Loren Cordain’s first book on the paleo diet recommended lean meats. “Lean” means trimmed of visible fat. From a gustatory perspective eating lean meat is barely a step above eating a rice cake.

Hello! Flavor! Are you in there?

But Cordain’s views on saturated fats have evolved since he first wrote The Paleo Diet. In a recent newsletter he wrote

“Recommendations to lower dietary saturated fats below 10% to reduce the risk of coronary artery disease have little or no evolutionary foundation in pre-agricultural Homo sapiens… So we do not need restrict ourselves to only tuna and turkey breast, avoiding every last gram of saturated fat.”

Phew. Pass the bacon.

But seriously, if you are buying meat from Cub or Rainbow or even Kowalski’s or Lund’s you should still trim the fat. Most farm animals are grain fed, rather than pastured and fat from those animals is essentially devoid of omega 3′s and very high in omega 6.

If you can, try to buy local, organic, grass-fed meats. If your food is the product of an ordered and natural food chain you don’t have to be afraid of it. Imagine that!