Amadeus Schmidt wrote:
> The fat composition of animals (and humans) reflects the fats they eat.
> If you once find a kind of hazelnut-beaver or sunflower-bison you can
> assume them to show high omega-6 high PUFA readings.
>
> As long as animals eat from the wild they show the fat compositions that
> the food plants have. Just take a look. There are very few high SFA high
> MUFA plants.

Amadeus, I don't think this is correct. Whether wild or farmed, the majority
of depot fat and subcutaneous fat is SFA, with the next largest segment
being MUFA, then a small amount of PUFA. The SFA, and also, I believe, the
MUFA, are not in the foods, but are manufactured in the body from excess
carbohydrates. I'm not sure how the body produces MUFA, but it's not in the
food. What you say may be partially true in one way: the small amount of
PUFA in an animal (lipid bi-layer or cell wall structural fat) is divided
between n6 and n3 fats in a similar ratio to what was in the forage.
Grain-fed animals, therefore, have more n6, and grass-fed have more n3 since
most of the small amount of fat in grass is the n3 alpha-linolenic acid. But
even in wild elk or deer there is something like eight times as much SFA as
PUFA.

Hilary McClure
Danville, Vermont