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I've seen a lot of questions about which fats are best...

...but other than making pemmican and using fat to fry and cook, I have no idea how I'm supposed to eat fat! How would the paleolithic man have eaten fat? How should a 21st century "hugan" eat fat?

Clarification: I am already eating the fat that occurs naturally in the meat as well as skins and livers.

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In Newfoundland (a province in Canada), they add "scrunchions" (small cubes of fat back pork fried to golden brown) to their traditional meal called Fish 'n Brewis: tidespoint.com/food/fishnbrewis.shtml Along with Jon's blubber suggestions, these are kind of the ideas for which I am looking. How to eat fat...? The "Newfies" fry it! – gilliebean Feb 23 2010 at 22:28
What's a "hugan"? – David Csonka Mar 3 2010 at 14:23
"Hugan" is my venture into naming the people who "eat paleo." I took hu from hunter and ga from gatherer and n from vegan. ;) – gilliebean Mar 12 2010 at 6:33

13 Answers

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I have no idea how paleolithic man ate his fat, but this how I eat fat.

  • Fry with fat
  • Add butter (or rendered fat) to everything
  • Make butter (or rendered fat) sauces. Hollandaise, burnt lemon butter, Bernaise.
  • Buy fatty steaks, fry or oven cook, eat them with the fat on.
  • Make soup from really fatty pieces.
  • When making stew out of hearts, I've cut the fat off, fried it and added it to the stew as garnish. Mainly because other family members would rather not have it in their stew, as lamb fat has strong taste.
  • Make sausages!
  • Eat whey-cured whale blubber, seal blubber or intestinal fat of lamb as a snack. (Probably only possible in Iceland though)

Also, check out the recipes at freetheanimal.com

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Hell yeah, would love to have some whale or seal blubber! sounds gnarly man! – Jaap Feb 23 2010 at 22:12
This is what I'm looking for! Eat whey-cured whale blubber? Snack on the intestinal fat of a lamb? I've never heard of this! Awesome! – gilliebean Feb 23 2010 at 22:16
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Confit! I'm using up some of my lard stockpile right now on chicken lard confit. You can confit many meats, but pork belly and duck are the most popular. You can also use any good fat. Olive oil actually works, but as a paleo you should be using LARD, chicken fat, or duck fat. I've heard tallow works, but I have not tried it myself. Here is a resource for non-traditional confits.

Also, if you have some tough and gristly pieces of fat, save them and slow cook them to render the delicious fat out. Some scraps from my rib eye in the crock pot on low = delicious tallow in the morning!

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Yay! Great suggestion! Thank Melissa! – gilliebean Mar 2 2010 at 3:02
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I just did a chicken lard confit and it was AMAZING! huntgatherlove.com/content/… – Bread-Eating Beelzebub Mar 2 2010 at 18:24
Yum. A new use for all the lard that comes out of my Mexican chickens. They have been especially full of fat this year. – henny Mar 7 2010 at 22:12
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For eating lean muscle flesh, sauces are a necessity. Learn how to make a basic emulsion sauce using rendered animal fats. Then you can change it up with whatever seasonings and flavors you want.

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Have you tried roasting your (very fatty joint of meat) with some suitable veg in the bottom? That way it can roast in and soak up all the fat coming off the meat. Makes for a very easy one-tin cooking process too.

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Someone should definintely mention marrow. For quite a bit of the year game meat is lean, but marrow is always good to go. Butchers practically give marrow bones away to good customers. Say you want them for your dog.

Ways with marrow:

-melt it into sauces -roast it -boil it -stir into scrambled eggs until its melted -Use it as you would cream in savoury dishes -Melt and create a hollandaise-like sauce to go over vegetables. -Roast the bones for making brown stock, but then roast your mirepoix in the marrow.

be inventive. For Marrow is possibly the most delicious thing in the world, closely followed by roasted fat, then meat.

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Thanks Tom! Great answer! – gilliebean Apr 21 2010 at 20:57
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Melt lard into mashed tubers. Have a look at this: How to Eat Lard

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Very helpful, Toban! Thanks! – gilliebean Apr 20 2010 at 22:05
Despite making this a staple, are you in good health? – DudleyP Mar 12 2011 at 15:53
Of course! It's paleo! – Toban Apr 21 2011 at 14:38
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As many have said, I choose the fattiest cuts of meat and cook everything in bacon grease, lard,or coconut / olive oil. I fry almost everything (nom!) or roast it, basting often with pure fats.

I also slather nearly everything in butter, lol, and cook with plenty of heavy cream. :)

When I can get pork fat from my butcher (rare, since he grinds it up for his sausages) I will eat the plain fat, fried. I confess that if I eat 8-10 oz at a time it will tend to mess with my guts but that hasn't stopped me yet. Fried pork fat is my idea of the ideal food.

Great. now I'm hungry! droooool

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In general, don't be afraid of eating the fat that occurs naturally in the meat. You don't need to eat gristle, obviously, but you also don't need to trim every shred of fat away. It's nutritious and delicious!

Also... bacon (preferably nitrite-free, organically raised), marbled cuts of grass-fed beef, fattier/dark meat for poultry (e.g. thighs instead of breasts stripped of all fat, preferably free-range/pastured), if cooking a whole chicken you should eat the skin, organ meats (esp. liver), etc.

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All of this I do! Thanks for confirming it as a good practice! :) – gilliebean Feb 23 2010 at 22:10
Thanks again Glenn! I've updated my question to clarify my intent. – gilliebean Feb 23 2010 at 22:14
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One luscious bite at a time.

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I use plenty of cream and butter, both for cooking, and cream (or homemade half-and-half) for snacks. That gets me up to 70% to 75% fat intake pretty easily.

You can also use a little olive oil (MUFA) or coconut oil in your cooking or on salads (not animal fats, but still healthy).

When choosing meat, don't pick the ultra-lean cuts; go for the less-expensive, but more fatty cuts.

You might try using a site like fitday.com (once in a while) to see where your fat percentages end up, based on a typical day's diet.

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When I make my scrambled eggs every morning, I start by cooking 2 or 3 TBs of frozen suet from the bag in the freezer, then add the eggs after it's rendered a fair amount of liquid fat, and the fat chunks are translucent. (The smoke detector goes off if I try to crisp the fat first. :-/ )

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Have some fun with bacon fat :) Use it to wilt greens, use it as the oil in your salad dressing, make mayo with it! Fry mashed cauliflower in it... nummmmm.

Fried, crunchy cracklins (left over after you render lard) make amazing paleo 'croutons' for salads.

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coconut milk, make shakes with it or drink it straight, one can is about 60 grams of fat depending on brand, check out several brands and fat amounts to find what works best for your needs

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