I don't really see the contradiction. Most people are calling it Paleo when they don't eat grains. But Weston Price found huge discrepencies in the diets of traditional cultures around the world. The Massai don't (didn't?) eat grain, for instance.

I think the take home message is, if you're going to eat grains, prepare them how traditional cultures prepared them. If you choose not to eat grains, it doesn't mean that it's somehow not WAPF.

I guess I've never been big on labels.

I started WAPF 5 years ago and just moved to Paleo a month ago. Melissa... the first time I even heard about paleo was from you at the WAPF conference in November! We met at the Real Food Media booth. When I met you (and then John Durant the next day) I "knew" paleo was right for me, but not pleased about the 'no grains' thing. :) Took me a few months to come to terms with that and prepare myself to make the switch.

For me, if I'd heard about Paleo 5 years ago my head would have spun off. WAPF is a much easier transition from SAD. And that transition was NOT easy at all, especially with a family to drag along behind me.

I like WAPF because of their focus on lacto-fermented veggies and fruits, which was just amazing to me. I have incorporated homemade beet kvass, sauerkraut, kimchi and ginger carrots into my daily paleo meals, which has really helped my digestion! Without Nourishing Traditions, I wouldn't be eating fermented veggies with my meat, which I think is part of why Paleo is successful for me now. Thank-you Sally Fallon Morell!

We found WAPF/NT first, but have transitioned to more of an archevore diet. There's a lot of crossover, so we still use many recipes from the NT book; we just stay out of the breads/desserts sections. As others have pointed out, their emphasis on fermented foods and organ meats is great. (Their anti-pork stance is less great.)

I suspect that if you were raised from birth on a WAPF/NT diet, even including soaked grains -- and you lived a traditional lifestyle otherwise, rising and sleeping with the sun, getting plenty of sunshine and fresh air, living without modernity's stresses, etc. -- you'd probably be fine. If I had kids, I'd probably allow them more of a WAPF/NT diet, as long as they seemed very healthy.

But very few people are in that situation; most of us are trying to fix decades of metabolic damage from neolithic foods and stresses (and we don't even know if complete repair is possible), and we don't have the option to leave our cubicles and cell phones and other stressors behind to go devote our days to hunting and gathering and sitting in the sun. So we can't necessarily get away with soaking grains to get rid of some of the harmful contents; we need to avoid all of them.

I discovered WAPF just days or weeks before I discovered primal/paleo. I read "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" in the evenings while I was perusing the "Definitive Guides" on Mark Sisson's website in the mornings.

I basically view them as both better than SAD. I think grains/dairy can be okay for some people IF they are prepared properly (according to WAPF) and IF they are real ancient grains or real raw and/or fermented/cultured dairy from heritage cows. Jury's still out for me on legumes.

I do better on low-carb, low-protein, high fat paleo. But when I do consume grains and dairy, I try to ensure that they are properly prepared from good sources.

I started in WAPF and moved to Archevore.

I found I did better without grains/legumes even prepared.

Through extensive self experimentation I found I responded well to raw grassfed dairy and PW Tubers.

I respect the heck out of WAPF and consider it an awesome starting point for soft transition off of SAD.

I used Nourishing Traditions to transition my mom off SAD. She's also an "Archevore" Paleo2.0 eater now too, a fact I'm overjoyed with

I started out WAPF and discovered paleo through a WAPF nutrition blog. The author was questioning/giving up grains and did a post about why. I had never, ever read anything like it and I gave up grains that day. She had a link to Kurt Harris' blog and I went from there. Unfortunately I went too far (for me) and ended up eating VLC with bad results.

I feel more like a WAPF eater because they emphasize food quality first, pastured meats etc. and the importance of organs/whole animal and fermented foods. These things are not universally found in paleo dieting. I also like that they are out there as advocates for sustainable farming. Also, I am beginning to feel like it may be more useful to study the traditional societies of more recent times than speculate about paleo man.

I disagree with the questions premise.....the differences are minute on an isometabolic level......on an esoteric level there is a difference. For health and longevity both have the goods.....so is it really a question or just a feeling.......? Both avoid the big three so either will get you to the promised land of a doctor free life

I started out WAPF-like (biggest difference being I didn't really drink milk nor did I ferment my grains), then abandoned grains to become paleo + dairy / primal (still don't drink milk, but do consume dairy products - butter/cream/kefir/some cheese)..

there's definitely a lot of overlap between the two.. especially in terms of meat and fats (at least with the high-fat version of paleo/primal that i do)..

I started WAPF and moved to Primal/archevore/paleo 2.0 relatively quickly. I just don't do well on grains. I think perhaps when I have lost the weight I need to lose I might be able to maintain with legumes, but overall I think grains make my stomach sick no matter how they are prepared.

