Mostly, I was interested in polyunsaturated and saturated fats in various foods, but it’s always interesting to be reminded about some other facts. We’re always hearing about how, [...]]]> This is something I did for my own reasons, but I’m talking about it on a mailing list, and posting a table in there is *not* convenient.

Mostly, I was interested in polyunsaturated and saturated fats in various foods, but it’s always interesting to be reminded about some other facts. We’re always hearing about how, say, bacon is chock full of ARTERY-CLOGGING SATURATED FAT(!), but it actually has more monounsaturated fat than saturated.

I was also surprised (though I really don’t know why) at how much more fat farmed fish has. I knew about the lack of Omega-3, but I didn’t realize just how much fattier it is generally.

Anyway, the fats are at the bottom of the chart. If you want an excel copy to mess with, I can email that to you.

All the numbers are courtesy of the USDA food nutrient database (free for the taking). I have it loaded into MySQL on my computer so that can get up to all sorts of trouble with it.

There’s a lot of good information [...]]]> It took me ages to find a copy of Ray Audette’s Neanderthin at a price I was willing to pay ($12 + shipping, as it turned out). I read it, of course, and just for the heck of it, I ran the numbers on two days of his menu suggestions.

There’s a lot of good information in the book, and while the fitness section is a lot more detailed than this, the food advice boils down to this quote from page 17:

My definition of nature is the absence of technology. Technology-dependent foods would never be ingested by a human being in nature. I determined, therefore, to eat only those foods that would be available to me if I were naked of all technology save that of a convenient sharp stick or stone.

So, on to the numbers. Click on the images to see a full-size version. The first day is 4,556 calories, a lot of it from nuts:

Day Two is 4,992 calories. The suet/jerky on here is my approximation of 1/2 cup of pemmican.:

Wow, that’s a lot of salt, but he’s making his own jerky, and the USDA database that Fitday uses has a commercial version and that’s likely the source of the salt. He may also be using low-sodium bacon. I can tell you that knocks your sodium *way* down if you eat bacon often, as I do. The Costco (Kirkland brand) low-sodium bacon is also sugar-free and a great deal.

Anyway, I wonder if, rather than having my imaginary great-great grandmother judge if something is food, I should use an imaginary Paleolithic person?

I don’t think I could actually eat that much of those particular foods unless I was out in the snow running a trap line or being a lumberjack or something. Here’s my averages for a four week period:

And here it is as a Nutrition Facts label because I think it’s humorous. Obviously, I’m not terribly concerned about diet orthodoxy re: fat and cholesterol. Fitday’s selenium thingy is broken, but I do get enough of it on their other charts. The vitamin numbers aren’t quite right anyway because I supplement some stuff.

This is a semi-typical day. I’d say totally typical, but I don’t drink every day. Also, I’ve been weighing everything this week instead of using cup measures for stuff like salad and sunflower seeds. This is also not in any particular order. Obviously, I didn’t have wine for breakfast.

(If you’re interested in modern Hunter-Gatherer tribes, check out this lovely piece from National Geographic on the Hadza of Tanzania.)