Well, I'm glad most commenters got a lot out of Thomas's post. I have to say I'm just annoyed, and I'm not even someone who applies the "paleo" label to myself. I've seen this same phenomenon in the zero-carb community (such as it is): A way of eating works great for a bunch of people, but it fails a few, as is to be expected, even if the reasons aren't crystal clear at the time. Those few get a case of sour grapes, and begin to paint the success stories as being a bunch of "true believers" who have been sold a "narrative" or a myth (and yes, Thomas, you are very eloquent and do a lovely job lubricating the word "myth" so nobody can say you're accusing a Paleo approach of being intrinsically false or bad, but I don't buy it; I've seen this show before, and I know what's driving the plot).

Look, human metabolism varies. We are one of the most phenotypically diverse species on the planet. Looking through an evolutionary lens confirms that -- variation is one of the engines of evolutionary change, for heaven's sake. And as Chris Masterjohn says (paraphrasing here): anything that varies exhibits a distribution, and the within the tails of those distributions some strange things happen.

So the question of why Paleo eating failed you is interesting -- it's as interesting as the question of why some overweight women don't lose weight even on a strict zero-carb regimen (or apparently any other regimen). But for me, the question of whether there's a myth or a narrative that people cleave to is far less interesting; it doesn't ask anything meaty or real.

The folks who find that Paleo, or zero-carb (or hell, Weight Watchers) works for them are going to be excited about it. The people whom it fails are going to be disappointed. None of that should be taken as evidence that people have fallen prey to a myth. When an approach fails, it just means we have more to learn.

I was not seduced by the Paleo myth. I was seduced by the fact that eating Paleo finally corrected my high blood pressure issues. I don't care what it's called or why it works for me. I'm just glad it does.

At least two of the High Bishops you cite have made their paleo myth exclusionary: don't eat sugar, wheat and vegetable oil. That leaves virtually everything else in quantities to be determined by individual tolerance.

I agree with your general characterization of the myth/generalization process by which everyone leads their lives. However, the above myth is so incredibly soft that I find it hard to compare to a fish scientist. Is there anyone out there who genuinely needs sugar, gluten and vegetable oil to be healthy? That seems pretty unlikely, even absurd. People might like foods with those things, but excluding them leaves you with meat, vegetables, fruits and maybe dairy. I think you'd have a hard time finding an individual who couldn't be healthy eating from that selection.

More details on what happened in your case would be greatly appreciated - maybe you're that individual which falsifies the above paragraph!

I guess I look at it the other way in that I believe that the burden of proof is on those who say we should not consider our evolution at all and eat Holocene food substitutes. There's so much room under the umbrella of "paleo" to totally muck it up though.

I think the greatest potential for problems occurs where carbohydrates are concerned. Paleo tends to be low-er carb simply because meat displaces carbage, but taking that to an extreme isn't ideal. I had to eat at diners on my recent vacation and I'd see people eating pancakes or waffles with tons of syrup, toast and hash browns for breakfast. I used to have meals like that as well and they made me feel terrible. Compared to that, my steak, eggs and hashbrowns is a low-carb meal, but I'm still getting about 50g of it.

I find it hard to believe that a person could replace grain with tubers, industrial seed oils with animal fat and remove fructose and actually feel worse. You'd have to go on some LC misadventure to actually encounter problems. A few simple replacements seems to be a better approach that pulling out everything and replacing it with a little meat and a lot of fat.

When I cut out fructose, I instantly felt better. Same thing happened when I cut out legumes. A lot of those who cut out wheat instantly feel better. Don't really need to suspend your disbelief when the results are instant and compelling. On the other hand, when people cut out carbs, at the very least they tend to feel really bad for a week or more. "No really, this is the best possible diet, but it's going to make you feel like hell for a while." Riiiight. If something is optimal and consistent with our design, I think the body will readily accept it. There shouldn't be a drawn out acclimation period. Eating crap for a long time doesn't change our design to the point that it takes weeks to be able to eat an optimal diet. I just don't buy it.

"The concept of a Paleolithic diet is flawed for a number of reasons. Most of the foods that we evolved eating are not actually available to us now, either in type or quantity.

And there never was any one diet eaten by the succession of species of hominins throughout our millions of years of evolution.

The idea that there has been evolution of our food sources, but little or no adaptive evolution at all by the organisms that consume them (us), is also not completely accurate.

