Re: Why PUFA of 4% of less?

May 20, 2008

,

> I have been following the discussion for quite some time on PUFAs and

> the recommendation that they be less than 4% of calories. I am trying

> to understand this based on a few different things...

> 1. It appears almost impossible to keep them this low if one is on a

> traditional (higher fat) diet that consists of more than coconut oil.

> 2. Didn't Price find a number of cultures who would have consumed

> moderately higher PUFA rates (7-9%?) but were superbly healthy? (aka,

> doesn't seafood have a moderately high PUFA rate, nuts have a high PUFA

> rate and were regularly consumed by some groups?).

I've read NAPD twice and I don't recall him ever mentioning nuts. The

most common plant food he talks about are fruits, and the most common

fruit is bananas. He also talked quite a bit about sweet potatoes.

Some seafood is fatty and some seafood is very lean. Price mostly

talked about the importance of shellfish, which are very lean. I

don't think he ever mentioned the importance of fatty fish. He did,

however, talk about seaweed (lean) and fish eggs (fatty) during

pregnancy. Childhood, pregnancy and lactation are the main periods

where more than a minimal amount of PUFA is required.

It should be very easy to keep PUFA below 4% of calories on a high-fat

diet while using more than coconut oil. All you have to do is

moderate your intake of lard, olive oil, and other oils containing 10%

or more PUFA, consume primarily ruminant fats or low-PUFA plant oils

such as coconut oil, cocoa butter, macadamia nut oil, etc, and avoid

massive doses of cod liver oil in the tablespoon range.

We were saying it was hard to get to 1% of calories but it certainly

should not be hard to get to 4% of calories.

Of course if you are eating lots of nuts and seeds it is a different

story. In a recent University of Connecticut study, researchers

showed high-fat calorie-restricted diets to be vastly superior to

low-fat calorie-restricted diets in suppressing inflammation. But if

you look at the methods you will see that animal foods including eggs

and heavy cream and so on were allowed in unlimited quantities but

other low-carb foods that were high in PUFA like nuts and seeds were

allowed in only moderate amounts. Their total PUFA intake was about

4% of calories (I forget what the fat was but it was very high, at

least 60% I think).

Chris

May 20, 2008

I should add that Price did not measure PUFA content if he was even

aware of PUFA, so I don't know where the 7-9% analysis would come

from. 4% cannot be derived from Price either.

Chris

May 20, 2008

-

> 1. It appears almost impossible to keep them this low if one is on a

> traditional (higher fat) diet that consists of more than coconut oil.

4% actually isn't very hard at all on a high-fat diet. Ruminant meat

fat is generally around 4% PUFA, sometimes less, as are cow, sheep and

goat dairy. If you ate a lot of pork you'd start getting past 4%, but

if you mainly stuck to good dairy and ruminant meat you wouldn't have

a problem. Of course this requires serious moderation of things like

olive oil, too, as olive oil is somewhere around 11% PUFA. Palm oil's

not great either (9% PUFA), but PUFA-wise, palm kernel oil is terrific

at around 2% PUFA IIRC. Other cooking fats and oils that are ideal in

this sense are coconut oil (of course), tallow, cocoa butter,

macadamia oil... ghee, of course... and there are probably others I'm

forgetting.

Getting down to 1% or less, though, is extremely difficult if not flat-

out impossible for anyone interesting in eating a semi-natural (let

alone tasty) high-fat diet.

> 2. Didn't Price find a number of cultures who would have consumed

> moderately higher PUFA rates (7-9%?) but were superbly healthy? (aka,

> doesn't seafood have a moderately high PUFA rate, nuts have a high

> PUFA

> rate and were regularly consumed by some groups?).

Not nuts AFAIK, but while he did observe some people eating a fair

amount of seafood, which inevitably would've provided a non-trivial

amount of PUFA, it's important to remember that measurements of health

are relative to the baseline you select. Not only that, but I'd wager

that PUFA is more harmful nowadays than it was back then because of

the increased presence of pollutants causing oxidative damage.

-

May 20, 2008

,

I wrote:

> Some seafood is fatty and some seafood is very lean. Price mostly

> talked about the importance of shellfish, which are very lean. I

> don't think he ever mentioned the importance of fatty fish. He did,

> however, talk about seaweed (lean) and fish eggs (fatty) during

> pregnancy. Childhood, pregnancy and lactation are the main periods

> where more than a minimal amount of PUFA is required.

