On Fri, 16 Oct 1998, Amadeus Schmidt wrote:

> 1) How much, and which relations of fatty acids do we need?
> I take a look at the human milk which is a real genetic determined
> paleolithic measure - and that even for the time of brain build-up.

I think this is a mistake.  You are presupposing that the
nutrient balance of human milk represents an ideal nutrient
balance for human adults.  I see no reason to believe such a
thing.  That is, I find it perfectly believable that nutritional
requirements change as we mature.

For example, human milk is higher in saturated fat than just
about any food that would have been available to paleolithic
humans before the relatively recent big-game hunting epoch.  The
w-6:w-3 ratio of human milk is 7:1.  This would not be a good
ratio for adults.

Again, I think you have systematically erred in taking human milk
composition as a template for ideal fat nutrition for adults.  I
won't go through all the items in your list.

> Not with mothers milk (nature shows it) and walnuts even better than
> brains....  Nuts are really brain food.

Nuts are good, but even walnuts provide only small amounts of w-3
fat.  If we are striving for a ratio of 2:1 or less then we need
substantial amounts of w-3 that are not accompanied by massive
amounts of w-6.  Since the ratio of nuts averages about 10:1 or
more, we must seek our w-3 fats elsewhere.

> A last look at it.
> My conclusion: Forget sardines and brains - nuts make it.

I wish it were so, but it isn't.

> I'm astonished how good the dreaded fats from farmed animals compare.
> I ask myself, where the coronary risk factor is, that seems to
> be associated with animal fats.

It's in the saturated fats, if there is anything to the
correlation between elevated cholesterol and heart disease.
Obviously this correlation is still not well understood.  Animal
fats have a decent ratio of w-6:w-3 but in absolute terms
contains only tiny amounts of these.

Todd Moody
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