How do you obtain fats?

[Techydude]

Hi i'm new to the raw paleo diet and in an effort to get the fats I need for my diet and to make up my caloric intake, I relied heavily on nuts and seeds. The problem is when I would eat soaked nuts and seeds i'd experience horrible cramps and to eat raw or roasted seeds was out of the question - pure indigestion by the book. I haven't tried sprouted seeds yet in part because everytime i'd try and sprout them they'd mole or rot. But this has lead me to question - because of the antinutrient properties of nuts and seeds ie phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors - should we eat them? Since they're literally bird food as birds have stomachs designed to eat these.


I don't really know how else to get my fats but I have ideas:
1) Fats from meats - ie  chicken and turkey skin (I wont dare touch red meat due to acid reflux) and bone marrow - they're expensive and hard to find as ive searched but also there's usually so little with the chicken ; now that covers omega 6 fats but besides from a serving of fish how do I get my hands on heavily fatty fish since fish is usually skinless due to scales and if I were to try and eat fish bones i'd prob choke and skin i'd probably choke on the scales

2) Fats from insects - Now insects according to research is very paleo as they are a concentrated source of fats and protein but I have a phobia of insects so that's out of the question

3) Vegetable oils - but those too contain enzyme inhibitors and don't seem very natural to me - think about it this way, could a hunter really collect all those seeds and press them into a bottle of convenient oil?

Does anyone have any practical ideas on how to increase my fat intake preferably poly, mono, and omega-3 concentrated?

[TylerDurden]

First of all, raw (grassfed) marrow is NOT expensive. I pay 1 pound fifty pence a kilo for raw marroa, including the weight of the bone. As long as I specify that I want only the marrow-rich bones, I get plenty of cheap marrow as a result. You could also get raw grassfed suet.

I used to eat sprouted seeds. I don't view them as being good as a mainstay of a diet, but they do no harm if sprouted.

As for digestive issues, I found raw red meat to be fine for my then wrecked digestion, when I started out as a rawpaleo newbie. It was only ground raw meat that was a problem, and only slight at that.

Buy whole, raw fatty fish like raw mackerel, raw swordfish, raw sprats, raw sardines, raw kingfish etc. etc. Just avoid farmed fish(salmon is mostly farmed).

[King Salmon]

Lately I've been using coconut oil.I don't care if its modern.I don't kill my own cows,pigs or lambs either.I like the convenience,taste,and versatility.I also eat egg yolks.Marrow is a pain in the ass to me.You can also order suet and backfat from some online sources like Slanker's and Northstarbison, or see what you can find locally.

[raw-al]

1) Fats from meats - ie  chicken and turkey skin (I wont dare touch red meat due to acid reflux) and bone marrow - they're expensive and hard to find

My butcher just gives it to me. Throws it in a bag. Otherwise he puts it in the garbage. I save him the walk to the garbage container.

[raw]

You can eat raw fertile chicken egg yolks, raw fermented cod liver oil (very small amount), all fatty organs of an animal (be careful, if you're a beginner. sometimes suet is problematic. It took me half a year to digest properly the cow suet), fatty fish...etc.

[PaleoPhil]

First of all, raw (grassfed) marrow is NOT expensive. I pay 1 pound fifty pence a kilo for raw marroa, including the weight of the bone. ...

Unless you eat the bone, the appropriate figure would be the cost per the weight of the marrow only, which makes 100% grassfed marrow much more expensive per unit weight than 100% grassfed suet where I live.

Another way to measure it would be cost per nutrients, which would might produce better resulting figures for grassfed marrow vs. grain-finished marrow.

[TylerDurden]

Unless you eat the bone, the appropriate figure would be the cost per the weight of the marrow only, which makes 100% grassfed marrow much more expensive per unit weight than 100% grassfed suet where I live.
resulting figures for grassfed marrow vs. grain-finished marrow.

