In a message dated 10/13/2002 7:53:33 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:


> No, there are three camps.  --Those of us (or am I alone here?) who eat a
> variety of cuts, some of which are lean and others fat.  I eat whatever my
> taste buds yearn for at the time.  --Or is there some kind of other
> internal, self-regulating signal?
>

Cheeky of you -- trusting your body like that. I was just reading an article
by Cleave on the Price-Pottenger website. Also argues that our taste for fat
is an evolutionary strategy.
See:http://www.price-pottenger.org/Articles/FatControversy.htm
When this article was written he was not only defending 'stall feeding' of
cattle but also grass feeding!!!

A juicy selection:
"Some have objected that the animal fats may be destroyed by stall-feeding of
the animal themselves... However, let the battle be fought out where no
stall-feeding is in question, as in the case of sheep. Not one of those who
advise that animal fats be replaced by vegetable seed and similar processed
oils makes an exception over mutton fat, for this is a typical saturated fat.
We are advised not to eat the mutton fat of grass-fed sheep, though we may
love it. And this is the evolutionary crux -- the thwarting of a natural
taste for a natural food.

Indeed, an elaboration of this point arises here, for Crawford, having been
at great pains to demonstrate that domestic animals, like cattle and sheep
fed on grass, have much more fat between the muscle fibres (marbling fat)
than in the case of their wild counterparts, has suggested that eating the
meat of these grass-fed animals may hold dangers for us, since it may be akin
to taking into the body pathological material, or "eating obesity" as he
called it. But it is contended here that evolutionary considerations show
this argument to be in serious error.

For though it is true that large numbers of domestic cattle (and still larger
members of sheep, as already said) are fattened up for market in this country
on grass, it would not be possible to fatten up wild cattle in this way, nay
more than it would be possible to fatten up a wild rabbit on grass as
compared with the various breeds of hutch rabbit. No, it has taken very long
periods of selective breeding to evolve animals that will behave in this
manner. The situation is even better seen in the case of domestic ducks, most
of which cannot fly off the ground. This is true, from the Aylesbury duck in
this country to the flocks of domestic ducks seen along the rivers of China,
each flock attended by a small boy. Thousands of years of selective breeding
have been needed to replace muscle by fat to this extent (and the same period
of time has been available for some adaptation in man to such food). We must,
therefore, very sharply distinguish this evolved fat (using "evolved" in its
transitive sense) from any fat that is remotely pathological. Else we shall
be banning our best eating apples because they are so far removed from
crab-apples, and our best wheat because it is so far removed from the
primitive ancestral grasses. And it should be added that it is the above
"marbling" with fat that is partly responsible for the taste in lean meat,
without it there is a tendency for lean meat to have a watery taste.

Why do our tastes seek to increase the fat in animals and birds in the above
manner (for who would compare the pleasure in eating most wild ducks with
that in eating an Aylesbury duck?) The answer must surely be that, just as
the body seeks in every posture, and in every activity, to economize muscular
action, in order to minimize work on the heart, so also it seeks, by
increasing in meat the ratio of fat -- a food that it completely combusts --
to minimize work on the kidney, an organ that plays so big a part via the
blood-pressure, in the length of life in each one of us. We should do well
not to dismiss this frequent preference for fat from our reflections, which
is present in perhaps a minority of people -- but a very important minority.

But Crawford attacks not only the quantity of fat, but also the quality, in
grass-fed animals. He points out that the fat in domestic cattle is more
saturated -- i.e., has a higher ratio of saturated fatty acids -- than occurs
in the fat in wild African cattle feeding on a more varied diet. Yet his list
of wild animals includes the Uganda hob, of the plains, with the identical
fatty acid ratios present in our own cattle and in the milk and butter
obtained from them. Is it to be supposed that we should come to harm,
especially coronary harm, if we often ate the African hob?"