On Tue, 2 Jul 2002, Phosphor wrote:

> Cordain in his own words:
> LOREN CORDAIN: Well, we think that the Stone Age diet ought to be very high
> in lean meats, fish, seafood, lean beef, lean lamb, lean pork, and it also
> ought to be liberally laced with plenty of fruits and vegetables
> http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/s57024.htm
>
> now can anyone explain why Cordain makes the ludicrous assertion that meat
> should be lean?

No one can explain it, because it's not ludicrous.  The point is
simple enough: paleo meats tended to be lean.  Since we can only
handle so much lean meat, the rest of energy must come from fat
or carbohydrate.  Since the meat is lean, the fat would typically
have come from marrow or brains.

Cordain is not saying to avoid fat, but to avoid fatty meat,
which is the meat of obese animals.  The reason for this is to
get what he regards as a more natural ratio of fatty acids.  On
p. 27 of his book, he lists a typical nutrient breakdown of a
2,200 kcal diet.  Total fat is 108g, of which 21g are saturated,
54g are monounsaturated, 21g are polyunsaturated, and 6.7g are
omega 3.  Note that SFA and PUFA are equal, and MUFA is more than
both combined.  Fat is 42% of the total, which would not qualify
it as a low-fat diet.  The protein intake is 190g.

If you were to try to get that much protein from fatty meat (see
Beef, composite of trimmed retail cuts, separable lean and fat,
trimmed to 1/2" fat, prime, raw at USDA) you'd have to eat about
2.5 pounds of it, which would also give you 3,900 kcal, and the
fatty acid ratios would look very different.

In short, Cordain's recommendations are based on his opinion that
(a) it's important to get plenty of protein and (b) fat
composition matters, and of course (c) if you want to maintain a
proper body weight you shouldn't eat too many calories.  You may
disagree with any of these point, but I don't think they are
ludicrous.

Todd Moody
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