Guest guest Posted December 5, 2004 Report Share Posted December 5, 2004 Mike- >Livers are very large, >very high in fat, and highly saturated. Are you thinking of fat around the liver? Because livers themselves are very lean. >[Carol] Almost all the omega 3 fat is gone and replaced by a >saturated fat, (and other fats), that is abnormal to the animal. > >[MAP] I think this might be roughly true, but it might also be >quantitatively insignificant. Numbers I've seen (which might not be representative) are 4% PUFA in grain-fed beef and up to 7% in grass-fed with n6:n3 ratios being up to 20-30:1 in grain-fed and as little as 3:1 or even 1:2 in grass-fed. As to the n3 fat being " replaced " by saturated and other abnormal fats, no. The percentages of saturated and unsaturated fat in ruminants is relatively constant, since their depot fat tends to be saturated and their marrow is highly monounsaturated, so variations occur largely because of effect of their diet on actual fat distribution in their bodies. IOW, an obese animal might have a slightly higher percentage of saturated fat and a slightly lower percentage of monounsaturated fat simply because marrow volume is comparatively constant while an animal can always add more tissue fat. The n6:n3 ratio might or might not be important (I'd guess it's of medium significance) but the larger point is that grass-fed meat is more nutritious, potentially much more so depending on the soil the animal was raised on. >Unless I'm misreading it, it appears this study compared cow diets >containing different proportions of grazed grass, hay, grass silage, >and a concentrate containing mostly barley (46%) and beet pulp (42%). >In other words, the only grain used was barley, no corn or other >grains. I think that's interesting because my impression was that >standard feed-lot cows eat a lot of corn? I missed that extra info, and somehow overlooked the fact that the fat tested was purely intramuscular, which renders it pretty much irrelevant to any debate about the actual overall lipid profiles of grass-fed animals, since as we all (or most) know, grass-fed muscle meat is less marbled than grain-fed muscle meat. But if the concentrate is derived from barley and beets, it bears little or no resemblance to actual real-world feeds that I know of. Was the whole article freely available? I thought only abstracts were. My mistake, I guess. >but is this " SFA is bad with MS " idea a >sketchy conjecture, or a well-documented scientific conclusion? It's standard doctrine. A friend of a friend has MS, and he's strictly warned by his conventional doctors to avoid the demon saturated fat. - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 5, 2004 Report Share Posted December 5, 2004 > grazing animal SFA > > > >(Hey Guys, after some reflection in recent days, I've decided to >tentatively try out a new style of in-line posting formatting to >replace my " @@@ " practice, which I still kinda like in many ways but >am not 100% happy with in general. Tough decisions! I guess there >are various tradeoffs with these things. I promise to never err on >the side of extreme minimalism and just put one " > " in the beginning >of a quote!) > >[Carol] Grass-fed and wild animal meat is low in saturated fat. > >[MAP] This is an ambiguous statement. Most interpretations are false >or probably false. Bear in mind, Carol's statement was made in >context of a comparison to grain-fed farm-raised animals. >Reading 1: absolute quantity in muscles. True by mere virtue of >*total fat* percentage being significantly lower, at least for wild. >Reading 2: compared.to total fat in muscles. Not true in general, but >true for a few species of wild animals, while other species have >higher SFA : total fat ratios. >Reading 3: compared to MUFA. Not true at all! The grain-fed animals >have the most MUFA. >Reading 4: absolute quantity for total animal. Don't know. Old wild >animals can have huge fat deposits on back. Kidney fat deposits are >very large, and very very highly saturated. Livers are very large, >very high in fat, and highly saturated. Big animals can have lots of >marrow, almost pure fat, highly monounsaturated, but varying in >saturation in different parts of legs. >Reading 5: compared to total fat for total animal. Don't know for >sure, probably not true for most species because of liver, kidney >fat.deposits, and general closeness of other parts except marrow. >Reading 6: compared to MUFA for total animal. Definitely not true! >Reading 7: absolute or relative quantity for parts actually eaten. >Not true for most of human history. True for most cases in recent >human history. This is the most important and meaningful >interpretation! Refer to SF's standard argument from the WAPF >article(s) about preferential eating among animal tissues. > Let me add one more - there's some evidence that *locale* may effect fat depostion (and possibly ratios?) in that animals in cold climates tend to concentrate unsaturated fatty acids in limbs due to low temps. Same for some (or all?) plants. There seems to be a general SF to PUFA gradient from the Equator to the the Poles. Suze Fisher Lapdog Design, Inc. Web Design & Development http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter Leader, Mid Coast Maine http://www.westonaprice.org ---------------------------- " The diet-heart idea (the idea that saturated fats and cholesterol cause heart disease) is the greatest scientific deception of our times. " -- Mann, MD, former Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee; heart disease researcher. The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics <http://www.thincs.org> ---------------------------- > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 5, 2004 Report Share Posted December 5, 2004 [MAP] Livers are very large, > >very high in fat, and highly saturated. [] Are you thinking of fat around the