Well, Cordain is right to some extent. Wild game is much leaner than domesticated equivalents. That's because the former do not have a diet of fattening grains, plus wild game have to undergo a lot of daily exercise in order to survive.

I have heard various arguments for the high-fat side, and they don't really make sense. In a recent thread on another palaeo forum, for example, it was suggested that hippos and elephants had lots of fat in them, but it turns out they are both one of the very leanest animals around. Horses and dugongs were mentioned too, but these are also cited online  as being lean meats. As for arctic animals with blubber, it turns out that all their fat is in the blubber, with the actual meat being incredibly lean by contrast. As regards cooking in bacon grease, this would not have been practised prior to the advent of cooking in the palaeolithic era so it's clear that it wasn't required prior to that date(cooking only got started in the very last 10 percent of the palaeo era). Plus, evidence from palaeo times shows that palaeo HGs consumed a very, very wide variety of animals, not just fatty meats  but also plenty of lean meats like venison and smaller game, thus indicating that fat was prized only  for its rarity rather than due to any need for survival.

Of course, high-fat proponents have stated that some organs are very fatty such as tongue, brain and marrow  - but, together, organs only form something like 10 percent of all the meat available in the body(according to Lex Rooker, a long-term raw, zero-carber). High-fat proponents usually retort that palaeo HGs "must" have eaten the high-fat parts and thrown all the lean meat away, but this doesn't make any sense - after all, HGs are faced with limited resources so would not want to waste any part of the animal. Indeed, I recall reports of American Indians using virtually every single part of their prey, such as fur/skin for warmth etc.

As for your kefir made from  raw dairy, it  is, admittedly, a lot better than kefir from pasteurised dairy. That said, there are a lot of people I know who do almost as badly on raw dairy as they do with pasteurised dairy, and there are other potential complications which may affect people who are not allergic to dairy:-  such as lactose inhibiting copper intake, perhaps leading to heart-disease,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3357459

 an imbalanced calcium:magnesium ratio  possibly leading to a reduction in the uptake of magnesium into the body and thus resulting in magnesium-deficiency. Dairy also has excess hormones in it which can disrupt the human body's own hormonal system.


I would suggest doing an elimination diet, excluding just the kefir for a couple of months. If, during that period, you feel a bit better, then you should exclude it entirely, otherwise not.

Geoff







> Date: Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:34:10 -0500
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Paleo diet newbie..............
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> Hello Folks,
>   I have been lurking on this list for some time  now.
> Have decided to give Paleo an honest try, but have some  questions for you 
> if I may?

>