Many ways to do paleo.

1.Because we owe our larger brains to the fact that we adapted to eat it.

2.Because the Omega 6/3 issue isn't an issue at all if you source your meat properly.

3.Because the Kitavans are one people that have adapted to a more pescatarian diet, but there are many HG's and many more peoples of the Paleolithic that have eaten minimal vegetable matter and thrived, if anything the Kitavans are not an example of what you can't eat, but of what you can (and how awesome we are as a species to adapt to practically anything).

4.Because it tastes good, is fairly accessible, and most importantly is a whole food.

5.Because with the exception of coconuts, saturated fat is very rare in the plant kingdom.

I literally could come up with about 50 of these answers, but I kept it to the issues you addressed specifically. I am one of those "lotsa meat" guys, but that's because I have experimented with several ways of eating and continually go back to the most successful way for me.

It is not about mimicry or recreation of modern HG's or even persons in the Paleolithic, it's about eating to survive.

I do think many paleo folks eat more meat than is necessary for meeting nutritional requirements, referring to those who eat 1, 2, 3+ pounds of meat per day. Protein, vitamin, mineral needs can be mostly met with maybe 1/2 pound or so per day. Fill in with a good amount of vegetable matter and you're well over 100% in all nutrients. Then it's a matter of filling in with starches and fats to get your energy up to the necessary amount.

I end up eating 8-12 ounces of animal product (meat or eggs) daily, 1-2 pounds of veggies, and 2-3 ounces of added fats. That covers nutritional bases (macro and micro) as well as providing adequate energy.

It's about quality, not quantity. I think folks forget that at times, or just twist it to feed their appetites.

I don't think I eat "so much" meat. I eat 1/2 lb of meat many days and closer to a pound some days. I eat generous amounts of fruit and raw/cooked vegetables although probably less tubers than some describe.

It's about finding what you need at a given time. If I feel more hunger for meat than usual, I probably didn't eat enough meat yesterday. If I'm not hungry for meat I don't eat any. I pretty much do the same with vegetables--some days I eat tons and the next I might eat only a few. For whatever reason, I'm always hungry for fruit although some days I want more than others.

From month to month or season to season my food mix can vary widely. My staple meat is definitely beef with only a little poultry and fish because I clearly thrive on beef more than the others.

I consider my approach a moderate one and I know many other PH regulars who are comfortable with their personal routines--which may be very like mine or very different.

If you think meat was hard to come by, just imagine trying to gather enough fruit and veg in a pre-agricultural world. We are social creatures, the hunt was a large part of that development, and it didn't even need to be successful every day. Unless you are really suggesting that everyone eats a whole cow every day. We ate our fill when we killed an animal, developed preservation methods, and filled in the gaps where necessary. But in general, people eating a lot of meat (with the fat) don't need to eat every day, much less several meals a day.

For me, proper meat is all good with no unpleasant side-effects. It's the first thing on the plate, and often the only thing. Oh, and good luck getting fats from non-animal sources.

I would suggest that you do some reading on the subject so you can get a better understanding of what the point of all this really is. Sounds like you're still hung up on certain myths of the SAD, and it's important to really dissect these things and begin to develop an understanding of where all of this originates.

The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf

The Paleo Diet and/or The Paleo Answer by Loren Cordain

The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson

Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes

Just some places to start, but if you're just hopping on the bandwagon because it sounds trendy and not because you actually agree with the science won't get you very far. Forget everything you think you know, and start again from scratch! Welcome to a better life! ;)

I see a few apologists here, and I just want to add that I unapologetically eat a ton of meat. I eat meat at almost every meal, and I try to rotate them for a variety. Bacon, sausage, eggs, beef, bison, pork, chicken, lamb. A bit of fish, but I need to eat more.

I do it because it works. Because I'm never hungry. Because I enjoy it. Because it tastes damn good.

I'm not one of those folks out for optimization. I don't care what studies say about cancers. Since we can't even come close to recreating the environment our ancestors had access to, I try to do the best I can intuitively with what we have available today.

