Ok, my 2 cents. More commentary than value judgement

• Boyd Eaton : His social commentary was very unexpected. Part of me was disappointed because I was hoping to hear more of his substantive research. Having said that, I think the social aspects of Paleo are so important, I'm glad that he focused on this irrespective of one's political / social ideological views
• Loren Cordain : Nothing new at all. Not surprising
• Guy-Andre Pelouze : Interesting. Dry delivery but getting the perspective of a guy that actually sees cardiovascular damage for a living and is a skeptic was cool
• Don Matesz : He outlined a framework for his about-face but didn't bring it home in my opinion. Perhaps he will do so on the blog??? He was much softer spoken than I expected given his strong voice online
• Stephan Guyenet : Nothing new since I've devoured the Food Reward series online, but I had to see him since I have a man crush on him. The Gary Taubes incident (with me as the collateral damage) was worth it. Almost makes up for the fact I missed Emily Deans since she was booked at the same time slot. I REALLY wanted to see her too
• Dr BG and Tim Gerstmar : Dr BG was AWESOME. Super smart and super hot too. Lethal combination. This was one of my more favorite sessions because of the content and lively delivery
• Craig Stanford : His background and experience in the field was fascinating. I don't think he adequately bridged the gap to humans but still it was interesting because if Don Matesz were smart, he would collaborate with this guy to support his about-face
• Richard Feinman - Crotchy old guy with a great sense of humor. Loved him! At the end there were some jabs traded with Robert Lustig. Not quite of the Taubesian magnitude, but still cool to see giants in their field start to go at it. Lustig basically challenged Feinman that all carbs are not equal. Sound familiar???
• Chris Masterjohn : There is a reason the word MASTER is in his name. He is the master of this stuff. Such a fluid delivery that even though it was nothing new, it still had me captivated. He is certainly on my Paleo man crush list!
• Mat Lalonde : I'm soooo sick of the C-word - CONTEXT - but Mat drove the point home regarding the importance of context and substance in making arguments that are going to convince the scientific community. I was a little disappointed because he left us hanging regarding what his Paleo prescription is, but overall very deep presentation.
• Denise Minger : Great energy and personality (and smoking hot). Not as scientific a topic as her China Study demolishment, but it was as much as possible given the topic. And Kamal threw me under the bus in front of 300 meat eaters. So the biggest dick at AHS was not Taubes, it was Kamal :-) EDIT - I talked to her later and we might hook up to talk about my "coming out" forced by Kamal. Maybe she will blog about it ?!!?
• Nora Gedgaudas : Great topic. Most boring (i.e. noring) delivery of anyone I've seen. But based on the topic, I now need to add her book to the reading backlog
• Melissa McEwen : This was not the kind of topic I expected from Melissa based on her sweet spot of Paleo commentary. She knocked it out of the park!!! I have even more respect for her now
• Richard Nikoley : To summarize - "I've self experimented. Some shit worked. Some didn't. Overall lost 60 lbs. How about you?". He really had an opportunity to make this a great discussion topic. Not bad, just marginally good at best I would say
• Doug McGuff : Kamal and I, in our sleep deprived / hungover state, could not get past the amusement value that his core slide showing the biochemistry of muscular activity was hand drawn looking like a 3rd grader with a broken arm drew it. Dude, you couldn't hire a Powerpoint jock to actually make a legible picture for your core concept?

BEST MOMENT (excluding Friday bar night and the subsequent menage a trois with Danielle and Kamal) -

Day 2 late afternoon in the hallway, Kamal and I started talking to Stephan Guyenet (not the first conversation since we cornered him at my hotel lobby on Friday too). Then Chris Masterjohn and Melissa join the conversation. Next Staffan Lindeberg joins and we are talking about everything from Gary Taubes comment, the biggest gaps in Stephan's Food Reward theory, the obnoxious behavior of ItTheWoo2 on his blog, to relative importance of macronutrients, issues with n=1, etc etc. Staffan Lindeberg asked Chris to give a recap of his session and then Chris The Master-john gave an amazing recap of his session in 5 minutes like he had prepared for it. Then a dude with familial hypercholesteremia joined the discussion and it got threaded back to Lindeberg's experience on Kitava....UNBELIEVEABLE!!!! I was at full mast with this conversation with such giants in the community.

