The High Protein Diet of the Australian Aborigine December 24, 2008
Posted by Dr Dan in paleo diet.Tags: Aborigine, Dr Loren Cordain, paleo diet
trackback
One of the most studied hunter gatherer groups alive today are the Australian Aborigines. Traditional aborigines are omnivores and the proportion of foods from animals and plants depends very much on season and geographic location. In general woman provided the subsistence diet, which consisted of gathering plant foods, honey, eggs, small reptiles, mammals, fish, shellfish, crustaceans, grubs and insects. The men provided the ‘feast’ aspect of the diet providing large mammals (i.e Kangaroos).
There was typically one meal a day in late afternoon when all the group would return to camp to prepare and cook the respective meal. Consumption of up to 3 kg of meat was not uncommon in one sitting. Consumption of snacks occurred for the remainder of the time and typically was comprised of insects, honey, grubs, wild fruit, nuts and the liver would often be eaten on the spot after a kill of large mammals. The amount of energy gained per day was very low at around 1200 calories of which animals contributed 64% of energy. The diet composition in terms of energy was 54% protein, 13% fat, and 33% carbohydrates. These figures are amazingly close to those predicted by Dr Loren Cordain.
Food
I will be posting my food shortly. It is christmas today and so will be difficult to get shots. So will resume again tomorrow!
Hi Dr. Dan,
I also eat Paleo but I am very skeptical of such low fat consumption. I also suspect that Cordain is dead wrong on saturated fat. It makes absolutely no sense. In fact, I suspect that saturated fats are preferred by our bodies and, GASP!, healthier! After all, when our bodies store fat, it is stored as saturated fat.
I see what your saying about saturated fats but there are certainly hunter gatherer groups that survive on diets low in saturated fat like the Australian Aborigine.
[...] In a study in 1984, by O’Dea in Diabetes, urbanised diabetic aborigines returned back to their hunter gatherer roots and their health was monitored. The subjects showed improvements in the metabolic abnormalities of diabetes, but also in several risk factors for cardiovasular disease, including a reduction in hyperlipidaemia, blood pressure, and prolongation in bleeding time. These changes occurred while eating a diet predominantly based from wild game animals. The diet was low in fat (13% energy), with the meat from wild game been very lean and consisting of only 1-2% fat most of which was monounsaturated fats. For more information on the diet of this group see this post. [...]
Dr Dan,
Aboriginal mitochondia, being different to its Western counterpart may have a role in this. Thus a low fat diet may sit well with that group of people and not with others.
Thats interesting. How do you think that would work? I just tend to think that humans are built to survive on low carb unprocessed food. I see it as a gradient with the Inuit on one end and the Aborigine down the other end. Either way there both low carb and getting lots of nutrients from meat and plants. It just so happens one is getting more from protein while the other from fat.
[...] In my last post I made a statement that the paleo diet was a low to moderate fat diet. I would definitely state that saying that the paleo diet is low in fat was wrong. My intention was to state that a lot of the meat they consume is often low in fat not that the diet itself is low fat. But I would argue that in general most hunter gatherers eat moderate amounts of fat. Obviously there is reason to give a definition of what I think is moderate. To me a diet high in fat would be around the >65% mark and most hunter gatherer diets are below this. Of course there are examples of hunter gatherers eating a higher proportion of fat in their diet most notably the Inuit. But there are also examples of cultures that eat diets very low in fat most notably the Aborigine who in one study ate as low as 13 % fat. [...]
According to Dr Price it seems a lot higher in fat than you think…
http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/australian_aborigines.html
What’s your take on his findings?