That we are eating some things we are clearly inadequately adapted to seems certain, but the idea that the dietary bright line is narrow and exists at the 10,000 year mark is a cartoon view not supported by the science. I believe most of the dietary damage is due to industrial processing amplifying the effect of things that have always been around and were never good for us in the first place, even as I do believe wheat and other grains to the exclusion of animal products has been an issue for 10,000 years.

The idea that anything before 10,000 years ago is good for us, and anything that with a shorter history is bad for us is incoherent.

The “Paleolithic diet “ is a chimera, a myth.

No more real than a Griffin.

A beautiful thing that doesn’t really exist.

I coined the term “evolutionary metabolic milieu” or EM2, to signify that we cannot hope to duplicate the exact diet that was eaten, for all of these reasons. Instead, we can strive to use science and our reasoning to emulate the important elements of the evolutionary metabolic environment - the internal environment of our bodies."- Kurt Harris, "Paleo 2.0"

just sayin...

I've been seduced by results.

I turn 37 in two weeks. I'm back in the same size jeans I wore in high school, though I'm much stronger, faster, leaner and tougher than I've been in my entire life. In my early 20's I had a very physical job, and I was in pretty good shape - I could run circles around that guy now.

The myth is working for me.

I think calling Paleo a "narrative" discounts the fact that people really did eat differently than they do today. "The Gary" discusses at length case studies of modern human populations that changed their traditional food ways and the disastrous health problems that followed. This doesn't require us to project back 1,000,000 million years B.C. and to imagine what a caveman ate for lunch.

For example...

"As Hutton told it, his Eskimo patients fell into two categories: There were those who lived isolated from European settlements and ate a traditional Eskimo diet. "The Eskimo is a meat eater," he wrote, "the vegetable part of his diet is a meager one." Then there were those Eskimos living in Nain or near other European settlers who had taken to consuming a "settler's dietary," consisting primarily of "tea, bread, ship's biscuits, molasses, and salt fish or pork." Among the former, European diseases were uncommon or remarkably rare. "The most striking is cancer," noted Hutton on the basis of his eleven years in Labrador. "I have not seen or heard of a case of malignant growth in an Eskimo." He also observed no asthma and, like Schweitzer, no appendicitis, with the sole exception of a young Eskimo who had been "living on a 'settler dietary." Hutton observed that the Eskimos who had adopted the settler's diet tended to suffer more from scurvy, were "less robust," and endured "fatigue less easily, and their children are puny and feeble."

I for one, appreciate being disease free, "robust", and resistant to fatigue. Also, I'm in no hurry to bear puny and feeble children. If this means that I pass on bread, sugar, o6 oils, and other elements of the Great Food Experiment than so be it. Living on steak, bacon, coconut, green veggies, etc. isn't so bad either :)

No. I have not been seduced by the story of Paleo or the reasoning. My jury is still out about me eating this way. I am seeing how I do over the longer haul. I have been seduced previously to finding Paleo. I was seduced by Macrobiotics, Raw Veganism and all kinds of weight loss, healing and body building diets, so I am now very skeptical. I was convinced to give this a real try by the simple comparison of cultures living in the same place eating grain and not eating grain. Time and my experience alone will decide the usefulness of this way of eating for me.

A very interesting and provocative post that piqued my interest because I have been wondering the same thing recently. After a year of eating tablespoons of butter, coconut oil and any animal fat I could lay my greasy little hands on, I went to an acupuncturist for bloating and he told me my liver and gallbladder were suffering a bit. Didn't tell him how much fat I was eating, nor that I was still assiduously avoiding carbs, but I think that must have something to do with it. I've upped the carbs and sugar cravings have gone through the roof- worry if I eat a lot of carb and fat together I'll gain weight. Has following the paleo plan, as recommended by many of the movement's forerunners, failed me? Maybe. But anyway. Let's keep on topic.

I realized that the 'paleo diet' has become this very neat thing with a lot of recommended foods that couldn't have possibly existed years ago. People drink pints of cream and cans of coconut milk, eat farmed animals, modern fruits, yadda yadda. I understand that the emphasis is not on eating foods that were available in the paleolithic age, but rather imitating the paleolithic metabolism. Fine. Its most useful points are deconstructing the food pyramid and conventional diet advice, recommending that people steer clear of crap like white flour, sugar and vegetable oils, and concentrate on eating 'real food'. But it seems that people are awfully seletive and that is how the 'myth' of paleo has been so carefully created. It's like "no! grains are full of phytic acid!!!".... "ooh, but those almonds/sesame seeds look mighty tasty, I'll down them'- despite the fact they are probably more full of phytic acid. Or the drinking loads of coconut milk despite the fact that the ability to blend a coconut into that state must be a relatively modern thing. Etc. Etc.

