Nicole Renee Markee wrote:
> On Apr 3, 2010, at 6:22 AM, Geoffrey Purcell wrote:
>
>
> If you follow Cordain's book strictly, you'd be cooking extremely
> low-fat meats (if you can't find grass-fed) and adding fat with
> Canola oil. You see plenty of Paleo types consuming flax and canola
> oils, something is actually a bad idea for me.

Looks like Cordain is no longer promoting flax oil, judging by a Q&A 
from his March 12th newsletter. He's saying that you need the longer 
chain n3, not flax ALA. And that the body doesn't convert ALA well to 
DHA or EPA, which are what you need. Also that flax and other seed 
sources of ALA may have other toxins and antinutrients, and that they 
are not now and never were consumed by hunter gatherers. Also that LA 
and ALA may not even be essential, as previously believed.
Not sure whether he's revised his position on canola.

He's also seemingly revising or clarifying his position on high 
saturated-fat diets and high animal-food diets. I think what he's 
saying is that you can eat a very high animal-food and high sat-fat 
diet safely, as long as you include some liver for vitamin A, and some 
amount of plant foods to prevent osteoporosis. I think he's saying the 
high SFA will raise LDL, and will probably cause atherosclerosis, but 
that the atherosclerosis doesn't become disease unless it's in the 
context of a pro-inflammatory diet, such as a high-carb diet. Not a 
paleo diet. So you might get benign atherosclerosis such as has been 
seen in Masai and Inuit.

Note that I'm trying to relate Cordain's positions, not my own. The 
jury is still way out for me on the osteoporosis issue, which is the 
whole acid/base balance thing. Yes, some Inuit, at least, before white 
contact, had severe osteoporosis. But do the Masai? Maybe the Inuit 
problem isn't from all-meat, but from something else, like excess 
vitamin A, excess omega-3, or A/D imbalance, or something else we 
haven't considered. What about the Masai and osteoporosis? I've seen 
claims that they were racked by it, and claims that they had none. 
Anyone know? The claims I've seen that the Masai had osteoporosis come 
from Natural Hygeine rawists and colon cleansers, so I'm inclined to 
disregard them. But what are the facts?

Back to Cordain: I don't see him revising his book any time soon. It 
is very popular right now since Crossfit has picked up on it.