I started off paleo, and a very strict paleo at that. But the more I learned, the more I started thinking that things like dark chocolate and high quality dairy were not bad foods. So I include white rice and a few things that aren't strictly paleo, but don't seem harmful. This is probably more in line with WAPF, but I wouldn't identify with them because I'm still using paleo reasoning in determining my food choices and I don't agree with some of their positions (gluten grains ok when sprouted, raw milk is magic, etc.)

That being said, my paleo is probably closest in line to an archevore way of eating.

I think the two main things that WAPF offers that strict Paleo prescription often doesn't include are fermented foods and organ meats. Strict paleo + fermented foods and organ meats is ideal.

I started on a low fat diet high in complex carbohydrates. After 5 years of that I had full on metabolic syndrome and no energy despite following the Government's dietary and exercise recommendations to a tee.

I started researching metabolic syndrome as my fasting glucose continued to creep up. I ran across Cordain's strict lipid-phobic paleo and decided to do a one month challenge. I already cooked most of my meals, so the transition was simple for me. After two weeks I felt fantastic, but I needed to understand why/how it worked, and why I had never heard of any of this before.

I read some paleo books, then Good Calories Bad Calories, then WAPF materials, then the primal blueprint, and finally started reading all of the wonderful blogs (Panu/Archevore, The daily Lipid, Hyperlipid, Segan Martinez, Hunt Gather Love, Mark's Daily Apple, etc) I have pretty much moved to the Archevore/primal diet with occasional Rice (SUSHI!) and Masa. No beans, wheat, or sweeteners.

I respect low-fat paleo as it started this adventure for me, but it's no fun to live off of protein and fiber alone! If you add some fat and make meal delicious and nutritious.

I've been on this diet for months and I am pretty content with it, but this is by no means a dogma - I read constantly and am happy to experiment with new information, so keep posting!

Started low carb, went to low-to-moderate carb paleo, then to moderate carb whole foods with WAPFish overtones. I tried to get back into paleo this year but started experiencing the same negative side effects I had last time around, so I think I might just throw in the towel, stop thinking of myself as paleo, and eat what I know works for me right now. Which is pretty WAPFish I guess, but maybe could be considered paleo 2.0. Health >> ideology.

I'm in the experimenting stage. I consider myself closer to WAPF in ideology, but I usually eat about 80/20 Primal. I have no digestive problems with soaked legumes, but I never liked beans much anyway. I don't eat much sugar when I'm off gluten (except for an incredible coconut flour chocolate cake that I make- which isn't often), and I'm currently in the middle of the gluten experiments, which are suggesting that gluten be mostly permanently removed from my diet- even when fermented.

I don't really track though, so even though I think I fall pretty close to Primal/Lacto-Paleo most of the time, I still prefer to label myself as a WAPFer. I think because the definition is so much looser that I don't have to worry about losing my identity when I have an off week. That's why I only answer when I feel like my knowledge or experience justifies my speaking up, and why I don't ask questions here. I appreciate that Patrik wants to keep this site focused, and I don't want to contribute to unnecessary broadening of the subject.

On the other hand, without actually fully going Paleo myself, I've converted at least one friend, and have several others looking into it. :-)

Great chart!

I would consider myself pretty strongly un-WAPF and strongly 'PaNu' (although by this I mean the position that I was before reading PaNu).

I take the distinctive feature of PaNu to be taking one's lead from the hard science, biochemistry and thus choosing foods mimic the metabolic effects of those we adapted to on that basis. WAPF I presume take their lead more from foods traditionally consumed by 'healthy cultures' even where the healthy cultures are post-agricultural and hence the belief that legumes, grains or dairy, properly prepared are sufficiently tolerable to be widely recommended. Plain Paleo, presumably just means, taking one's starting point from what was eaten in the paleolithic; Cordain seems to be a plain paleo, in this sense, though you could also be a lipophilic paleo (preferring meat-fat to dairy-fat).

I consider myself more PaNu in that I am inclined to privilege metabolic evidence even over paleo reasoning and much less WAPF, in that I'm inclined to be sceptical of how good, certain traditionally tolerable foods are. This is summed up in another of KH's dictums, regardless of his current position, that 'tolerated isn't optimal.' Clearly either of these two positions could be more liberal than the plain Paleo position I've outlined above, e.g. you could allow eating non-Paleo butter either because you think it's metabolically equivalent (or even metabolically superior to Paleo foods), or because you know that healthy cultures eat lots of it. Interestingly though, I think PaNu reasoning could make you either more or less tolerant of foods though. While it might allow you to include butter on metabolic grounds, it could also lead you to be more sceptical of food accepted by plain Paleos/WAPF traditionalists, or indeed certain 'whole foods' in general, on the basis that they seem tolerable, but metabolically suboptimal. This is pretty much my position, though KH has made it clear from his new 'Archevore' writings, that he's moving away from this position and towards a more 'whole foods' model.