Besides, HGs would have eaten meat at every meal if they could. When they had a large kill, it likely fed the group for a long time, and you bet your sweet bippy they ate it at every opportunity. They knew that animal foods meant survival, the best kind of survival. And because meat meant survival, I highly doubt our bodies have a shut-off valve for it. There's no such thing as "too much meat."

1) Because meat is much higher in saturated fat (good fat) than polyunsaturated fat (bad fat). (Although pork is an interesting oddball - very high in monounsaturated fat (another good fat).)

2) Your source of meat matters. Conventional CAFO grain fed beef is low in Omega 3, high in Omega 6. And this holds for caged chicken, caged pork, farmed fish. Grass fed beef is the reverse, high in Omega 3, low in Omega 6. This applies to other animals as well: pastured fowl, pastured pork (harder to find), wild game, and wild fish.

I don't by organic, grass fed meat, but I still feel so much better. Getting rid of the grains, sugar, and legumes is a huge plus for any diet. I eat a lot of meat because it doesn't make be bloated and tired. I eat salads most days and a lot of eggs with butter. So, I eat meat whenever I can because it tames my cravings. Yes, meat is the central focus.

Some of us eat "so much meat" because some of us find that it works well for us. Many of us have experimented with various paleo and non paleo diets before finding what works. If coconuts, yams and fish worked better for me, I would be eating more of those instead.

The important thing is to find what works for you rather than just do what works for some diet book author or some isolated people on a small island somewhere.

Because it tastes good, it's good for you, and I don't know of a good reason NOT to eat it.

as others have asked/commented..what is "so much" meat. I may eat 8 oz of a meat a day at most. I like meat. I always have even though I was a vegetarian during my hippie youth.

Personally I will eat meat red and white....long before I would choose anything that comes out of our horribly polluted and toxic dump grounds that once were our glorious oceans.

I have barely eaten any fish/ocean food most of my life..why? (I am now 60..so I have felt this way for at least 50 years..)although I did eat some for a number of years..because you really do not need to be a scientist of any kind to realize how bad it is.."in spite" of what governments/health authorities say. ( I do eat canned pacific wild caught salmon maybe 4-5 servings yr.)Why..only for some level of variety...not because I believe it is so healthy.

Not so long ago they said all fish was completely safe..then only a few years ago they were warning about mercury levels in tuna.

why don't they test and say more about our polluted waters..?? the same reason they do not negate the grains..it all has to do with corrupt government and agrifood giants. This is the absolute truth. If they start to say fish is toxic they will destroy the huge fisheries industry and the millions of people that are still fish eating cultures will have nothing to eat.

Agri giants food and drug cartels that they are...will lie, fight and cheat to maintain their status. But that status quo is being challenged. Thank goodness for the internet.

I will take beef/pork/lamb/ anyday over fish and seafood.

This issue is not yet talked about..but it is coming!!

Re the fats..if it has not been mentioned read Gary Taubes Good Calories-Bad Calories and as others have said there is much misinformation and mistruth and plain pure ignorance and band wagon thought on fat and types of fat.

Do you really think even our recent ancesters of several hundred to a 100 years ago threw away any animal part including fat?? Fat is a "treasured" source of energy. It is agri giants that have promoted grain based and made up "nutritious grain based diets even for our carnivore pets!!! They care not a whit about health.

Common sense!! How can butter possibly ever be better than margarine..yet that drivel was fed to a nation!!!.

link textCrisco replaces lard..and trans fat..(oh so healthy...(NOT)..are born.)

1]: http://garytaubes.com/2011/03/dose-of-intervention-land-of-dr-oz/

Very few people are doing all-meat diets - those that do have their reasons.

Don't confuse protein and fat. An ancestral diet is typically a high fat diet 40-60% and those fats can come from a many sources: coconut oil/cream/, butter/ghee/cream (for those tolerant to dairy), lard (pork), tallow (beef, or other red meat), fish skin, poultry skin, avocado, palm oil etc.