My value-add in the conversation was when we were talking to Stephan about Kitava and then Lindeberg shows up. Stephan introduces Lindeberg to us and then I ask "we are talking about the Kitavans, have you heard of them?". Stephan did know whether to laugh or simply thought I was an idiot. Likely both. My momentary jack-assedness aside, I think Kamal would agree with me that this 45 minute impromptu discussion was a highlight of the session and worth the price of travel and admission!!!

Most of the speakers were just excellent. I was so surprised by Denise Minger and what a funny and witty and all around wonderful person she seems to be. Not to get all gushy but she has a beautiful spirit. I look forward to seeing her continuing contributions to the community.

Mat Lalonde presented a hugely surprising message but a very needed one I think. I would like more on how to integrate his message though. I just wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

Melissa's talk was terrific. I probably heard the most new information from her.

I really loved hearing Robb live and in person. He is truly the golden boy and the one who will carry the message to the masses. We could not ask for a better messenger.

I was supremely disappointing in Gary Taubes treatment of Stephan. He reprimanded Stephan during the Q7A of Stephan's presentation and it was unnecessary. Stephan handled it with grace and dignity. Gary was simply rude and disrespectful and I really lost some respect for him.

From the comments here it seems I missed some really great presentations and I look forward to seeing them online. I actually look forward to watching all the presentations over again. I was in some horrendous back pain the last few days and had to take some pain medication that zoned me out quite a bit so even though I was there I think I really wasn't ALL there unfortunately.

Paleohackers: All were totally amazingly cool. Conversation was a good mix of nutrition discussion, bad jokes, and debauchery. Interesting tidbit: WCC Paul looks like Dr. House.

Stephan Guyenet: So cool. The Steve McQueen of paleo. Everybody was really nice (well, maybe not Taubes), but Stephan especially seems like he's chillaxing 24/7, even though he has a ton of knowledge about everything. I do not see why Gary Taubes was antagonistic. Stephan presented a hypothesis. He clearly said that food reward was one important factor out of many. Nobody has to be the paleo alpha male with a unifying theory to explain everything.

Chris Masterjohn: Also so cool. Stephan and Chris are both the type who are not wedded to their opinions. Very curious about other people's viewpoints and logical in discussion. Chris is a dynamite presenter. If someone had to give a yearly state-of-the-union address for the paleo community, I would nominate him. I hope he graduates soon and starts the definitive paleo clinical trial.

Don Matesz: I'm not sure what to make of his presentation, but it was interesting. On the one hand, he bucked the system in so far as he looked at alternative views of animal-based diets vs plant-based diets. There are some things that I am curious about and want to read more about. On the other hand, I wonder if he is retrofitting nutrition information into his eastern medicine ideology of "draining" plants and "congesting" vegetables without good reason.

Final verdict: AHS was by far the most interesting and fun conference I've ever been to. I really appreciate the companionship of fellow paleohackers, and the effort that (most) presenters went to. I hope that Aravind and Danielle have a wonderful life together. Presuming that there is a conference next year, I hope to talk more to some paleohackers that I briefly encountered (Food Lovers, Dave S., etc etc). Paleo draws in some very cool people.

Emily Deans' presentation was one of the first of the weekend to offer new information. She was also humble and charming. Very impressive and useful information, most people know someone suffering from depression. I was interested to learn more about the magnesium deficiency and it's relation tithe stress response. Very well done and well delivered.

My favorite two speakers were Boyd Eaton and Frank Forencich. Eaton's perspective on global and societal problems is similar to mine and to hear him tie that in an ancestral lifestyle was very interesting. Forencich's presentation was about learning from hunter-gatherers to observe the world around us and use our brains to figure out patterns in nature etc. He talked about the "zoo" we live in (LeCorre's term)and what it means to be fit in an evolutionary and natural way. I would love to check out his seminar in October. I will post his website when I get my notebook out of my car.

I don't have a single favorite. My favorites were Dr. Emily Deans, Boyd Eaton, and Dr BG. Boyd Eaton's insightful discussion of the human condition set a great tone. Dr. Deans presentation on evolutionary psychiatry was fascinating. Dr. BG was funny and provided very practical info on the gut. I'm looking forward to watching the other half of the symposium online.

