Dietary Fat

Considerations for Health

By Udo Erasmus
From Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill

Let us take a short walk through different diets that traditionally sustained human populations on different parts of the globe.  If we look at the involvement of fats and oils in these diets, and we can see how the fats in our foods impact our health.

Some nutrition writers suggest that by nature, man is a hunter who, since the dawn of our species, has lived on a diet high in animal proteins and fats.  These writers, mostly North American or European and affluent, cite evidence of' primitive hunting spears, arrows, animal bones, and other artifacts of the hunt found around remnants of fire pits in archaeological sites on all continents.  They use historical records of the past to confirm their personal preference for diets high in meats.

Equally vociferous, and marshalling a similarly impressive set of evidence, are writers who claim that man was always a gatherer of seeds, grains, roots, nuts, berries, and herbs.  Seeds and implements for crushing and preparing seeds have also been found in archaeological digs.  Three-quarters of the world's present population live on a diet based around vegetables and grains (including rice, corn, beans, buckwheat, wheat, rye, oats, barley, spelt, triticale, sorghum, quinoa, and amaranth).  These people consume few animal products.  Eggs, meat, blood, or milk products are special treats for festive or religious occasions.

It is not clear why these two sets of writers insist that man should have been rigidly one or the other.  Survival is a practical matter, and it makes sense that during millions of years of history, climactic changes, and migrations, our ancestors ate whatever they found in their environment and climate.  In a state of affluence, we can afford to speculate.  In a state of hunger, we eat what we can find and catch.

Our teeth are less able to tear flesh than those of meat-eating animals (carnivores), and less able to grind than those of vegetation animals (herbivores).  Our intestine is longer than that of carnivores and shorter than that of herbivores.  Our body is less powerful than that of carnivores, making us less capable to catch and kill, and slower than that of most herbivores.  Biologically speaking, we appear to be mixed-eaters (omnivores).

A third set of writers considers man's original foods to have consisted mainly of raw fresh greens, with some flowers, fruits, and roots, and an occasional inadvertent supplement of under-leaf insect eggs or worms.  Gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans live on such foods.  This kind of diet required no tools or fire, and would have left little archaeological evidence of its existence.

Climactic Differences and Diet

In tropical climates, vegetables, fruits and seeds are the foods easiest to obtain.  Tropical people would have favored them.  Vegetables and fruits are rich in minerals, vitamins, enzymes, and fiber, but low in fats.  Their seeds contain ample fats.

Plains grow grasses and grains, and plains people became gatherers and later, farmers.  The plains also provided lean, low-fat animals such as buffalo, antelope, gnu, and other wild cattle.  On the early plains, we find hunters who followed the animals, herders who tamed these grazing animals and lived on meats, blood, and milk, and farmers who grew food plants.

People of the North depended mainly on high-fat, high Omega-3 animal and fish oils.  Winters were long and cold, and vegetation was sparse.

People along coasts, lakes, and rivers included fish in their food supply.  In each area, man adapted himself to the foods available and learned the skills required to live.

Seasonal differences in diets.  Seasonally, too, there were differences.  Summer grew fresh, perishable vegetables and fruits rich in minerals, vitamins, and water lost as sweat in summer heat.  For winter, seeds, nuts, grains, roots, and dried foods were stored.  Storable foods contain concentrated energy, the fuels that keep us warm in cold weather -- starches, proteins, and fats.

Animal-based diets

Traditional Inuit and Northern Native diets come closer to being animal-based.  The people ate virtually the entire animal.  Organ meats such as liver, eyes, gonads, adrenals, and brain were preferred to muscle meats.  Some organs were eaten raw.  Nutritional analysis -- which became possible only in recent history -- confirms that organ meats are superior to muscle meats, being richer in EFAs, minerals, and vitamins, and of equal protein quality.  Stomach contents (including lichens, mosses, seaweed, and plankton) of animals were also eaten.  In summer, the people collected herbs from the almost barren land.  These bits of vegetable matter provided fiber and vitamin C, which are difficult to obtain in sufficient quantities from animal sources.

Plant-based diets

Completely vegetarian (vegan) traditional diets are unknown.  Insects and their eggs provided animal products, as did the occasional trophy of rat, gopher, or possum.  Dairy products were commonly used in some parts of the globe.

Many people relied on greens and grains for their main meals, but occasionally got their hands on meat, eggs, fish, milk, or blood.  Grain-eaters got Vitamin B12 -- an animal product required in only minute quantities and virtually absent from plant products -- from insect-infested grain kernels, dried insects crushed in grains, or from insect eggs.  Modern methods of grain storage use fumigants to prevent insect infestation, and thereby rob vegans of a source of Vitamin B12.

Changes in Dietary Preferences

Changes in our food habits took place over history, especially in the last one hundred years.  Processing became widespread.  Many traditional and time-tried balanced and healthful food habits were lost.

Here is a spectrum of foods from healthy (the top) to deadly (the bottom):

• hemp
• flax
• soybeans
• fish
• walnuts
• seaweed
• sunflower seeds
• sesame seeds
• almonds
• wild birds
• filberts
• venison
• eggs
• chicken
• fresh, mechanically cold-pressed oils in opaque containers
• evening primrose oil
• butter
• lamb
• beef
• roasted nuts and seeds
• dairy products
• pork
• refined oils
• refined starch
• sugar
• fried oils
• margarines and shortenings
• alcohol

Organ meats have taken a back seat to muscle meats that are low in several minerals, several vitamins, and both EFAs.

After domesticating wild animals, changes through breeding and feeding took place.  Commercialization of a limited range of stocks resulted in limitations in diversity, quantity, and quality of fats in animal foods.  Processing brought about changes in the fat, mineral, and vitamin content of foods, as well as introducing into our food supply many substances that are foreign to human body chemistry.

Shortsighted farming methods deplete soils of minerals, decreasing the mineral content of foods grown in these soils.  Unripe harvest for longer storage prevents full nutritional content from being developed.  Transport and storage result in nutrient losses.  Processing takes the heaviest nutritional toll.

Food consumption is also influenced by religious, philosophical, moral, ethical, and faddish considerations.  In times of plenty, we can afford to indulge in speculations, and to base our food choices on these speculations.  Statements such as:  "Taking the life of conscious creatures is wrong!" and "I don't think that anything that died in agony can be good food for humans!" are valid ethical considerations, but during famines, they usually occupy a position of low priority.

These considerations are not based on the rigors of nutritional science, which at its best, deals objectively with the essential components of human nutrition, their minimums and optimums for health, and digestible sources of these essential nutrients in nature.  Nutritional science takes the side neither of vegetarians nor meat-eaters, but attempts to improve the health of both through better food choices based on nutritional information.

If we examine the fat content of different diets and foods, we can observe how the fat content of our diet has changed over history.  This may give us insight into why present diets that appear to be the same as past diets now result in diseases of fatty degeneration.

NaturoDoc Note:  Mr. Erasmus has educated many of us on the virtues of Omega 6 and Omega 3 Oils in our diets.  But this biochemical information needs to go further in this real world of commercialized nutritional misinformation.  Please add another perspective to Mr. Erasmus' work by reading Dr. Ray Peat on Coconut Oil to learn about the proven dangers of oxidized unsaturated oils in the diet, and the commercial interests which would prefer you not think about them in that way, or in any way, apparently.

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