> I personally wrote to Cordain to ask him how he concluded Australian
> aborigines ate a low fat diet.

Hi Andrew

Just playing devils advocate again.  As you know from our previous
discussions off list I am not convinced that the paleolithic diet was as low
in fat as Loren claims although he used some good references when we were on
the paleodiet symposium list.  However although I like some of Enig and
Fallon's work I'm not sure they are entirely correct either.

Kerin O'Dea took some Aboriginal people out for 7 weeks where they reverted
to a traditional lifestyle (hunting and gathering) and reversed most of the
diabetes indices that the people showed.  She states that the diet was
low-fat (I'm not sure that she actually measured it to make sure it was
really low fat).  Mind you this was only for 7 weeks so whether it was
representative of a normal year then I would say no.

You can have a look at the video about this at UQ if you get down here.  It
is called "Too much of a good thing".  She also wrote a paper but I don't
have the reference handy.  You have mentioned in previous posts about the
Bogong moths which are definitely high in fat and also correctly state IIRC
that they lasted for a few months.  I'm starting to suspect that the diet
may have been quite high in fat at certain times of year and then maybe
short of fat for the rest.  Fat was definitely highly prized.

Maybe this possible seesawing effect limited the accumulation of arterial
deposits (if you believe that fat causes heart disease - which I am still
not sure about).  Just thinking out loud.  Let me know if you want to see
the video.  Only part of it is about O'Dea's experiment

Cheers

Sean



Sean McBride
University of Queensland
Brisbane, Australia