Diminishing Marginal Paleo?

When I started out on paleo, I used to buy a container of almond butter every couple of days. Some of you might be thinking that it's a lot of omega-6, others might be thinking...what's the big deal? I think at the beginning of your paleo diet you shouldn't worry about omega-6 from whole foods like nuts. You will probably see great improvements, as I did, even on a diet dominated by nuts. I don't want to turn people off from paleo by making these foods seem problematic, but as time passes there might be issues you are still having and it make be worth going closer and closer to the diet of the Stone Age.

I think it's worth mentioning the economic concept of diminishing marginal returns here. The idea is that inputs initially contribute a great deal to production, but eventually the return per individual added unit decreases. It can be a useful analogy in dietary philosophy as well. I'm betting that the very basic first steps towards an evolutionarily appropriate diet are going to be the most significant for us- the removal of soda, candy bars, whole wheat bread, pasta, and other food that's mostly just bad. Beyond that we might get diminishing returns. I personally have cleared up a few minor problems by reducing my intake of omega-6 fatty acids from even whole foods, but they certainly aren't as significant as the ones I got from not eating vegetable shortening and high fructose corn syrup. We all have to look at how close we can get to our ancestor's food and how much is worth it, which can be very individual and can seem nitpicky and obsessive.

But people in the Stone Age didn't have to worry about these things because they simply weren't exposed to them. Nuts were a seasonal food, olive oil didn't exist, and humans simply didn't encounter avocados until we migrated to South America. Even if they are pastured, domestic hogs and poultry require significant amounts of legume and grain rations, so they are going to have very different fatty acid profiles anything our ancestors encountered. One of my friends who processes poultry told me the sad story of a farmer who tried to do pastured chicken without grain/legume rations and they were miserably sickly and thin. Domestic poultry isn't built for surviving on that diet.

I'm not saying that these foods are bad, but if you are on a paleo diet and you are still having some nagging problems, it might be worth limiting them.

This is the diet I've moved to personally. Nuts are there, but I'm no longer eating bags of them. I'm also through with my "lets eat every type of salted/cured pork for every meal" stage. A "basic" paleo diet took care of most of my problems, like GERD, but I still had some lingering IBS issues. Minimizing these foods that are on the borderline made a big difference, but it required trial and error. I've met people who can eat as much bacon as they want, but no tomatoes. When I eliminated nightshades...nothing happened that I could discern and I missed the taste. It just wasn't worth it.

I do think that just because we know saturated fat isn't the worst thing in the entire world means that we should eat as much as we want.

This interview with Cordain points out that while the Inuit were healthier than many modern Americans on an almost all-meat diet, there is evidence they had arterial plaque and lower bone density. I also think Kurt Harris has been a great voice of reason from the other side and his recommendation of mostly animals that eat grass has worked well for me. Probably because I am already thin, I have had good results with a "medium" saturated fat, low omega-6, and medium-carb diet. I don't need to count any calories or do any micromanaging if I eat mostly seafood, coconut, vegetables and things that ate grass...and treat the rest as dessert and flavoring.

What has been your experience? 

Edit: Just want to clarify that I don't think saturated fat is bad. I certainly get more than any mainstream recommendation and get much of my calories from it, but I think there is an upper limit to how much is optimal.