I started out eating the SAD diet and at some point went the South Beach Diet route. That worked well, except I was hungry a lot. I slipped back into the SAD diet. I tried a couple elimination diets (no dairy, no added sugar, that type of thing), but didn't notice much difference

I eventually moved towards a low/no processed foods diet. I saw the biggest change after this move. My food tasted better and I felt better and started dropping pounds. From there I cut out wheat/gluten and began limiting sugar as well.

I suppose if I had to put myself and my eating habits in a category, it would be closest to Archevore. As some have said earlier, I like his reasons for why he eats the way he does. It is logical to me to follow science instead of "what people used to eat." I like Grok and all, but I didn't stop eating processed foods b/c Grok didn't eat them. I stopped eating processed foods b/c they're full of crap that's not really food. 8)

Well, it really all depends - our diet is sort of a combination of both.

I buy (very expensive) sprouted grain bread for my teenage son, who is the only member of our household who eats grains of any sort, and when we eat nuts (only occasionally) and legumes (rarely) I soak and prepare them as instructed in Nourishing Traditions. I cook with small amounts of honey and maple syrup, but have a 2 lb. bag of evaporated cane juice that's been hanging around for months; if I've used 1/4 cup of it, I'd be surprised. I have yet to ferment any fruits or vegetables, but that's on my list of things to do this summer once our CSA co-op deliveries begin. We try to buy local produce grown on small, local, organic farms as much as we can. We freeze and preserve as much as we can.

We only eat grass-fed/finished beef, pastured pork (we're sourcing an entire Berkshire in a couple of months), pastured poultry and eggs and lamb. We eat organ meats a couple of times a month - mostly beef liver, but I have both beef tongue and heart in the freezer I am screwing up my courage to prepare. I cook with a lot of lard and tallow. We don't have access to raw dairy (yet) but we only buy vat pasteurized, non-homogenized milk and butter from a local farm whose cows are entirely grass-fed. I try to buy only raw milk cheese. The dairy is for my husband and son; I'm avoiding it now due to what I suspect is a casein sensitivity.

Have I mentioned that most of my family thinks I'm nuts?

I started out Weston Price, then cut out grains and dairy to help me lose weight. I stumbled across Robb Wolf's podcast and became convinced that grains shouldn't be a part of a healthy diet, so I turned paleo. I still incorporate all the good stuff of WAPF (tons of fermented veggies, organ meat, bone broth, raw grassfed butter when I can get it), just leave out the bad stuff (grains-- even sprouted--, other dairy, all sugars and sweeteners. Okay I lied. I still eat raw cheese sometimes.)

I ate the WAPF diet for about 6-7 months, and enjoyed the food, and really jived with the nutritional theory and science, but did not lose weight or gain muscle or really feel any different vs. a SAD diet.

When I switched from that diet to Paleo, which basically meant dropping grains and eating more protein for breakfast, I immediately lost weight and felt better. I jusr can't handle the grains, even prepared "traditionally".

Adding intense, strength-based exercise really made a big difference too, and that is not really mentioned in the WAPF schtick.

I don't mean to sound sexist, but the WAPF diet seems geared towards middle aged women.

I was eating along WAPF guidelines for about 3 years when I learned about my gluten/casein intolerance. In addition, I never did very well on any form of sugar (sugar high, sugar crash) So I switched to eating along Primal Blueprint guidelines. My body is doing much better now.

After twenty years of research in the fields of anthropology, paleopathology, ethnobotany, zoopharmacognosy, and primatology, some of the conclusions I came to are: Price's work has been mischaracterized, and Cordain's work is not indicative of an early paleo diet. So, following clues from nature, I recorded my observations in the form of "The Original Diet," supported by hundreds of references and the ABC test (Available Before Civilization). Some call it paleo on steroids. I also recorded how nature intended us to detoxify, which includes eating certain soil components.

I am an advisory board member of PPNF, and author of several books on nature-based primary illness prevention.

Roy Mankovitz

I changed from WAPF to Paleo. WAPF is great and still respect there advice on many topics more than a lot of paleo folks. I think they have a less theoretical lens with which to view dietary advice. However, I was pretty darn wheat intolerant / possibly celiacs and I just wasn't getting the results I needed until Robb kicked my butt into ditching the grains, legumes and dairy for a month. A lot of paleo folks would shun my occasional consumption of quinoa, buckwheat, oatmeal (gf of course), brown rice and millet. It doesn't make me feel bad and makes being good company easier. The stress WAPF puts on nutrient dense food has definitely made my version of the paleo diet more nutrient dense than most. Also I really feel strongly about best practices in farm and WAPF promotion of traditional farming techniques is really unparalleled. Overall, WAPF didn't work for me because of a sensitivity that they don't stress too heavily but now that I know that I have it, bob back and forth between Paleo and WAPF communities (and Ray Peat's jazz).