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Originally Posted by Ricky Controversy
Er, well, yes and no.
Fat in and of itself is necessary, yes. Carbohydrates have a higher caloric density per gram than fat, yes. Lean cuts of meat are good to an extent, yes.
Conversely, the body doesn't treat all fat equally. The average American gets exposed to difficult-to-process Trans Fats as well as much higher concentrations of Saturated Fat than the body has a use for.
As far as lean cuts of meat go, those aren't really what gets used most. Why? Because fat provides some of the more robust flavoring for meat. Additionally, meat is good for the body assuming that it is taken in with the proper proportion of soluble fibers to aid in the digestive process. Even those Americans who don't eat too much fatty meat are still suffering because they don't get sufficient fiber.
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It isn't about caloric density. Most of the American population have ancestors that never quite adapted to carbohydrate consumption. A large percentage of the Western European population is unadapted to regular consumption of grains (and sugars, etc). As a result we see both types of diabetes due to unhealthy levels of insulin sensitivity. Nutritionally, the biggest problem for Americans is hormone levels. Too much estrogen from food sources as well as xenoestrogens in the environment, too much cortisol from stress and overworking oneself, too much insulin from carbohydrate consumption, and unhealthy androgen levels that get converted into estrogen.
Meat - even with the fat - is a staple of human evolution. It can be substituted healthily by conscientious vegetarians/vegans but for the average Joe meat, with its massive amount of minerals, vitamins, protein, and fats is the mainframe of the human diet. I advise people to eat "paleolithically" - eat like a caveman, because that is how our bodies are programmed.