Most people try to eat a variety of fats for taste and because you obtain different nutrition from a variety of fats.

Protein can vary between 10-20% typically.

Animal fats contain preformed Vitamin A, D, and K2 and these vitamins are fat soluble - Mother Nature intended them to be consumed that way and that's how they are best absorbed. Chris Masterjohn and Weston Price have written well on those vitamins that work synergistically together.

Steamed veggies without any fat or salads with non-fat dressing - you're wasting your money because your body will absorb less than 20% of the vitamins.

Higher omega 6 is mainly found in poultry and pork, so most eating an ancestral way support getting the majority of the fats from 100% pastured ruminants (ie beef, lamb, goat, bison, etc.) and wild fish (salmon, sardines, etc.).

As far as the Kitavans, while they are far better then SAD, and we can learn a lot from them- they are not optimal! Even Dr. Lindeberg suggests the high rate of ovarian cancer among the Kitava is connected with high intake of wild yam which has diosgenin (endocrine disruptor with contraceptive properties).

I was wondering this myself. When you read some of the answers, it looks almost as if most people here are Inuits :)

I personally do not eat too much meat. I eat it when I feel like it, which varies. First of all, I am not a man, and men need more protein then women.

Secondly, I eat fish twice a week. I like fish and I think it is healthy.

I also believe in power of veggies. Some people here have a bad perception of Terry Wahls but I love her suggestions. I do eat 9 cups of veggies every single day, and I will continue to do so.

I try to eat some protein with every meal or at least twice per day.

If I feel hungry, I add more protein to my diet.

So, as somebody pointed out to you, Paleo is different for everyone. To me, if a person is eating meat instead of eating chocolate cake, it is already a step in the right direction.

If you're eating grassfed meat, the ratios will be balanced anyway.

If you're eating conventional beef then 0.5kg per day will give you around 2g o6- not very much and easily balanced out with the odd bit of oily fish.

In my experience, though people talk about meat a lot, when you look more closely, you'll see they're eating a wide variety of foods within the Paleo framework. As has been mentioned already, the source of the protein makes a big difference when you're looking at fat composition. So we always aim for grass-fed, pastured meats when appropriate.

For many, though, just making the shift from grains, legumes, and heavily processed food, is a big, big deal. Sometimes a focus on the familiar is not just important, it's necessary.

Good questions really :) I agree that hunting failure would be a regular event, and we probably scavenged or "gathered" small mammals, game birds, insects etc.

But moving away from our globalised modern society - a cave dweller in Russia wouldn't be anywhere near the seaside to get fish, but may well find a herd of moose...

For our convenience, meat is a highly concentrated source of nutrients, but I would balance that with eating skin, gelatin, bone broth etc - not JUST muscle meat.

This is a great question and this article will give you some reinforcement. It suggests that most of our paleolithic ancestors relied heavily on a plant based diet, and were more opportunistic hunters. Not only that, but that the meat they did consume was substantially leaner than today's meat.

http://www.ajcn.org/content/71/3/665.full

IT is helpful for me to think of humans mo re as sophisticated apes, or vegetarians who meat, rather than carnivores who eat vegetables.

that being said, I train a lot with heavy weights and am active, so I choose to include a lean protein with all of my meals.

I can tell you why I do...I'm not trying to eat like a caveman, I'm trying to eat what my body responds to. I'm very active and do a lot of weight training, so I need protein to help rebuild and repair muscle. I also need protein included every time I eat because I have had some insulin/blood sugar issues and the protein helps control that problem (in addition to lower carb, fat with each meal). I used to use sources of protein like whey, beans and dairy, so I needed to replace those. Replacing those with animal protein has proved to be beneficial for my body - I'm no longer near anemic (I used to only eat poultry and some fish as my animal protein sources). However, I do not binge on meat as some people following a caveman prescription do. The majority of my plate is always veggies...usually leafy greens. I do think some people take the caveman / Paleo template as an excuse to go overboard on eating meat.