Well the argument can be made that paleo men didn't eat perfect macronutrient ratios every meal. So it would be interesting to see the results when someone tries to mimic paleo eating behavior by eating lots of meat a couple of days, then mainly vegetables, one day mostly fish, net day some roots and tubers, and throw in some IF in between. This might be worth tinkering with. I don't think there's been scientific studies about this subject but there might be some anecdotal evidence floating around.

Not many Paleo peps advocate this sort of approach (correct me if I'm wrong), but it actually makes intuitive sense that Paleo men just ate 1 macronutrient each meal (say meat, or tubers, or veggies) instead of mixing them so carefully as we do.

First, I don't think De Vany intends the power law idea to apply in all instances - e.g., you should avoid the stochastic consumption of paint chips and battery acid. Since we belive that we are not well-evolved to consume most processed carbs, then according to similar logic, they are to be generally avoided. So explicit harm trumps the possible benefits of random variation.

Second, part of what De Vany likes about the power law is that it helps us better mimic the consumption patterns of our ancestors. This advantage is lost if we include foods that they did not eat.

(For what its worth, I read a friend's copy of the book over vacation.)

Pieter D,

An example of what you're talking about is carb cycling, which is a common technique used by bodybuilders as well as overweight folks to cut bodyfat by alternating lower and higher carbohydrate intake. I've never tried carb cycling myself (at least not intentionally), so I don't know if there's any advantage in doing it randomly vs. on a schedule.

Carb cycling has been used or discussed by some of the bloggers that are popular here. Robb Wolf successfully used carb cycling in 2009 to lean out after a bulking cycle. Martin Berkhan said in 2009 that "the Leangains approach is more or less carb cycling in a condensed time window."

Of course, fasting is the ultimate manipulation of macronutrients. The benefits of IF-ing have been discussed extensively on previous threads. Again, I don't know whether spontaneous, random fasts confer much (or any) benefit vs. scheduled fasts.