Bruce: "Should I purchase the new edition of Neanderthin?" I don't think the new edition is out yet. The older edition helped turn me on to the paleodiet thing, but contained a significant amount of unsubstantiated claims and some bad information (in view of curent knowledge). I assume the new version will be improved. "A question about fats: I think most sources agree (and recent discussion here confirms) that a diet high in saturated fats is not healthy (compared to, say, monounsaturated fats). So, why does the paleo diet encourage eating foods such as suet, schmaltz, lard, and coconut oil?" This is one example of misinformation I found in Neaderthin. As some of the best researchers in the field have pointed out, paleodiets are not high saturated fat diets. Read the information available by Cordain. "Has anyone here successfully downloaded the raw USDA data (in text or DBF format) and converted it into a usable, searchable database?" I was able to download the text version, import the data into MS-Access, then use queries to find information. It was somewhat time consuming, and I don't have a polished product yet, but with enough time.... Good luck on your conversion, Hank ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com