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Eating from nose to tail means getting lots more fat than you would if you only ate the muscle, because bones and organs have a lot of fat. Or so I read in many paleo articles/threads. Bone marrow is essentially all fat. But organs?

  • A serving of the heaviest organ, the liver, has 20 grams of protein and only 4 grams of fat
  • The heart has the same ratio, 5:1 protein to fat
  • Even the fatty fat fat brain has an equal amount of protein as fat
  • Except for the brain, organ fat is pretty much all omega 6 fat.
  • The total mass of bodily organs is much less than 10% of total body weight, so the animal is providing us with lots of muscle, and much less organ and marrow.

Am I missing something? The fat content of organs looks to be almost exactly the same as meat we usually eat, or less if your meat is grain-fed. As a disclaimer, I know nothing about offal, so there may be a big hole in this reasoning.

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"Even the fatty fat fat brain has an equal amount of protein as fat." Grams or calories? – Paul Oct 26 2010 at 20:55
Grams...an average portion of brain has 10 grams of each. – Kamal♦ Oct 26 2010 at 20:56
Strange, I haven't seen anyone claim organs are particularly fatty other than one time in the lean meat thread yesterday – kilton Oct 27 2010 at 11:30
Organs are often covered in fat, which is usually not part of the nutritional data in databases and has often been cleaned off the organs when you buy them in the store. – Jon Thoroddsen Oct 27 2010 at 15:20
How much visceral fat do animals have, in comparison to subcutaneous fat? – Kamal♦ Oct 27 2010 at 15:40
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3 Answers

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The things that come to mind that were eaten by our paleo friends that are high in fat are brains and sweet breads.

Cow brains are like 48 grams of fat per pound, I am going to guess that this is similar for many other animals.

Sweetbreads are 28 grams of fat for 4 oz. They are something like 70% fat.

Even a 1:1 ratio of fat to protein is still a pretty fatty slice of meat.

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Ah, forgot about sweetbreads. The thymus and pancreas are pretty small though. – Kamal♦ Oct 26 2010 at 21:37
A whole cow brain only weighs about a pound though. 48 grams of fat isn't a lot to share out. Most prey animals have small brains. – Matt Oct 26 2010 at 22:25
i think cavemen must have set up some sort of game CAFO to harvest thymus glands like we do chicken nuggets. – MikeD Oct 27 2010 at 12:16
i guess the question i am wondering about is if game meats don't provide much fats, how much fat is necessary in a diet, what was the paleo paradigm, where did they get their calories, did paleo ancestors constantly have the runs if it was all protein? – MikeD Oct 27 2010 at 12:22
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From what I've seen, most organs are generally understood to be high protein, not high fat, and are more often touted for providing nutrients that may be lacking in muscle meat. Vitamin A in liver, for example. The degree to which the organs are cooked influences the vitamin content, of course.

Here's a good breakdown of the nutrients in calf's liver: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=129

(The link does happen to say that it's high in saturated fat as well as protein - but that's from a Whole Foods fat-phobic standpoint.)

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I always thought it was not just about fat, but rather the variety in nutrition that they provide, each having a bit different specifics in vitamins and microelements.

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see my answer above :) – patrick3000 Oct 28 2010 at 2:29
I'm sorry, but you're both indisputably wrong. Or rather, I'm actually a bit wrong. Organs are usually mentioned for nutrients, but they also are mentioned in this argument against Cordain: "Eating animals didn't entail eating "lean" meat, because of the addition of marrow and organs". I'm the only person who's seen that around? – Kamal♦ Oct 28 2010 at 4:00

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