I would like to give some props to Robb Wolf as well. I didn't watch his talk, I chose to see Matesz, which was underwhelming although his point about fructose turning to fat without the presence of vitamin c (as in fruits) was interesting and perhaps should be included along with Lustig's theories about fiber being required for proper metabolism.

Robb probably has the biggest 'rock star' type of following. Whether or not it is warranted is up for debate, but he has probably brought more people into the paleo world than anybody else (although I was paleo before I knew of him).

He was swamped by people pretty much constantly, but always was polite, attentive, and happy to answer everybody's questions. Also, when he would comment during the q&a sessions they were always positive, poignant comments. As opposed to others who appeared to have more interest in cutting people down, stroking their own egos, or promoting their own theories.

I really enjoyed Chris Masterjohn and lustig the most.

I had a moment of clarity when Dr. Eades suggested that the liver (and not the pancreas) is what should be regulating blood sugar. Makes perfect sense, and modern diets are burning out peoples' pancrease.

I lost a litte respect for Taubes, it's one thing to question Stephan's hypotheses but he went a step too far and was just plain insulting.

Also really learned a lot about what makes a good presenter/presentation, and what makes a bad one, aside from their beliefs of knowledge they're sharing.

All in all I really enjoyed it though. And yes that jerky was awesome.

Ok, we'll have to keep in mind that I was either too hungover or too blasé to attend too many of the talks, but I think I still have a few interesting things to say, and to reverse paraphrase Aravind, opinions are like flowers, and I don't think it smells nice enough in here yet.

My favorites were the following (I'll let you decide if they're in alphabetical order or not):

Don Matesz. I thought the talk had a nice shape to it, which I appreciate. He set us up with a bunch of anti-establishment sounding material which got my riled up, but by the end he had me thinking he was a very reasonable man. I didn't think his message was really all that low-fat. Really the take away from it was: if you're going to be eating a lot of meat and fat, make sure you're also getting a lot of bitter and planty things along with it: tea, coffee, cilantro, arugula, lemons, spices, you name it. Judging by the interest we've shown in this question about herbs from yesterday, I think there might be some sympathy for this point of view. Don backed it up with some research and also with some Eastern philosophy, but I've backed it up with my own self-experimentation, which matters quite a bit to me.

Incidentally, the idea that we should eat lots of herbs and spices might be somewhat at odds with Stephan's food reward ideas. This could be another productive tension for us paleo thinkers.

Melissa McEwen. I might be choosing this as one of my favorites just because I share Melissa's obsession with gut health, but I might also be choosing it because I found it very persuasive. We just need to think a whole lot more about why different people's guts are so vastly different (even people who are very similar genetically). Every time I hear about gut health I'm reminded of what happened when I was once giving a lecture on trees (don't ask) and a mushroom specialist in the audience told me that trees wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the fungi living around their roots in a co-dependent way. There's a big interconnected world out there and it's important for us humans not to forget that a lot of it is microscopic.

Thank you for the link. I couldn't find the link for LeCorre and Minger but I read Cordain's rebuttal to the Yahoo Main Page hit-piece on Paleo. It sounds like Cordain is not so big on bacon/sausage. It sounds like he's more for lean meats and omega-3 fats over saturated fat.

Definitely Craig Stanford, Emily Deans, Jamie Scott, Denise Minger, and Mat Lalonde! I loved Chris', but I had heard it about 5 times already ;)

Erwan LeCorre, Lustig Matt and Jaime .......

Anyone run into Paul Jaminet? I understand that he attended. If they get him to speak at the next one, I'm there.

Frank Forencich's talk on ancestral health and Michael Mew's talk on orthotropics.

Michael's talk because it opened my eyes to information that I didn't know: the shape of the face is postural. And our facial posture is deteriorating.

Frank's talk because it was THE talk that was actually about ancestral health. What would health actually have looked like to our ancestors? Hint... it's A LOT more than diet and exercise.

Thought the whole experience was fantastic and enjoyed every talk I went to.

I enjoyed Dr. Feinman's talk of the talks I attended.

The Scandinavians. "We're from Norway," over and over again. Too patient.

I was working there and missed so many talks, but I really liked Minger, Lustig, Gedgaudis. I can't wait for the videos.

I also really loved the presentation by Dr. BG and Tim Gerstmar. Lots of useful, interesting information and amazing delivery too. It all just started to click in my head. Lots to think about. I even got to meet them too...