liver? Because livers themselves are > very lean. [MAP] , thanks, that was a mistake on my part. Livers are pretty lean indeed, but they are highly saturated. Beef liver is only about 20% fat. [] Numbers I've seen (which might not be representative) are 4% PUFA in > grain-fed beef and up to 7% in grass-fed with n6:n3 ratios being up to > 20-30:1 in grain-fed and as little as 3:1 or even 1:2 in grass-fed. [MAP] 20-30:1?? Are you sure? They were about 4:1 at highest in that study, but maybe the diets were not nearly as abject as typical feed-lot cases. [] As to the n3 fat being " replaced " by saturated and other abnormal fats, > no. The percentages of saturated and unsaturated fat in ruminants is > relatively constant, since their depot fat tends to be saturated and their > marrow is highly monounsaturated, so variations occur largely because of > effect of their diet on actual fat distribution in their bodies. [MAP] Not true about constancy wrt intramuscular fat as per study Carol cited. Maybe true about total body fat--I have no idea. [] IOW, an > obese animal might have a slightly higher percentage of saturated fat and a > slightly lower percentage of monounsaturated fat simply because marrow > volume is comparatively constant while an animal can always add more tissue > fat. [MAP] Not true. It's the other way around. I believe More obese --> more MUFA. [] The n6:n3 ratio might or might not be important (I'd guess it's of medium > significance) but the larger point is that grass-fed meat is more > nutritious, potentially much more so depending on the soil the animal was > raised on. [MAP] Yeah, that is indeed the larger point! The FA profile is a red herring. It's the other stuff, boiling down to soil. [] Was the whole article freely available? I thought only abstracts were. My > mistake, I guess. [MAP] Yeah, the full-text is there free. It's worth reading. Mike SE Pennsylvania The best way to predict the future is to invent it. --Alan Kay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 5, 2004 Report Share Posted December 5, 2004 Mike- >[MAP] 20-30:1?? Are you sure? They were about 4:1 at highest in that >study, but maybe the diets were not nearly as abject as typical >feed-lot cases. I'm not sure I've seen direct evidence of 30:1 ratios in *meat* myself, but I have seen them cited by the likes of Mercola. That said, a very quick, sloppy and incomplete skimming of eatwild.com (which I see to my disappointment is now promoting the idea that grass-fed is good in part because it's low-fat) yielded the following: >>The graph below shows that an animal fattened on grain has 14 times more >>omega-6 than omega-3 fatty acids in its meat. The grass-fed animal has a >>ratio of only 2.5, which is considered ideal for human health. Such a >>ratio is linked with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, >>obesity, diabetes, depression, asthma, and auto-immune disorders. In our >>efforts to make our animals fatter quicker, we have unwittingly increased >>our risk of obesity, along with a host of other diseases. >> >>(The study on the fat-producing properties of pasture versus feedlot >>diets was conducted by Dr. Erasmus Okine at Alberta Agriculture Food and >>Rural Development in 1997. Read more about it here. To learn more about >>the omega-6/omega-3 fatty acid balance and obesity in humans, read The >>Omega Diet by Jo and Dr. Artemis Simopoulos or refer to the >>following scientific paper: Storlien, L., D. Pan, et al. (1993). >> " Skeletal Muscle Membrane Lipid Composition is Related to Adiposity in >>Man. " Obesity Research 1(Supplement 2): 775.) That's from http://eatwild.com/news2.html about 1/3 of the way down the page. I'm sure the exact ratio depends heavily on diet, since it's the portion not being saturated partially or fully by gut bacteria. >[] As to the n3 fat being " replaced " by saturated and other abnormal >fats, > > no. The percentages of saturated and unsaturated fat in ruminants is > > relatively constant, since their depot fat tends to be saturated and their > > marrow is highly monounsaturated, so variations occur largely because of > > effect of their diet on actual fat distribution in their bodies. > >[MAP] Not true about constancy wrt intramuscular fat as per study >Carol cited. Maybe true about total body fat--I have no idea. If the discussion is held strictly to intramuscular fat, OK, but I didn't think we were talking about just that. I eat grass-fed steaks with nice slabs of depot fat on the side, for example. >[MAP] Not true. It's the other way around. I believe More obese --> >more MUFA. Hmm, I've seen contradictory data on this, so it might vary by breed or some other factor. Not sure. >[MAP] Yeah, the full-text is there free. It's worth reading. I don't know how useful it really is, though, since it tests a variety of conditions which don't resemble real-world feeding. - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 5, 2004 Report Share Posted December 5, 2004 >>You do cite a book written by a PhD, but is this " SFA is bad with MS " idea a sketchy conjecture, or a well-documented scientific conclusion? Was it snuck in the author's larger program based merely on one shred of evidence and its consistency with an overarching anti-SFA worldview? Or is it a centerpiece of the program based on extensive argumentation? I'd love to hear more about this idea and the proposed mechanisms.