The thing about Cordain is that, as far as I can gather he is basing his arguments on the stone age peoples who were the ancestors of modern europeans, and from them much of the population of North America, Australia etc.

However much if not most of the world's paleo population would have eaten quite different combinations of foods and fats. For example the ancestors of the Inuit loved blubber, blubber and more blubber.
Modern American Indians show the typical body shape and facial types of arctic peoples, as they absolutely had to be to cross the 'land bridge' to get to Alaska so presumably they were blubber enthusiasts as well, in the past! Australian aborigines on the other hand found it very hard to get enough fat and resorted to things like witchetty grubs which are actually quite delicious, and a huge lizard called a goanna (a mini komodo dragon!) which is fatty and was broiled whole in the skin. I regularly eat kangaroo and it is so lean I cook it in beef fat!

What seems to be common is that fat seems to be prized wherever you go. In the 19th century when polar exploration started it soon became clear that the explorers needed to get at least 50% of their calories from fat otherwise they could literally not carry enough food on their sleds to get back to base on a long trek.

The ancestors of modern europeans, coming out of an ice age, surely would have needed a high fat diet.

Michael Gardner

Australia