Weston A Price in the same in many regards. Price found that a very wide variety of diets led to good health, and that white flour was generally deleterious to health. But even in his 'tooth saving' diet for kids, he fed them brown wheat rolls. Now the movement seems to have carved out its own diet plan which is a hodgepodge of the good doctor's advice, sort of randomly picking up bits that he recommended. It goes from the general- cod liver oil and lots of fermentation- to the specific because people seem to need specific to keep them on the right track diet-wise.

Paleo is the same. People need specific recommendations. If they're used to waking up to donuts, lunching on linguine and dining on doughballs and pizza, they want to read a book that says 'please eat two eggs with 2 tbsp of coconut oil for breakfast...." etc. Some people have learnt to be less dogmatic about it. They play with it. There seems to be a backlash against the low carb thing happening at the moment, which I enjoy seeing, and it's definitely interesting to watch Dr Kurt Harris and Stephan Guyenet weigh in on it...

Basically, I agree that a 'myth' has been created in that very specific (and sometimes not always justified) foods have been recommended and have become 'synonymous' with the paleo diet. They might not work for everyone and they are certainly not 'paleo' in the sense that they were around in the paleolithic era. But then neither is anything in our modern world. I read threads that discuss the 'non-paleo' aspects of peoples' lives with amusement. Their addictions to machines, their lack of sunlight. The fact you have a job! And live in a house! And use scissors and whisks and plates and string!.... is all not paleo. I hate the fact that some people believe that 'paleo' represents this neatly defined lifestyle that they must adhere to, despite the fact that 99.9% of their lives do not, and cannot, come into line with how people lived 10,000 years ago. As some people have said, the most damage to our diet (and lifestyles) seems to have happened in the last 100 years or so, although the agricultural revolution seems to have had a noticeable effect on skull sizes and dental cavities.

Mythology is paleo. ;)

Actually, I disagree with the assertion that the first principle of paleo is "eat like your paleolithic ancestors".

I can certainly see the seductiveness of that oversimplification, but that wasn't how I understood paleo when I was first exposed to it thirteen years ago, and that's not what I've read in the works of Cordain, Wolf or Harris.

Eating like our paleo ancestors isn't even remotely possible. Not in practice--the foods they are aren't around any more--and not even in theory! We're talking about vast numbers of individuals living in every region of the planet over a span of two million years. If it existed, I guarantee you, somebody ate it. I've never heard anyone suggest that the paleo diet is about eating like that.

Rather, every description of paleo I've ever come across is about avoiding specific foods, typically foods that have become common since the neolithic revolution, and appear to be responsible for some common health problems that are much less common among hunter-gatherers. Exactly which foods fit that description are hotly debated and subject to constant scrutiny. And that's exactly as it should be.

I would say that the first principle of paleo is "Use technology wisely." The same brain that figures out how to make a job easier can also figure out when to.

To quote the late, great evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution." This is still every bit as true as when Dobzhansky penned his essay in 1973. There is, without a doubt, some mythology and noble savage worship going on in this rag-tag collection of people under the umbrella of the "Paleo" movement. And yes, I'm sure there are people for whom the results are less than satisfactory. This doesn't change the fact that the big elephant in the room (which we all recognize) is that huge increase in the "diseases of civilization," an uptick which began more than a century ago, but now is nearly overwhelming the US and other industrialized nations with health problems that are almost entirely dietary related. Even the standard explanation from US health authorities is there is some dietary process run amok which is ruining metabolisms left and right.

We have no choice then but to work from first principles--namely evolutionary biology. We need to know what humans are adapted to eat and what it is about our environment that is mismatched with our genes such that we have these epidemic diseases of civilization. That we don't have that nailed down yet isn't really surprising--there's not a lot of scientists working on it, and, to the best of my knowledge, very few evolutionary biologists have weighed in on this problem yet. So we have a hodge-podge of information, some of it good, some of it not so good, infused with yes, some degree of mythology. None of this should discount "Paleo" as it is a very experimental and young movement.

Personally I'm eager to see what happens during and after the Ancestral Health Symposium once all these minds get together to talk and they launch their journal and we can hopefully get some peer reviewed research going and more cross talk between clinicians and bench scientists. Until then, yeah, self-experimentation and some degree of mythology will hold until the science can settle it. And hopefully not in an Ancel Keys way.

