Natural diet, fats, startch etc, was (Rules of the road)

[Guest guest]

Hi Jeff

think I am out of my depth again, but here goes:

" Correct, but separate issue. You could still follow my principles,

consume no starch foods, or limited amounts and still be on a low

fat, healthy " > how do you do it, what is your secret, where do the

calories come from, it can only be the simple sugars (fruit) I

suppose if you are not big on starch, fat and protein.

" My question is, just where exactly did humans get these foods that

they supposedly consumed so much of that were high in fat? " > the

cheese, coconut and butter were just examples I would like taste-

wise, certainly would not get them in paleo-times.

" Wild game was low in fat, and saturated

fat and cholesterol. " > I agree that none-animal foods available on

a year-round-average will be low in fat, but I am not sure about

your idea of lean game meat. First we will have eaten things like

insects, pupae, coastal and river fish and reptiles which would have

different and maybe higher fat ratios than lean meat and second

there is some evidence that lean meat was not actually favoured by

paleo man/woman who infact would go for the fatty meats and toss the

lean way except during times of low food availability, I

quote " Organ meats favoured in preference to muscle meats in hunter-

gatherer diets. Observations of modern hunter-gatherers have shown

that muscle meats (the leanest part of the animal) are least

preferred, sometimes even being thrown away in times of plenty, in

preference to the fattier portions. Eaten first are the organs such

as brains, eyeballs, tongue, kidneys, bone marrow (high in

monounsaturated fat), and storage fat areas such as mesenteric (gut)

fat. (Even this gut fat is much less saturated in composition,

however, than the kind of marbled fat found in the muscle meat of

modern feedlot animals.) There is no reason to believe earlier

hunter-gatherers would have been any different in these preferences,

since other species of animals who eat other animals for food also

follow the same general order of consumption. "

http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview1f.shtml#Updates%

20Part%201

Also I question (but have no evidence either way) what starches

would have been available, I don't think our paleo world would have

been covered in potatoes or carrots or for that matter turnips. So

that would leave roots which are so damn difficult to dig up and so

low in energy you would really be a pretty-stupid paleo person if

you did not just club the rabbits and other animals feeding on the

root and tuber leaves. But that does not back up the argument that

paleo man/woman ate a medium fat diet as rabbits are obviously low

in fat. But when you start playing with ideas, it seems more likely

to me that the natural diet of our ancestors will have been medium

to high protein (45-50% calories), perhaps medium fat (35-40%

calories) and the rest being the carb average from a whole year of

collecting berries, occasional fruits, some roots/tubers and

mushrooms) - infact, if anything I suspect mushrooms would have

formed a large part of our diet as everywhere I look in forests in

northern England I see mushrooms and living creatures, not much else

fruit or veg wise, unless I start eating tree bark. My gut feeling

based on what knowledge I have today is that our natural diet could

have looked on a macronutrient level more like 33/33/33, but I

cannot imagine the carbs being much higher.

" Put together a diet anyway you want based on regularly available

whole natural plant foods (fruits, berries, roots, tubers, veggies),

regularly available grass fed wild game, some more common fish on

occassion, and some nuts, seeds and let me know how much fat this

diet is as a daily average based on the yearly intake. "

> This, is exactly what I did over the last four to five weeks, but

excluding the roots and tubers as they all aggravated my starch

problem, and what happened was I reached around 1200 calories with

fruit, veg, lean meat (poultry breast), small amount of fatty fish,

berries and a small amount of nuts and 3 eggs a week (these are

evolutionary natural, albeit like nuts they are only available

seasonally). The fat intake came out at about 35 grams which as a

percentage of say 1800 calories was about 18% (ha, very Pritkin

ish). But with a stomach full of fruit and veg and unable to eat

starches were do my calories now come from to reach 1800 (olive oil

and wine are the only options or very concentrated fruit juices).

If I could eat starches then a few sweet potatoes would easily do

the trick and I would then be eating a pritkin style diet full of

nutritious food. (but Jeff, I don't know if you actually calorie

restrict much, so you could I suppose be getting by on 1500

calories, but I suspect you are more likely eating 2000 cals at

least. So where do you get your calories (do you manage it via the

roots & tubers that I cannot have) or are you a secret fruitarian or

do you have an industrial strength ape-like stomach able to digest 6-

7 pounds of veg and fruit a day. You see my dilemma, if I cannot

eat the starches, how do I get from my 1200 cals to say 1800-1900

cals without overdosing on fruit or fats, I just cannot see a way.

And as I don't think straches and fruit are very easy to get in the

wild during much of the year, then how did paleo person ever manage

3000 plus calories a day without getting a fairly big dose of fat

and protein. It just would not be possible, paleo stomachs can only

hold so much food (we do not have ape stomachs) before they prevent

a person from moving around. To consume that many calories from

fruit and veg would have meant paleo person spent half their time

too full to move and the other half finding the nearest bathroom.

Which actually might be possible, but then there would be no time to

hunt and plenty of time to get hunted down by other animals.

Jeff, I guess you are doing 15f/15p/70c macronutrient-wise, is this

roughly true ? and how does your stomach cope?

thanks .