At 7:55 PM +0100 4/7/04, Ashley Moran wrote:

>I know several authors claim that humans evolved to prefer lean meat,

The fact is, wild meat is extremely lean. I posted whole-of-carcass
figures for various wild animals on this list last year during a
discussion with "Andrew". I'm sure you can dredge these posts out of
the archives, but the trend was for wild animals to comprise around
10% fat, most of that in the brain, marrow, organs and as kidney fat.

My conclusion (hotly disputed) was that even if hunter gatherers ate
the fatty deposits and organs and just a portion of the flesh they
would still be obtaining less fat from animal sources than we do
today eating fatty steaks from modern animals bred and raised to be
obese.

And the fat profile hunter gatherers would be consuming would be much
more evenly balanced between saturated, mono- and poly-unsaturated fats.
Unlike the fat profile of a steak which is mostly saturated.

 ...R.