I think the narrative is fun and interesting but is really just a way to present what is fundamentally a good idea. For me the most important aspects of the diet are avoiding sugar, grains, and processed foods, and the crossfit-type exercise regimens that are popular.

I think it is also valuable for people to realize that a diet that is completely opposite of what we're told by the gummint and "experts" can be ten times better for you than what they're pushing. I am not a conspiracy theorist (I don't think :-)), but I'm also coming around to the idea that the whole fat / cholesterol schtick might be a health disaster on par with people thinking for 100 years that smoking was harmless.

However I'm not interested in some kind of re-enactment of ancient times, running around wearing a loin cloth and chasing down antelope or something. Our ancient ancestors had lifespans of about 20-30 years after all. I joke with my friends that I'm on the "caveman diet" but I don't take that stuff too seriously.

All of that said, I don't think the Paleo diet is for everyone. I think my wife and daughter would really suffer with it. For whatever reason -- genetics most likely -- they are both adapted to a carb and vegetable diet with lots of gluten. They would really suffer with a Paleo diet, and I with theirs. I have a theory that my wife must have descended from some agrarian culture from long ago. There are a lot of people here with amazing stories about completely transforming their health by switching to this diet, but there are also people that have the opposite effect.

This doesn't mean that the Paleo diet sucks, or that the non-Paleo diet sucks, or that the people in one camp or the other are deluded, or whatever. It means that one diet is not right for everyone. It can also mean that adopting a radically new diet can be very disruptive and most people who are basically healthy already don't feel that the disruption is worth it.

"Therefore we should eat as they did." There has been a lot of arguing over this point for quite awhile in the paleo community - and the Cordain types seem to be the minority. Dr. Harris has never advocated a particular macronutrient ratio and lately has been promoting starch. And Mark Sisson allows for quite a bit of fruit/veg/starch as well.

The constant hashing out of ideas is what I love about the paleo community - we are not all that dogmatic (well some are). And usually eager to look at new science (or at least tear it apart). Sorry if you fell into the mythology trap. I guess I'm fortunate that I ran across Jimmy Moore, who always stressed that different people need different diets.

Thomas, have you checked the Archevore blog? Dr. Harris seems to share your unique view on this particular narrative.

I pressed for time so I haven't (but will) read the comments. I wanted to say that I totally, whole-heartedly agree with Thomas. I was just having this convo with someone 2 days ago and decided I would leave the paleo diet for a bit. I felt better for a bit but lately, I'm feeling really out of focus and have gained some weight.

I track my diet, nutrition, sleep, and mood so once I gathered all the data over the past few months and analyzed it, I found that I actually wasn't better off. Mind you, I haven't eaten SAD in 12 years - no processed food, no sugar. What I think is that I was convincing myself I was faring better on Paleo. More than that, I was following it dogmatically and ceased, for a time, to look at what I've been doing, nutritionally, in an objective manner.

In another answer to a post recently, I said I looked better two years ago. I ate my pasta and potatoes and my lovely bread in moderation. I was happier then, I was leaner, I had more energy, I wasn't a slave to my food. I didn't obsess over it. Looking at my recent data and questioning my motivations led me to the decision that I would go back to the diet of two years ago for the next 90 days, track it, analyze it, then take a hard look at what all of this means.

Thomas - thank you for this post. You have no idea how much I respect what you stated.

I am confused.... you dont agree with 'paleo'....what because it has a name? you didnt fare well 'eating paleo'...ok, so you dont feel good eating real food essentially is exactly what youre saying. you cant eat real food and feel good. you cant eat real food and lift. you cant eat real food and be an engineer.

mayyyybe you need someone to teach you how to eat....real food. there arent rules to eating real food. there arent calculations, amounts, macros, calories etc. three words. eat. real. food. end of discussion.

i truly think one of the WORST aspects of paleo is the information at hand, the science, the blogs, THE INTERNET. if you had learned in 2nd grade nutrition class 3 words: EAT.REAL.FOOD. end of discussion you would have been FORCED to learn to listen to your body and how you felt when you ate real food.

the internet in and of itself is one of the biggest if not most dangerous and misconstrued aspects of people trying to follow the 'paleo diet' when all they need to be told is eat real food, yourself included.

