In a message dated 10/11/02 10:01:36 PM, [log in to unmask] writes:

>Can anyone explain to me where they feel Cordain has gone astray,
>and present some supporting evidence for their argument?

I think he underestimates the value of fat for HG people.   The majority of
whatever fat the animals HG people ate was saturated -- perhaps more polys
than domesticated beef, but unless they were plants or fish in disquise the
proportion of polys was small. (BTW, polyunsaturates is small quanities are
essential, but too many are associated with everything from heart disease to
cancer)

There are inconsistencies in this thinking about fat. To quote from a piece
that can be found at :
http://www.alternativemedicine.com/AMHome.asp?cn=Catalog&act=SearchAttribute&c

rt=Name1=HCArticleList%26Value1=Nutrition%26Op1=EQ%26StartPage=1%26PageSize=90

1&Style=/AMXSL/HCDetail.xsl

A quote from the piece:
The adoption of agriculture was necessitated by three factors: a rising
human population, the extinction of large animals and the human physiologic
protein ceiling.

The human physiologic protein ceiling is, in short, the upper limit of
dietary protein that humans can digest. Small animals have less fat and more
protein for their size than large animals do. The total protein content of a
rabbit may be as high as 75%, with 25% fat, while a large animal may be only
35% protein and 65% fat. The maximum amount of protein humans can process at
one time is about 35% to 40%. Therefore, using rabbits as a food source will
rapidly exceed our protein ceiling, causing a syndrome referred to by early
arctic explorers and frontiersmen as rabbit starvation. Despite eating huge
amounts of lean meat, men afflicted with rabbit starvation quickly became
lethargic and developed diarrhea; death eventually followed.

When most of the large Pleistocene animals, bison, mammoth, large deer
became depleted or extinct, the fatter animals became scarcer, leaving
primarily the leaner, smaller animals. Once this happened, human populations
were threatened with decline. To survive, they needed a dietary source of
carbohydrates or fats to dilute the excessive protein, particularly during
winter months, when animals were at their leanest."

On the one hand Cordain and Eaton tell us that one of the factors leading to
agriculture was that humans were reduced to eating animals that had very
little fat which led to our hitting our protein ceiling and getting ill. Then
they turn around and extoll the virtues of high protein/low fat pastured fed
animals. They seem scared silly of fat and  saturated fat in particular. The
fact of the matter is that the kind of fat we make from carbohydrates is
saturated fat, just like every other mammal. Even if we never eat a single
molecule of saturated fat, everyday our body will metabolize some from our
fat stores. I can't for an instant believe that we have evolved to store fat
to provide energy and materials to us that is harmful. It just doesn't
compute!!!



Namaste, Liz
<A HREF="http://www.csun.edu/~ecm59556/Healthycarb/index.html">
http://www.csun.edu/~ecm59556/Healthycarb/index.html</A>