Most coconut oil harvesting does not pose a threat to rainforest environments. Coconut trees are very efficient absorbers of carbon. It’s the palm harvesting that I have read, poses a bigger threat. You have to do the research to find out which companies are sustainable in their practices. I know for a fact that Beyond Organics uses sustainable practices, and they sell palm oils.

If you don’t wish to use coconut or palm oils, you can use lard and tallow from pasture-raised animals – a very sustainable product and food, as well as being extremely nutritious.

I think what we should be going for here is quality over quantity in fat. I think if you eat healthy food and you eat until you are full, your body will know how much fat, protein, carbohydrates, and calories you need. So that’s why dieting, done by so many people, is a bogus activity. It doesn’t take into account the amounts of fat or protein people need to be healthy and have ample amounts of energy.

The comparison of fat, calories, and protein ratios between CAFOs and grass-feds is important. The fat to protein ratios are naturally balanced in the grass-fed, whereas the CAFOs meats are off-balance. I mentioned that the fat contents were lower in grass-fed meats not to try to convince people that low-fat diets are better, but just to show a side-by-side comparison between the two meat samples, and that the way the grass-fed meats come out is naturally balanced, and it just so happens to be lower in fat. It is not substantially lower, but all the same, it is lower. It is also the correct ratio for health and well-being. So please don’t misunderstand what was stated in the post.

I totally agree with you, people don’t eat enough fat – definitely not enough good fats for certain – and fats are villanized to death by the health industry and media. People rarely talk about the damage done to our health by eating all the factory-farmed meat that is what’s most prevalent in our food supply, only the fact that the meat is killing us. Totally off-base and not addressing the facts, which is that what’s killing us is the food in our industrial food system.

The problem with fat content in red meat is that in contrast to our past experience as foragers (hunter-gatherers, gatherer-hunters or whatever you want to call it), we eat grazing animals at a much younger age (for the animal, that is) than we used to do. Younger animals equals leaner animals. Hunters in olden times would go for the older animals, not because they were slow and sickly but because they had nice fat stores built up. Fat is a buffer against excess protein consumption, which causes a buildup of ammonia in the system and can lead to rabbit starvation when the person experiences major stress. It’s also important in several bodily processes and in the assimilation of minerals and fat-soluble vitamins.

I think that’s why corn-fed beef appeals to people. As bad as it is for the cow, it takes an animal that in the wild wouldn’t have been hunted, it’s too young and too lean, and puts on the fat that the animal wouldn’t have had for another few years at least. Makes it more like something we would have sought out in our forager past.

If the grass-finished beef people insist on making low-fat content one of their selling points they’re not going to last for long, unless folks figure out they can make up the lack of dietary fat through full-fat dairy, or insist on continuing to follow a high-carb diet–and let’s hope they figure out how to do it in a healthier way than how people are doing it at present.

Even then, you’re not going to see optimum health outcomes. When Weston Price surveyed what he termed “primitive” populations around the world, although he found they had far fewer cavities and health problems than their industrialized counterparts of the same ethnic background, the ones eating the highest proportion of carbs in their traditional diet also had the highest number of dental caries. That was also a population consuming high amounts of full-fat dairy, for what it’s worth.

So… There’s a difference between finding the secrets to good health, and being on the right track, I guess.

That problem is that for a long time Conventional Wisdom has been telling us that meat is bad for you in large amounts. So who’s more likely to eat it? Especially red meat? People who are already engaged in other risky behaviors, is my hypothesis. I bet that if you found some way to honestly assess what people eat, and then cross-referenced with what bad habits people follow, you are going to find that red-meat eaters are more likely to smoke, drink, and eat lots of refined carbohydrates. Everybody screams about the fat in a Big Mac; nobody notices the bun on the sandwich, the fries on the side (other than to complain about their fat content), or the full-sugar soda bought as the accompanying drink.

It isn’t just fast food. Look at the Standard American home-cooked meal, a barbecue for instance, and you’ll find many, many more examples.

I don’t doubt sustainable red meat is better for me than CAFO red meat, but fat content has nothing to do with it, and red meat in itself isn’t a problem. I would guess the fatty acid profile in CAFO meat IS a problem, although there are ways to balance that out for someone who really can’t afford to buy grass-finished. And I guarantee you a lot of us *can’t* afford it, but thanks for looking over the budgets of everybody in the United States so you could tell us one way or the other.

Yeah, that was sarcastic. I’m kind of annoyed, though, at the way the healthy-food movement makes people neurotic but doesn’t seem to offer much in solutions other than “we need more people like Jamie Oliver” or “we need more legislation.” If it’s that big a problem–and I agree it is–and you’ve got the resources, take up small-scale animal husbandry. I know a guy who lives here locally who solved the problem of low availability of sustainable chicken and eggs for himself by becoming a chicken farmer. His eggs are pretty good, too, and he treats his animals well.