As they say: "The devil is in the details." You haven't provided us with many details. How unhealthy have you become? Have you gained weight? Lost strength? What are you eating? What do you avoid? Are you depressed? Do you have a history of depression? Do you have a history of "chubbiness" (notice I didn't say obesity)? You're a software engineer, so you sit around all day...do you exercise more or less than you did?

DETAILS.

My "myth," was the "ultimate me." I want to be the me that I'm supposed to be under optimal health and exercise conditions. This diet has helped me begin traveling that path. At the same time, it helps me make choices that affect the environment in which I live in a positive way. I, for one, am all for this myth. Better than the sh***y alternatives.

I like to think of myself as a skeptic. Any good scientist is a natural skeptic and will try to refute their hypothesis time and time again.

I have to follow my own ethos at the end of the day. I mean jeez, I'm the one that has to live with myself. I feel like death warmed over if I don't have some fruit, but that's just me. Cutting out rice and legumes was a blessing though. I feel I am making the right choices with Paleo, but I'm not going to start running around in a loincloth just yet (although the boyfriend might enjoy that...)

Thomas, I'm curious if you've thought about the fact that your goals as an Olympic-style weightlifter may not in themselves be "paleo." After all, it seems reasonable to expect the paleo diet to be optimal for the paleolithic lifestyle, as opposed to a modern competitive sport. (And I'm not knocking Olympic lifting here, it's an amazing sport and the lifts can be used to replicate paleo activities, but as a sport it's not paleolithic.)

I used to be bothered by the fact that some ultra-marathoners seem to thrive on a vegan diet (at least in the short term). But then it occurred to me that an ultra-marathon is far from a natural paleolithic activity. Perhaps such an extremely unnatural sport requires an an extremely unnatural diet? (And again, I wouldn't categorize weightlifting as "unnatural" to the same extent as ultra-marathoning.)

In any case, I've started to wonder if my own goals in the gym might not be all that "paleolithic," and whether I might want to adjust my diet accordingly... Or, conversely, come up with more paleo-suitable goals.

Dang, Thomas - I'm totally going to miss your voice on this site if you bug out! :-(

For me the 'myth' is more of an organizing principle. It's a handy world-view to put all the factoids in, that puts them in some kind of order or structure. The variations work for me to keep the 'edges' of this world-view permeable and flexible, and allow for some experimentation and growth. If it looks like someone or some group has a copyright or other lock on the word "Paleo" then I'll find another bucket to put all the ideas in; the entire appeal is it's openness and flexibility - and geeky attempt at intellectual understanding.

I know there are different 'camps' around this idea. Low-carb is a case in point and that's one that worked really well for me personally. But people are different and not everyone (thankfully) is damaged in the way that low-carb fixes. I just hope that the overarching idea and questions of paleo ('what IS the 'right' human diet anyway?') doesn't close down to the point where it excludes other, equally useful ideas.

For what it's worth, I highly recommend this book: Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food (yes - I've recommended it several times already). The authors specifically downplay the 'paleo' angle because we just don't really know what those people ate. I mean - how much can you really extrapolate from fossils of shit?? So they emphasize what traditional cultures have in common. It's because of this book I'm now making my own kefir and sauerkraut and loving it (and milk isn't a favorite 'paleo' food).

Anyway - If you don't stick around let us know where you're hiding so we can smoke you out once in a while!

@LastingOne - love the loincloth image!

I have to ask you what your question or point of the OP is. Myth, narrative, whatever you want to call it; this whole thing labeled “paleo” is merely the idea of NOT EATING DELETERIOUS THINGS, when we describe deleterious things as GRAINS, LEGUMES, DAIRY. Again, simply put, I would love to know some kind of details about how avoiding those three things has made you feel worse than you felt prior to avoiding them.

You say: Genetically we haven't changed much since then.

I would argue that there are numerous polymorphisms among different groups of people around the globe. Also, this process is forever continuing. We have not simply stopped evolving/adapting to our surroundings, no matter what they are.

You say: Therefore we should eat as they did.

This line of thinking went out a while ago. I don’t think anyone serious about this stuff says this now. Its simply using what we’ve seen our ancestors ate as a starting point, a possible place to base things on. The more important part I think many of us longtimers would say is the next step; ie using modern day methods to test what we think our ancestors did and learn if those practices are or are not optimal.

You say: I have fared dismally on the Paleo diet

I think the definition of paleo is simply: avoiding grains, avoiding legumes, avoiding dairy. Avoiding those three things failed you? I am forced to ask which of these by your adding them back into your regimen have made you feel better. Simple enough.

