From: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/19/health/nutrition/19NUTR.html

February 19, 2002
Nutrition: But What Did the Cow Have for Lunch?
By JOHN O'NEIL

Maybe the problem in the modern diet isn't the amount of meat we eat, but
the diet of the animals whose meat we're eating, according to two studies
based on research comparing current diets with those of Paleolithic man.

Wild animals not only have less total fat than livestock fed on grain, but
more of their fat is of a kind (omega-3) thought to be good for cardiac
health, and less of a kind (omega-6) that promotes heart disease, said the
studies, published in the March issue of The European Journal of Clinical
Nutrition. Many of the same benefits were found in grass-fed livestock,
also known as free range.

The lead author of the studies, Dr. Loren Cordain of Colorado State
University, was part of a group of researchers who drew attention in 1985
by their suggestion that Americans could benefit from imitating the diets
of modern-day hunter-gatherer tribes. Then, they described that diet as low
in protein.

But in an interview, Dr. Cordain said that the group later discovered that
the dietary data had been compiled incorrectly and that about two-thirds of
hunter-gatherers' calories came from animals.

To try to reconcile this finding with the low rates of heart disease in
such societies, they compared the fat found in game animals to grass-fed
and grain-fed livestock. What they found, said Dr. Cordain, is that "we
need to get back to the character of wild meat."

"You can still eat meat and be healthful," said Dr. Cordain, if what you
eat fed itself the old-fashioned way.