I find even a little raw marrow fills me up. And besides, as long as one asks for marrow-rich bones, then, even when one takes into account the weight of the bone, one gets large amounts of raw marrow per bone, so it is still cheap. Raw suet may be even cheaper in your local area, but I can only go by my figures in the UK:- raw suet in the UK costs 5 pounds per kilo while raw marrow(admittedly including bone) costs only 1 pound fifty pence a kilo. And raw marrow is far more nutritious than raw suet, re nutrient profile.

[sabertooth]

I get an unlimited amount of lamb fat from a Mediterranean restaurant, it would just be put in the garbage if I didn't take it.

I would say that 50 percent of the calories in my diet is free, and if I get a good road killed deer then I can live cheap and still maintain my lavish diet.

[PaleoPhil]

I find even a little raw marrow fills me up. And besides, as long as one asks for marrow-rich bones, then, even when one takes into account the weight of the bone, one gets large amounts of raw marrow per bone, so it is still cheap. Raw suet may be even cheaper in your local area, but I can only go by my figures in the UK:- raw suet in the UK costs 5 pounds per kilo while raw marrow(admittedly including bone) costs only 1 pound fifty pence a kilo. And raw marrow is far more nutritious than raw suet, re nutrient profile.

Using supermarket marrow, I found that the price of the marrow alone costs 5.38 times the price of the cost of marrow plus bone (bone is heavier than marrow so it's not surprising that it's much more costly on a price/marrow basis than price/marrow+bone basis). Using that ratio, 5.38 x 1.50 = £8.70/kilo for marrow vs. £5/kilo for suet. So per unit weight the marrow you buy is likely significantly more costly than suet, which makes sense since suet is much more plentiful and easily butchered than marrow. However, marrow is rich in important fatty acids and nutrients, so I consider it valuable stuff.

My local healthfood market now has frozen grassfed marrow bones. The first small sample I bought had almost no marrow in it (it's hard to see how much marrow is in the bones when it's frozen), so it was almost infinitely expensive per pound. I'll ask the butcher if he has more marrow-rich bones, but they don't display any unfrozen marrow, so my guess is that they buy it pre-cut frozen. I've never checked out the standard butcher shop because they only advertize lean cuts of grain-finished meats, but I'll visit it some day to see if they have anything else.

[sabertooth]

I buy marrow bones for 2 dollars a pound and have to limit myself to about 4 pounds week. Its good nutrition and is a valuable source of fat, but cost can be an issue. I have become good at looking at the frozen bones and picking only the ones that are full of marrow. Now that the holiday orders have already been filled the stores have been able to get a good supply. They are not 100% grass fed, they usually come from this Ohio signature beef which is grass fed and finish on grain for 14 days before slaughter. 14 days of grain is a decent compromise and I doubt that the marrows nutritional values are much harmed by it.

The grass fed meats they have at the whole foods comes from Georgia and I may just be a little prejudice, but Georgia soil ain't the richest in the world and I don't really much like the taste of the grass fed beef that I have gotten. I have been lucky to find a source of Kentucky black Angus and that with my free lamb fat and an occasional road kill make up the bulk of what I eat. The black angus I get is fairly fatty as well, although the past couple of months my source has dried out and I have had to live on lamb and deer.

[PaleoPhil]

I have become good at looking at the frozen bones and picking only the ones that are full of marrow.

Interesting, how do you do that?

The grass fed meats they have at the whole foods comes from Georgia and I may just be a little prejudice, but Georgia soil ain't the richest in the world

I was intrigued by the comment about Georgia soil and I knew there was a goiter belt in the USA but couldn't remember where it was (though I remembered that my area had not been in the map I had seen before), so I looked for it and found this: , which actually puts my area within the belt, though not the worst parts (delineated with slashed lines). It looks like it's a good thing I eat some iodine-rich foods.

This is the sort of map I had seen before: , which examines soil content rather than drinking water content. Do you know what the Georgia soil is deficient in?