Why High Fat?

AllanMisner

I've been trying to reconcile a disconnect I have with Paleo eating. Most paleo eaters seem to also believe that their diet should be heavy fat. Where did this come from? If you've ever eaten wild game, which is what would have been available to our ancestors, you'll know that it is very lean meat. It took domestication for the cow to become the fat animal it is today, same for chickens. Nuts are available for part of the year, so unless they stocked up (hard to do when you're migrating), they would only have nuts for part of the year.

So where would all this fat come from?

Akimajuktuq

I've eaten much wild game living amongst aboriginals and high fat is indeed prefered. The lean meat is rarely eaten alone, and in the case of Arctic and sub-Arctic aboriginals (which are the people I am most familiar with), the fat is absolutely preferred and often eaten without the meat. Where I live, leaner meats were certainly consumed, but often fed to the dogs, while just the fat, organs, etc were favoured. Marine mammals, which are extremely fatty, are the only reason that Inuit were able to survive in the Arctic.

Dried meat and berries were mixed in with fat. In fact, our crow berries are inedible unless they are eaten that way. Eating just lean meats would have caused much malnutrition and the people knew that. That's why super lean meats such as hares were consumed only rarely.

Caribou is a lean meat, but healthy caribou also have lots of fat, as do moose and other ungulates. The aboriginal people always tried to kill the fattest caribou. As much as caribou were loved, it was only a food that was available a few times per year when they migrated through. Other than that, marine mammals and fish were the staples.

My fat based diet has saved my life, so I know I'm biased. But what would be recommended instead; extremely high protein? No, not for me and I do not personally think high protein is healthy. Based on my personal experience with high fat/low carb Paleo lifestyle (see my post in "success stories") I know it's the right lifestyle for me. I have increased carbs a bit, but I won't ever be going over 15%. I'm not likely to ever put fat lower than 60% either (right now it's 70% but when needed, I increase to 80%).

PS. I have lots of Paleo friends who are still avoiding fat and they are usually struggling with hunger, cravings, sugar addiction etc. Malnutrition was killing me (binge eating disorder was a symptom of malnutrition) and high fat resolved that 100%, along with a long list of health problems, some of which I had my entire life and thought were "normal".

(I have a difficult time comprehending how some Paleo people choose to eat wheat and artificial sweeteners. )

kiramaniac

Fascinating post, Akimajuktuq!

strychnine7

Wild muscle meat is lean, for sure, but as Akimajuktuq said, wild game still carries plenty of fat. That being said, The reason why high-fat is widely espoused by the paleo community is because paleo tends to be lower-carb and because a low-carb, low-fat, high-protein diet is actually dangerous. There is a condition known as "rabbit starvation" that occurs when you eat large amounts of protein.

So the idea is as follows: Paleo usually means low-carb, enough protein to maintain/grow muscle mass, and enough fat to fill in whatever gap remains. This typically means low-carb, high-fat, moderate-protein.

I don't believe in any sort of black and white doctrine regarding paleo. It's possible to eat "paleo" and have your macros be anyway you want, I'm simply explaining why (it appears to me) high-fat seems to be the most widespread idea in the paleosphere.

Shadowknight137

My cynical side says because low carb diets were and are trendy, with many people who jump aboard them having success. Also, because there really is evidence you don't really need carbs; they're an unessential macronutrient, and many people practice ketogenic and low carb diets outside of paleo. It was purely a marketing thing

My optimistic side says it's to imitate the percentage of caloric intake eaten in... whatever time Paleo was meant to imitate, Presumably, lots of animals, snacking on nuts and berries while forgaging and deriving most of their fat and protein from their kills. Wild game does still have fat and, after all, predators such as lions still survive eating it, so I assume it was like that for humans. So animal fat + the nuts they came across = fat intake.

My realistic side (yes, I have three sides. I am a triangle of opinion) tells me that it's a bit of both and something in between. Yes, on some days, Paleothic man would get a good majority of calories from fat, but that can't have been every day. I'd say that it was kinda varied... like... carb cycling I guess.
Some days they failed to kill an animal and sat down to a meal of roasted (assuming they roasted at this time) tubers, insects and sometimes they come across a big bunch of fruit (bunch of bananas,,apple tree, etc) and pigged out on them, whereas on other days they killed a mammoth and feasted on protein/fat. So it varied.

I don't believe they would have aimed to have gotten as much dietary fat as anyone doing keto would nowadays; they didn't fry their foods in cooking fats, but roasted them. They didn't (as far as I'm aware) make salads with olive oil or put butter or coconut oil in their liquids (which is delicious, by the way). They ate foods local and convenient to them. Foods that would keep them alive, provide them energy and allow them to grow and evolve.