You say: I have eaten healthy for a long, long time, so I did not come to this screwed up from a SAD diet.

I am the same. Never been overweight, always athletic. Five years of WAP eating, experimented with vegetarianism, SAD, raw foodism, etc.

I have to ask you what your question or point of the OP is. Myth, narrative, whatever you want to call it; this whole thing labeled “paleo” is merely the idea of NOT EATING DELETERIOUS THINGS, when we describe deleterious things as GRAINS, LEGUMES, DAIRY. Again, simply put, I would love to know some kind of details about how avoiding those three things has made you feel worse than you felt prior to avoiding them.

I have appreciated many of your posts, Thomas. I am a lifter and I’ve enjoyed your comments regarding tinkering with macros, etc.

For me there is a myth, but it is about the pathways taken by the food I eat. The way they where produced and the reason why. It is about finding my personal niche in the food ecology around me. Choosing things that work for me.

forget the pure low carb and check out westonaprice.org

Thomas Seay, I agree with many of the things youve expressed on this board, we both rep the Bay Area, both recognize the benefits of medical marijuana, both love Chinese culture and attempting to learn Mandarin, and I believe you mentioned either that youre Buddhist or at lest practice Zen Meditation. I agree with you that science has it's myths and that is why Carl Sagan said that a true scientist challenges all truths and will drop any truth once better evidence has arisen. I felt the same way as you when I first began my Paleo journey but then realized I was allergic to eggs, the realized I had a nightshade allergy, then realized that even small amounts of soy in dark chocolate were bothering me. I am now on full autoimmune Paleo and I feel great. Perhaps this may be a route to explore? I also think that we are all unique in our macro nutrient ratios and Ive found that I need to focus mostly on protein and to make sure that a ton of vegetables are in my diet. This might be counter to some high fat/everything we need is in meat statements that we hear from some of the bloggers.

My question on this board about Paleo athletes made me realize that perhaps "Paleo" is not the right phrasing. It seems that the key to health is to recognize and cut out any food allergies, to balance blood sugar levels and to combat inflammation. Paleo framework is a good starting place as it focuses on foods that in theory we should not have allergies to, balances blood sugar and through omega3/6 ratio and more focuses on inflammation. However, I do agree that this can be tackled many ways and that humans are a adaptable species.

Edit: I just saw some of your issues youve had. I also lost a ton of strength initially but gained it back once I stopped IF. I dont think that IF is for everyone and especially not for those with other stressors in the their life. I also was reactive to stress in my life but now am better then ever now that I upped my protein to around 1.5 grams a day. Also bringing back copious amounts of vegetables helped with overall vitality (although I added liver powder at the same time so it could be either or/synergy).

I love all this banter. Thomas you are seriously bored at work today, or you've failed Paleo because you just miss your old meals so you're calling it a fail, you've still not told us what "fail" means. Or maybe it's a fail because we can't truly be Paleo...I mean we aren't going hungry for days then hunting dear and rabbits and picking berries along the way, and we're not living in caves. We can eat pretty much whatever we want whenever we want, work out while we watch TV, listen to music and take calls. I think in some ways the "Myth" is cool, and a cool way to describe a style of eating/living/exercise, but in other ways it's totally silly. I was drawn to Paleo at the start of my 3rd trimester of pregnancy. I still have about 7 weeks to go, so I'm a total newbie. The draw of eating this way for me, was to feel better, have more energy, and get stronger. So far, so freakin' good I'm taking my family along with me! Ultimately though I like that eating a "Paleo" diet means that I am only eating natural foods. Nothing obscenely processed, chemical or highly marketed. I also love cooking again...I've been cooking non-stop since I began 5 weeks ago, and because I'm eating this way have the energy to do it and clean up afterwards (unheard of in my last pregnancy or the beginning of this one) I also like that that by eating this way I can give Monsanto the finger, because it seems nothing is stopping them from killing people with their chemicals and GMOs, and now I also have more incentive to work in my vegetable garden, and gather our berries. If the economy goes to hell, well I may have to learn to hunt as well. So call it a seductive myth if you will, I call it a plan for optimum, thriving, survival.

A great thread. Some people getting hot under the collar but remaining civil. The "caveman" theme can be fun, but I resist letting it grab hold of me. I mostly follow Mark specifically because he uses what we know about paleo humans to make hypotheses about how we should live, without rigidly trying to copy. But I avoid calling myself "primal" or "paleo" or "archevore" or anything else.