Wow, this thread generated a lot of posts. There appears to be some
misunderstandings re: Cordain, Audette and related issues, and trying to try
to help clear them up created a very long post, so I split it into separate
posts. 

 

<<Some high-fat-Paleo-eaters like Ray Audette are thin too, not just
high-protein-Paleo-eaters>>

 

I checked to make sure that the slender Ray Audette eats a high-fat diet and
found a post where he indeed said that hunter-gatherers, he himself, his
co-author and his wife are all quite thin despite eating a "high fat" diet
(although not all HGs actually eat a high fat diet, which he acknowledged
elsewhere):

 

Ray Audette wrote on Sun, 22 Jun 1997:

> Hunter-gatherers, who eat a high-fat, high-calorie diet, are the thinist

> people on earth.  I (NeanderThin 12 years) have 7.5% body-fat. Troy

> Gilchrist (my co-author,NeanderThin 6 years) has 5.5% body-fat (he runs).

> My wife (also 12 years)has 11% body-fat.

 

My own fat intake is higher than that of the S.A.D. and I am quite thin.
Same is true of Ray Audette, his co-author and his wife, as you can see from
the above.. So it looks like low-fat Paleo diets are not the only ones that
produce lean adherents, though it would be informative to see the data from
a larger sample size, of course.

 

<<Ray Audette advocated eating lean versions of GRAIN-FED meats>>

 

Elizabeth wrote:

> Ray does mention trimming meat in Neanderthin, BUT there is a caveat.

> The only place in the book where it mentions trimming fat is in the
chapter

> "Before Getting Started on Neanderthin" and there is a footnote on page

> 79 of my paperback that says that the discussion of fats in that chapter

> is based on conversations with Dr. Cordain.  

 

Ah, you found it, thanks Elizabeth! Yes, it's on page 82 of the 1999
edition. While he doesn't mention trimming fat, he does talk about eating
"the leanest cuts." There is a second, more important caveat. Here's the
quote with my emphasis: "IF YOU CHOOSE TO REGULARLY EAT COMMERCIALLY
PRODUCED GRAIN-FED beef, chicken and pork, try to limit yourself to the
leanest cuts of these meats." That explains a lot. Past posts about Ray's
supposed advocacy trimming meats didn't mention the distinction Ray made
between commercial and noncommercial meats. On the other hand, Ray
mentioned, somewhat contradictorily, in NeanderThin that the bacon he eats
is commercial. He soaks it to remove the nitrites/nitrates, corn sweeteners
and salt. Maybe he thinks the fat profile is not as bad in grain/soy-fed
pigs because they eat a wider variety of foods in the wild than bovines.

 

Ray also wrote right here in this forum that certain fats are unhealthy,
whereas others are healthy: "The stroke risk declined 11% for every 1%
increase in monounsaturated fat intake, the type of fat found in canola, nut
and olive oil, according to a report in the current issue of The New England
Journal of Medicine. There was no protective effect of polyunsaturated fat,
which is found in fish and vegetable oils." [Mon, 21 Sep 1998 08:10:39
-0700] So in Ray's view, the amount of fats consumed would seem to be less
important than the type. I think that one of the most common ways that diets
go wrong is to try to adhere to a magical formula of fat-protein-carb diet
proportions by calories. Hunter-gatherers never counted calories or measured
proportions beyond being sure to get sufficient fat or carbs year-round to
avoid the rabbit starvation that comes from a week or so of eating mostly
protein and no carbs.

 

Elizabeth wrote:

> So it's really Cordain recommending that fat be trimmed and not Ray
himself.  I wish Ray

> hadn't included that bit with Cordain's ideas in it because it seems to
run so

> counter to the rest of the book and then gets misconstrued as being

> Ray's idea.

 

Ray didn't include quotation marks around his comments on choosing the
leanest cuts of commercial meats, so it IS Ray saying it. Ray's footnote was
just sourcing where he got the information from. I think the confusion is
coming from the lack of distinction in the discussion between commercial
meats from animals fed grains, soy, molasses, etc. and noncommercial meats
from animals that are pasture-fed, free-range, grass-fed, etc. I don't know
whether Ray changed his mind afterwards re: fatty commercial meats, but as
of 1999 it looks like he thought people should favor the leanest cuts of
commercial meats. He seems to have made an exception for bacon for some
reason that he didn't explain in the book.

 

So it looks like if we condemn Cordain on commercial fats we must also to a
certain extent condemn Audette.