Actually he did mention salmon as an Inuit staple in an article and

maybe in NAPD, but he didn't talk about the importance of fatty fish

in the way he talked about the importance of shellfish or fish eggs

(i.e. as a major sacred food, or major valued food for a specific

purpose). The Inuit are clearly outliers in their PUFA consumption,

and a number of investigators have noted potential drawbacks that

could be attributed to it, and their diet may have contained many

protective factors (from raw glands and whatever else) that we would

not take in. Otherwise, I would be surprised if any groups were

taking in 7-9%, which is higher than the US average and would mean

that consumption of vegetable oils hasn't brought our PUFA intakes any

higher than primitive groups, which is hard to believe.

Chris

May 20, 2008

First, thanks. Second, on the issue of nuts, it appears (in nourishing

traditions, for instance) that they are highly recommended and valued

as a traditional food (along with lots of modern medical/dietary

advice). Is this inaccurate from what we know of native populations?

Again, thanks for the helpful responses.

May 20, 2008

Masterjohn wrote:

> All you have to do is

> moderate your intake of lard, olive oil, and other oils containing

> 10% or more PUFA, consume primarily ruminant fats or low-PUFA

> plant oils such as coconut oil, cocoa butter, macadamia nut oil,

> etc, and avoid massive doses of cod liver oil in the tablespoon

> range.

aren't Mediterranean people said to be pretty healthy (thus the

fame of the Mediterranean diet)? I can't speak for all of them, but

in Spain they eat lots of olive oil, daily.

Tim

May 20, 2008

On 5/20/08, louisvillewapf <louisvillewapf@...> wrote:

> First, thanks. Second, on the issue of nuts, it appears (in nourishing

> traditions, for instance) that they are highly recommended and valued

> as a traditional food (along with lots of modern medical/dietary

> advice). Is this inaccurate from what we know of native populations?

I don't know -- maybe you could provide some quotes and references

from NT and we could discuss them. It's been a while since I read NT,

and there is a lot of random disconnected information provided in it,

which is nice, but I remember it less well than I remember NAPD. I

was just saying Price doesn't mention them.

Chris

May 20, 2008

Tim,

> aren't Mediterranean people said to be pretty healthy (thus the

> fame of the Mediterranean diet)? I can't speak for all of them, but

> in Spain they eat lots of olive oil, daily.

I don't know much about the Spanish diet or the health of Spanish

people. The healthiest Mediterranean people are those who live on

Crete (or those who lived there back in the 60s anyway), and they eat

a lot of wheat, goat cheese, and stuff made from wheat stalks boiled

in whey and dehydrated. They grow a lot of olives there but I don't

know how much olive oil they use -- I think they sell a lot and burn a

lot in oil lamps.

In any case, if I remember right we were just saying that to moderate

your PUFA intake you need to moderate your olive oil intake if you are

eating a high-fat diet. If you are eating a low-fat diet, you could

use olive oil as your only fat and keep a pretty low PUFA intake.

Chris

May 20, 2008

Hi & others,

I am no fat expert but I do know that my body fat tends to run around 20. In

the past I worked real hard to loose 60lbs only to have gained back 20lbs

already. I suspect the same old yo-yo trend everyone always talks about. No

idea on how to stay strict on say a 2400 daily caloric intake. I mean who wants

to take the time to measure, portion, weigh...not to mention refrain from

snacking. They say, never to eat more than 1lb of food @ a meal, but most of us

know that especially for those that are physically fit & working out we can

consume 10 times that amount easily as calories burned. I have not been as

faithful to my workout program as I would like, therefore I notice a twenty

pound weight gain in just a couple of weeks it seems & all from over eating

proteins & fats.

60% total fats w/ 10%SFA & 50%PUFA

20% total proteins

20% total carbohydrates

Not sure but it would seem that if overeating was implemented it would

significantly schew the desired percentages. In other words the percentages

seem valid only for a controlled dietary intake. Consuming in excess of 3000

calories a day without vigorous exercise to balance it out would surely be an

excess that would eventually lead to enervation, deficiency & possible toxicity.

I will be the first to admit, I lack the self control to achieve a controlled

dietary intake unless I was being forced into it @ an institution such as a

resort, hospital, or other kind of self help retreat. Even then, I would have

to re-lean how to control dietary intake on my own after leaving a controlled

setting. Tell me I am not alone?

Best regards, Jim

Masterjohn <chrismasterjohn@...> wrote: