Honestly, it really isn't worth responding point by point. I try not to force my views on people who wouldn't believe me if I told them the sky was blue. It works for me and people who ask me for help.

Don't bother commenting or trying to sway anyone. If everyone ate paleo, or even a large percentage, imagine the price increases we would experience on all our favorite products! The scandinavian butter shortage on a large scale?? No thanks!

I view the paleo diet as more of an ideal, rather than a strict re-creation of something. Obviously, most of the food we eat today looks very little to nothing at all like what our ancestors ate, even if we are eating a "strict" paleo diet. Most types of fruits and veggies we eat probably didn't exist then. Do you think they broccolini? I doubt it. I view the paleo diet as more about principles. It's about eating clean food, not industrial food like vegetable oils and wheat. Our ancestors lived short lives probably because of harsh living conditions, not nutrition. Plus, there just wasn't medical care if a serious injury or accident happened, so a lot of people died that way too. Critics of the paleo diet who throw out the lifespan fact don't bother to look at those factors.

Take the penguins' advice, Suz: "Just smile and wave, boys, smile and wave." The CWer's metformin habit will soon speak for itself.

Interestingly, most those articles goes on and on about what paleolithic people eat, how their life expectancy is, but in the end they usually comes down to a few points. "whole grains are okay", or "dairy is okay", "saturated fat is bad", or "meat is bad."

We have scientific evidence that these points are not true: about why wheat is bad for us; about why it's common practice for athletes to eat starch around workout time instead of around meal time; about the problem with dairy; and about the lipid hypothesis.

I usually share some of these thoughts, because this is why we believe in paleo, and eat either paleo or near paleo.

It's interesting -- and actually disturbing that they bash the paleo diet so much in the title or abstract, calling it a fad, while acknowledging so many points of the diet.

As for myself, I do not respond to those articles or people who criticize me for following Paleo. I emphasize the good stuff, and show them sites like Paleohacks. Haters are going to hate.

Having said that, people do have a right to their own opinion, even if that opinion is slightly bizarre to me. As long as they don't force me to conform with their lifestyle or choices I am fine with that.

When I discuss Paleo I do not focus on the "grain and dairy is bad for you"-theme. I tend to focus more on the "chemical additives don't belong in the foodsupply"-theme. Most people agree with that, and most people find it easier to adopt. If you then show them a random item of packaged food and discuss the ingredients, most people I know will start to wonder, and more easily accept my ideas.

No one really "eats Paleo" because Paleo was in the past.

What we do is use that information to make the best choices.

Nature studied and experimented with human nutrition for over 2M years. All of a sudden some nobody researcher with a grant from agribusiness is going to figure out something better!?

Despite his self-proclaimed "research-based guy" status, I might argue that the due diligence is lacking. He is under the impression that Loren Cordain is female, which is an indication he hasn't read/listened much. (at all). See the excerpt below.

It wasn’t until 2005 where Loren Cordain released her book ‘The Paleo Diet for Athletes: A Nutritional Formula for Peak Athletic Performance’ that it really came into the spotlight.

I need to do better with avoiding reading articles I know will annoy me, but yes I do comment on them sometimes (couldn't help but throw my .02 on the linked article). Also, I found his grammar to be subpar for a "Best-Selling Fitness Author." :/

What constitutes a fad depends on the era you live in.

For the several thousand years prior to 1950, the idea eating a low-fat diet was unheard of. Everyone ate fat, including animal fat, as a large part of their diet.

Processed foods are a recent invention. If you walked through a 1900 grocery, you'd find fresh meat, vegetables, and fruit, and bread (baked that morning), and most of it would go bad if not sold and eaten in a few days. Walk through a modern grocery, and you'll find the majority of the shelves stocked with processed items that were made months ago, and most of the items have expiration dates years in the future.

For most of history sugar was hard to come by. In fact, the most common sweetener for thousands of years was plain old fashioned honey. Until the industrial revolution, processed sugar was rare, expensive, and in limited used. There's a reason deserts and candy were called "treats"--they were the exception, not the rule. Today, sugar is so cheap and common that even vitamins contain sugar. Modern, processed foods contain a level of sugar undreamed of for most of history. Almost 20% of the calories of the average American comes from one item: high fructose corn syrup--20%. That much sugar consumption is (by history's standards) a fad.

Which is closer to the way people have eaten throughout most of human history? Eating fresh meat, vegetables, and fruits; or eating a low fat diet of processed foods that are high in sugar?

Eating a low fat diet of processed foods that are high in sugar is the fad, because it's so recent--less than 60 years old.

Eating natural, whole foods is not a fad. It's getting back to the way people ate for thousands of years, before the recent processed food--we know better than thousands of years of history--fad.

Ignore it and move on. Do what works for you. Chill out with a steak and let the grainys/veggies/vegans get angry. We can control our temper with more tryptophan and serotonin in our full-fat meaty favor!

When is a "fad diet" not a "fad diet"? For diets, IMHO, when it's sustainable on its own. The issue with calorie restricted diets is that they're not sustainable long term. You just can't live with 500 calories/day and the limited menu from that. Compare that to all the meat/veggies/fats on a regular Paleo variant. Sure there's no grains, but that's a restriction on type, not amount.

The first three points aren't too bad. Seven is a stretch and eight is completely stupid. So I am going to go back and downvote Ashley's comment.