Gourmet. Because life is for joy, not Puritan suffering for unproven theories. Sorry, Stephen.

People are confusing high food reward with good. Oreos are high food reward. Oreos are not good food from an aesthetic standpoint. I won't be writing missives about the complex flavors of Oreos, but if you give me them to eat, I'll just keep eating them because they hit all the right spots in my brain.

To contrast, here is a dish to write home about. Roe with coconut and small berries and greens, with a dusting of savory fishy dashi. That dish was tiny, but more satisfying on all the aesthetic levels than an oreo will ever be. It didn't make me ravenous. I was happy there were other courses after it, but I didn't feel the need to go into the kitchen and ask for more. There is a reason they call eating junk "mindless eating."

The idea of analyzing your routine and calculating the calories you need and putting that amount down the hatch like so much gas in a car every day, whether you feel like it or not, seems light years away from the whole idea of paleo to me. I don't vote for either. I vote for simplicity and eating what's around and in season and listening to your body's signals, not calculating calories.

Gourmet. One of the reasons I adore Paleo eating is that I can prepare amazing, flavorful dishes way beyond anything other "diets" and "lifestyles" have to offer. Between confit, pate, and marrow, there just isn't any competition. I am a huge foodie, and joy in great food and shared meals with loved ones are some of the best things in life to me!

Qualifications: I am lacto-paleo, so there's grassfed butter, heavy cream, and aged cheeses in my life. I could live without them, but since my cholesterol is good, I'm not overweight, and I feel great, why bother? Paleo Chef would have a field day.

Edited to add: bland food diets just smack of early twentieth century Kellogg and Graham nonsense, designed to prevent "appetites" of the non-food variety.

I would choose paleo gourmet because there's the option to reduce the flavor intensity (eg use less sauce, take off the herbed skin on chicken, etc) if desired. I also think herbs/salt, which are generally not part of a low reward diet, are pretty essential (for me); They seem to aid digestion and positively affect my mood.

Definitely paleo gourmet. If the calories are all calculated out and set at your specific level, why bother with food reward?

Gourmet - why waste the skills of your Paleo chef?

Plus, I'm pretty sure I could eat expensive dry-aged steaks with veggies fried in duck fat and finished with truffles every day.

In his latest post, Guyenet mentions the dreaded scientific consensus. Perhaps it is just me, but this suggests ivory tower syndrome, considering the tragedy of climatology. Perhaps I should put another T in there and call it ITTS, which would be Ivory Tower Tribal Syndrome, given that the conversation seems to be largely about circling the wagons and defending each other's work rather than pushing the knowledge envelope forward. Be as paleo gourmet as you want, and don't let the 'scientists' forget that they need to put on their big boy pants and do the real studies (that is a paraphrase of what I remember Robb Wolf saying on his last podcast with regard to that Harvard anti-meat study. Is Guyenet going to hop on board with that consensus?)

I don't understand what is meant by "food reward" and "paleo gourmet" here--particularly the latter. Can you be more specific?

I don't understand what you mean. If one of the two contains grains for example, it's a "no-go" for me regardless how yummy it might be. Can't process them properly, so it's not a matter of reward or gourmet, it's a matter of practicality. So the question for me would have to be between two Paleo recipes, not one Paleo and one not.

Gourmet. If cooked according to the tenets of how I eat, it should be low reward but very tasty. Also, I'm athletic, so I don't need to lose a ton of fat or deal with binge eating issues (anymore).

Gourmet!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think the food reward hypothesis is mostly a joke. (And yes, I do understand it.)

Which level of food reward? Stephan's recommended levels 1 and 2 are compatible with the gourmet approach. Level 3, "don't add fat", hurts - a lot! Levels 4 and 5 have pretty clearly progressed from "don't eat crappy food" to "I think I'm eating crap." As Mazer said, if the calories are controlled why bother. For me, gourmet all the way!

August mentioned the consensus on food reward. Everyone agrees, eat food that tastes really good and you overeat and gain weight. I wonder how much was spent to come to that conclusion? Isn't that what every "diet" is, quit eating what you like the most? Studies show most people go back to eating what they ate before. They are not compliant with dietary change. Why? Because they want more of what they like the most, just like Stephan's rats! Ultimately, people have to choose, medicine in a pill bottle or medicine on their plate. It's medicine - it doesn't have to taste good, but it's nice that it can.