On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:17 Robert Kesterson wrote:

>On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 17:02 Greg Davis wrote:
>>
>> Previously being a student I found sticking to paleo foods not a problem
>> but now that I've been working full time for about a month I'm finding
>> it hard to keep my calories up.
>
>Nuts, fruit, and jerky (or pemmican) are great for that (especially since
>they're portable and require no preparation).
>
>> What I've been doing is relying on grass-fed beef shortening, which I
>> drizzle over meals to boost the kcals and fat intake. People think I'm
>> crazy if they see me do it but I'm eating fairly lean meats so I think
>> it kinda balances out.
>
>I don't see a problem with that.  I often do the same thing by adding
>olive oil, nuts, or nut oil to lean meat dishes.
>
>> I have friends that say I'm eating "crisco" and that my arteries are
>> gonna clog....
>
>Nonsense.  If you're worried, get your blood chemistry done.
>
>> I don't bother trying to explain the difference between grass-fed
>> animals etc. Probably on average I'm using about 4-5 tbs a day.
>
>I use at least half that on any given day, more if the meat I'm eating
>that day is very lean.
>
>Your friends wouldn't think twice of having a hamburger (plenty of beef
>fat there), of putting oil on their salad (more fat), butter on their
>bread (more fat), or cream in their coffee (yet still more fat).  And
>that's on top of the staggering amount of fat in processed foods.  If
>you're eating paleo and just adding some fat here and there to increase
>calories, you could well be eating *less* fat in a day than what they are.
>
>> Just wondering if anyone more enlightened than I thinks this is a bad
>> idea?
>
>I'm still searching for enlightment, so take anything I say with a grain
>of salt.  ;-)

Good question and good reply from Robert. Can I toss in a caution? You may be eating paleo, but 
in the natural habitat of Homo sapiens, food intake was just one of many aspects of an integrated 
life. If you have plucked paleo ingredients out of the context of a full paleolithic life, it's possible 
that you may suffer in some way.  Here's one example: we know that exercise is important for 
health. Although we can select foods that are consistent with the paleolithic lifestyle, if we don't 
undertake paleolithic exercise, we could be just as out of balance in paleolithic terms as if we were 
exercising in a paleolithic way, but eating conventional western foods.

And even the paleolithic ingredients are not the sole constituent of a paleolithic diet: quantity, 
freshness, frequency, regularity and seasonality of food are all critical components of a paleolithic 
diet. Failing to "keep one's calories up" would have been commonplace for some times, some 
days, even some months in paleolithic times. Consistently having food available and eating it just 
when you feel like it would have been unknown in the Paleolithic.

Of course, I don't know what your paleolithic lifestyle is, Greg, so I don't know how close you come 
to embracing its many components. All I can say is that it was - for over a million years - a 
complete and integrated way of life; extracting components from it may have positive feedbacks 
which will not necessarily be good for your health. We can't reasonably recreate a fully paleolithic 
lifestyle today, of course, we just need to be aware that we can't and be on the lookout for 
possible consequences.

Keith