<< ~~~He actually took the part about saturated fats from a doctor in Oregon, named Roy Laver Swank, MD, PhD, who studied MS patients for over 35 years, before he retired, at which time his organization took over. (They are still treating MS patients and furthering his research.) I have his book and about half of it substantiates the claims that saturated fat will have a calcifying effect on myelin sheaths. This was done by blood tests and all sorts of clinical evidence that follows the path from the ingestion of saturated fat through to its effect on the blood and ultimately the myelin sheath of the brain and other nerves. Does this discourse make any claims about different effects of SFA from coconut (medium-chain) and the more common sources (long-chain)? ~~~Yes, it makes a big distinction. It doesn't limit the saturated fats in wild fish and game, but it does limit the saturated fats in grain-fed beef, and other commercially fed animals. It encourages ingestion of salmon and other sources of omega 3 FA. Note that the amounts of SFA relative to total fat in muscle meats are within a fairly small range regardless of whether they're grain-fed, grass-fed, or wild, so we're talking about tweaks here, not anything that would be statistically significant in terms of the SFA content of a diet as a whole. ~~~I think I'll write to Ashton Embry and see if he has the needed evidence to back up what I've been saying. (It may take awhile, because the last I heard he was on a speaking tour in London, and he's an extraordinarily busy man. He's trying to get the balance necessary funds to perform a clinical 'trial' on his diet and MS. It has stopped the progression of the disease in many people, by the way.) >>If you believe the MS/SFA theory, then the most important response is to eliminate milkfat from your diet. Because of studies that show ultra-low-SFA diets are dangerous, I wouldn't give up the meat, but just restrict to smaller quantities, that way you're getting at least some SFA and not losing out on meat nutrients.Mike << ~~~When you say meat, which meats do you mean exactly........just beef, or does that include dark poultry meat too, which is also high in saturated fat? I get some saturated fat from coconut milk and oil, and nuts too, as well as the chicken I eat as the mainstay of my protein sources. Carol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 5, 2004 Report Share Posted December 5, 2004 Carol- >~~~I emphatically disagree about that. I've been fighting mainstream >doctors for 10 years on this. Every time I've brought up diet and MS, >they get very defensive and derisive. If his doctor says that, he's got >the one in a 'zillion' doctor. This is a real sore spot for anyone with >MS who is trying to treat it through diet revision. If you only mean the >standard garbage that so many doctors tout about saturated fat being bad >for ALL people, maybe so, but that is NOT specific to MS in the standard >medical world. I have no idea about the specifics, but he's told that saturated fat is especially bad for people with MS, and I've noticed the odd warning here and there myself even though MS isn't a subject I pay any real attention to. - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 5, 2004 Report Share Posted December 5, 2004 >>It's standard doctrine. A friend of a friend has MS, and he's strictly warned by his conventional doctors to avoid the demon saturated fat. -<< ~~~I emphatically disagree about that. I've been fighting mainstream doctors for 10 years on this. Every time I've brought up diet and MS, they get very defensive and derisive. If his doctor says that, he's got the one in a 'zillion' doctor. This is a real sore spot for anyone with MS who is trying to treat it through diet revision. If you only mean the standard garbage that so many doctors tout about saturated fat being bad for ALL people, maybe so, but that is NOT specific to MS in the standard medical world. Carol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 5, 2004 Report Share Posted December 5, 2004 > Re: grazing animal SFA > > > >Mike- > >>[MAP] 20-30:1?? Are you sure? They were about 4:1 at highest in that >>study, but maybe the diets were not nearly as abject as typical >>feed-lot cases. > >I'm not sure I've seen direct evidence of 30:1 ratios in *meat* >myself, but >I have seen them cited by the likes of Mercola. That said, a very quick, >sloppy and incomplete skimming of eatwild.com (which I see to my >disappointment is now promoting the idea that grass-fed is good in part >because it's low-fat) yielded the following: > >>>The graph below shows that an animal fattened on grain has 14 times more >>>omega-6 than omega-3 fatty acids in its meat. The grass-fed animal has a >>>ratio of only 2.5, which is considered ideal for human health. My question is if these studies were done on the WHOLE animal, or specific parts (ie; intramuscular fat only). IF the latter, then the finding is questionable (in regards to whole animal EFA profile). However, most of us probably mainly eat intramuscular fat, in which case it would be meaningful. Suze Fisher Lapdog Design, Inc. Web Design & Development http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter Leader, Mid Coast Maine http://www.westonaprice.org ---------------------------- " The diet-heart idea (the idea that saturated fats and cholesterol cause heart disease) is the greatest scientific deception of our times. " -- Mann, MD, former Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee; heart disease researcher. The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics <http://www.thincs.org> ---------------------------- > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted December 5, 2004 Report Share Posted December 5, 2004 Suze- >My question is if these studies were done on the WHOLE animal, or specific >parts (ie; intramuscular fat only). IF the latter, then the finding is >questionable (in regards to whole animal EFA profile). However, most of us >probably mainly eat intramuscular fat, in which case it would be meaningful. That's a good question, of course. I'd like to see detailed stats on every part of the animal as well as the whole. I eat a pretty good amount of muscle meat, which is less than ideal, but detailed info always helps. - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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