Bruce:

"Should I purchase the new edition of Neanderthin?"

I don't think the new edition is out yet. The older edition helped turn me
on to the paleodiet thing, but contained a significant amount of
unsubstantiated claims and some bad information (in view of curent
knowledge). I assume the new version will be improved.

"A question about fats: I think most sources agree (and recent  discussion
here confirms) that a diet high in saturated fats is    not healthy
(compared to, say, monounsaturated fats).  So, why does
the paleo diet encourage eating foods such as suet, schmaltz, lard,
and coconut oil?"

This is one example of misinformation I found in Neaderthin. As some of the
best researchers in the field have pointed out, paleodiets are not high
saturated fat diets. Read the information available by Cordain.

"Has anyone here successfully downloaded the raw USDA data (in text or DBF
format) and converted it into a usable, searchable database?"

I was able to download the text version, import the data into MS-Access,
then use queries to find information. It was somewhat time consuming, and I
don't have a polished product yet, but with enough time....

Good luck on your conversion,

Hank

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