines and that this macronutrient balance may provide insight into potentially therapeutic diets. If any implication were to be inferred, it would be that dietary fat should emulate fat sources found in game meat and organs (high in n-3 fats, low in n-6 fats, and high in monounsaturated fats).
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Again, we do not recommend increases in intakes of domesticated animal fat, only of lean protein from lean animals, preferably protein that may also contain significant amounts of n-3 and monounsaturated fat such as that found in game meat. Consumption of low-fat dietary protein at the expense of carbohydrate is the nutritional pattern that is consistent with our species' evolutionary history and represents a viable dietary option for improving health and well-being in modern people. Further research is needed before this dietary pattern can be recommended without reservation, particularly in subjects with preexisting kidney disease.

Macronutrient estimations in hunter-gatherer diets.

Also on page 85 of The Paleo Diet Cordain states -

With the Paleo Diet - unlike the average American diet - at least half of your fats are healthful monounsaturated fats. The other half is evenly split betwen saturated and polyunsaturated fats. There are no synthetic trans fats. And the crucial omega 6 to omega 3 fat ratio is about 2 to 1 which greatly reduces your risk of heart disease.

[Darryl Shaw]

Originally Posted by Bill Ennis

Darryl;
Thanks for posting that book chapter ; it was very interesting. What book is that out of ?
Bill

I'm not sure where the article was originally published but I found it on Cordains site - http://www.thepaleodiet.com/published_research/. You can find other articles on this subject at www.paleodiet.com but if you're looking for paleo diet books you should get Deadly Harvest by Geoff Bond and The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain.

[Bill Ennis]

Thanks again.
Bill

[Scott Kustes]

Originally Posted by Darryl Shaw

As ghee and butter are both dairy foods which were unavailable to stone age hunter-gatherers they aren't included in the paleo diet.

But nonetheless, grass-fed versions of both are just fine.