I'm back again from another emergency trip to Rhode Island,
and I see that some mail has accumulated.  A few comments...

I think we can all agree that the experience of the Inuit and V.
Stefansson shows that humans can do quite well with little or no
plant food in their diets.  It certainly doesn't show that this
is an optimal way of eating.  There are many plant foods with
well documented salubrious properties, and I can think of no good
reason why this should be ignored.  So it becomes a question of
*which* plant foods, etc.

Next there is the point about hunter/gatherers making every
effort to suck up every drop of fat from a killed animal: bone
marrow, organ meats, and so forth.  Loren Cordain recently made
the point on the Paleodiet list that these tissues are high in
monounsaturated fats.  We also know that the muscle meats of wild
animals are quite low in fat compared to feedlot animals.  Thus,
those of us who are eating supermarket meats and few organ meats
are conumsing a considerably higher ratio of saturated to
monounsaturated fats than our predecessors did.  And wild animal
fat also has a significant amount of EPA (4%), while feedlot
animals have virtually none.  So again, those of us who are
eating supermarket meats and not eating much mackerel or salmon
are consuming considerably less EPA than our predecessors did.

My guess is that these things matter, and that they have
something to do with the cholesterol problems of myself and
others whom Atkins dubs "fat sensitive."  To adapt Troy's useful
phrase, it's a question of what your body will "let you get away
with."  There appears to be some evidence in support of the claim
that saturated fat promotes insulin resistance in some people, by
reducing the permeability of cell membranes to insulin.  This, if
true, would probably explain my cholesterol response to the
NeanderThin diet.

Questions remain as to whether this sensitivity to saturated fat
is caused by genetic factors or some other metabolic issue.
There is, for example, quite a bit of evidence that for at least
some people, a massive decrease in cholesterol can be obtained by
means of a substantial increase in dietary soluble fiber --
grapefruit fiber is apparently particularly useful.  The question
of how much fiber Cro-Magnons consumed will not soon be settled,
but to my mind it is not out of the question that some
populations have already become disadapted to a low-fiber diet,
and therefore *require* a high-fiber diet for good health.  Is
the A blood type a marker for this adaptation?  It could be.  The
A blood type didn't exist in paleolithic times, and one of
D'Adamo's points is that blood serum types mark differences that
go beyond just the properties of the blood itself.  I am still
exploring his evidence for that claim, but I don't find it
implausible.

As an experiment, I'm going to try a "Type A paleo" diet for a
few weeks and see what happens.  This will be a bit more
zone-like but will still be within NeanderThin guidelines.  My
main protein sources will be chicken and turkey.  Fat sources
will be the fats from these meats, and olive oil.  Vegetables
will be taken from the intersection of Type A and NeanderThin
approved fruits and vegetables, which still leaves plenty of
stuff.

Should be interesting.

Todd Moody
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