I don't think it really matters what macronutrients someone has when eating Paleo. It gets quite silly when someone eating most of their calories from fat yells "You're not Paleo! You eat too many carbs/natural sugars,etc!" and then that person replies "But all my food is whole food! Not added fats! Mine actually simulates real caveman living!". Meanwhile everyone not on the Paleo diet shakes their head and laughs at how people on the same diet are arguing with each other like it was a religion... or Veganism. Raw vs Vegan vs Vegetarian. Not really a crowd or battle anyone with self-respect really wants to get into.

At the end of the day: YMMV. Paleo is based around whole foods, so let whole foods fit your individual macronutrient needs. If those needs are higher in fat lower in carbs, then eat foods higher in fats lower in carbs. If you feel sluggish on high fat and prefer having lots of carbs, eat more carbs. If you don't really care and just want to eat foods you enjoy, eat a balance, say 33%.
Based on individual need, if I tried to eat a diet like Akimajuktuq, I would drop weight like crazy as I have done in the past due to satiation, which would kind of contradict my current goal of weight/muscle gain. So I eat more carbs. Both of us are "Paleo", we're still friends and respect what the other's doing - I think she's awesome and hands out great advice. It really does come down to preference.

Akimajuktuq

@Shadowknight: well said. A Paleo diet does not have to be high fat, but for me, it works best. It's also easiest for me to model what I know. Local aboriginal diets seem ideal to me so that's what I follow.

I do know from studying Anthropology that most aboriginal humans showed preference for the highest fat foods available to them. And of course gorged on anything sweet that came their way-which was rare. And certainly my ancestors were not consuming huge amounts of coconut oil. I jokingly refer to myself as a Polynesian Inuit.

I never accuse someone of not being Paleo just because they eat more carbs than I do; however, I do think that no one should be eating less than 50% calories from fat. I've seen that many people struggle if they are trying to eat low fat and Paleo, and there's no need! Why struggle with hunger? But as you pointed out, some people do NOT need to reduce their appetite-I have zero experience with what that is like!

However, Paleo is Paleo if one is eating whole, healthy, unprocessed foods and avoiding the nasties (for the most part) like wheat, soy, etc then they are just as Paleo as I am. BUT, when a friend is struggling with cravings and over-eating and I see a lot of sugar in their diary I do give advice to lower carbs. Oh, and depression. High fat kills depression and anxiety. :happy:

Rei1988

Speaking of Polynesia, Samoan people eat bat meat which is pretty darn greasy, with fresh coconut meat & wild caught fish. Fatty meat is always prized because they know how satiated they feel.

strychnine7

Fatty meat is always prized because they know how satiated they feel.

I agree with this. It strikes me as making all kinds of sense that things like fat and salt taste delicious to most people. it's almost like when humans were evolving, nature implanted in them the enjoyable taste of things that were desirable. Funny how that work, eh? Of course, then folks like to say, well if sugar is so bad for you, then why is it so delicious?" A valid question but clearly they aren't thinking like paleo folks who "get it". The answer, of course, is that sugar, in moderated amounts, ISN'T bad for you. As with all things, it's the dose that makes the poison. And Grok was likely NOT getting vast amounts of sugar as often as he wants (like, say, a bowl of cereal and OJ for breakfast, a sandwich, chips, and soda for lunch, and a heaping plate of spaghetti for dinner). Fat, however, WAS quite abundant, and so it makes sense that evolution allowed for higher intake of it without it being unhealthy.

Just some more random musings for ya'...

Dragonwolf

To add to the ancestral part, check out The Perfect Human Diet ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2014248/ , it's available on Netflix if you have that). In it, one of the interviews talks about what ancient people did the animals they hunted. It mentions that the large game were hunted just before the weather turned cold, when the animals were at about their fatest, as opposed to late winter, early spring, when they've used their fat stores. When they did get a lean animal, they'd feed the meat to their dogs (the societies that had dogs, at least). So while yes, humans were largely opportunistic and if it came down to eating lean meat or starving, they'll certainly eat the meat, but when given an option between a lean target and a fat one, they're very likely to choose the fat one over the lean one.

On a more modern perspective, a large portion of the people who come to Paleo do so because of metabolic issues (and health issues related to being overweight/obese). Insulin resistance being one of the most prominent metabolic issues, and is also the one that responds the most drastically to low carb, high fat, because the primary energy source is the only one that does not cause an insulin response (protein also creates an insulin response). Mark Sisson goes into quite a bit of detail about this aspect in Primal Blueprint and on his blog.

Also, even outside of the Arctic, a lot of game is a lot fattier than you think. Check out the tables in this PDF - http://www.huntfish.info/article_uploads/NutritionalContentGame.pdf . You'll see that the wild game (in this one, ungulates) have about the same amount of fat as pastured beef. Other game, such as squirrel, beaver, wild boar, and bear have even more fat - http://www.healthaliciousness.com/nutritionfacts/nutrition-comparison.php?o=17183&t=17150&h=17146&s=100&e=100&r=100 (note - one thing I found while looking for comparisons was that a lot of the tests would first trim visible fat, so any numbers you find will likely be on the low side).