Almost all the basic tenants of the Paleo diet make pretty good sense - but like any other popularizing discipline, paleo diet and lifestyle are already showing signs of dogma and zealotry. "eat like the predator, not the prey" is great advice to fire up the flabby males with any testosterone left in their bods and get them to the meat department of the grocery store and jerk them back on track. But therein the dogma already starts. Clearly we WERE smarter than the ridiculous brute caveman stereotype - and as such - were not merely "predators" as are the big cats. We had hugely more intelligence, wit, resourcefulness, creativity and even art.

So guess what? blind-sided anthropology whose theories can never be definitely proven or dis-proven, keeps re-guessing our "history" every time a few new bones are turned up all the while ignoring the most common sense extrapolations - possibilities that still call out to us even in this present day.

why do most of us do well with dairy? - and even human babies can almost universally switch over to goats milk with success if mama cannot supply. How much better could a paleolithic people - especially those wandering into a life offering 4-6 months of winter and scarce hunting - survive if they pressed into nutritional service indigenous animals - goats for many, or even wild reindeer for the Lapp population? (for example)

the paleo dieters cries of "foul" regarding conventional wisdom about sat fats, red meat eating and carbs/grains are right on... and then they go on to accept mindlessly ill-conceived and bad science methodology to call dairy non-paleo.

I believe that not only did we husband animals for many 10's of thousands of years -if not more - prior to what CW fertile crescent domestication theory would have us believe - but i would posit that much of the genetic pool of humans that survived the ice age did so with the help of the mammals pressed into their service for both meat AND dairy products.

THAT is what i mean about the developing dogma - the absolutism of paleo diet thinking that is crystallizing around people like Cordain and others whose creds and ideas are heavy with merit - but they are not infallible.

Just a hint for getting good grass fed beef: make friends with someone in your area who has a little land and will go in with you on raising a cow. You have control of what goes into it and how it is butchered. Good quality meat for cheaper than the store prices if you do it right. Plus it needs less medication and hormones.

@ Dr. Harris
You don't own paleo and this presentation of "how to" is not a knock-off of yours. Get off your high horse.

And oh, candida albicans overgrowth is a legitimate problem for many. But you've probably been set straight on that since your Jimmy Moore interview where you claimed it didn't exist.

"You can read the original 12 step list, whose recommendations are basically identical, published almost 2 years ago by an MD here:"

yes, and in my local phone book I can find a hundred MDs ready to put us all on low-fat diets and statins.

JS,

Thank you for your blog. I am enjoying it. I have also enjoyed and learned much from Dr. Harris' blog. But even in his own forum, which is now closed, he is often unreasonably cantankerous and condescending. That is his intellectual playground so he can do as he pleases. But he does not need to contaminate others blogs with his puffed up ego.

None of his peers do this. Not DeVany, Wolf, Masterjohn, Lalonde. Sure it his right to be a donkey, but insulting those who want to learn from you and being petty with those who support your endeavor is amateurish.

Please feel free to delete this irrelevant digression

Hello. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed this article. I was hoping to get more clarification on fruits and vegetables, and your recommendations/experiences.

Good evening JS.

I have questions about butter.
I keep reading in other sites that butter should be avoided for paleolithic diets. You, however, say that butter is not harmful to anyone. So the question is, what type of butter are you referring to? I don't know much about food but I know that butter is usually linked to dairy.

Thanks for reading,
Vlykarye

Nada,
Have you read all the "research" or have you read a magazine article that said "research shows" but they don't tell you much more than that?

I want to add my two cents in the debate over whether milk should be included in the paleo diet:
Until pretty recently, milk was consumed raw. From what I read, raw milk has many benefits over pasturized milk, such as often decreasing allergies, asthma and eczema in those who consume it. Also, not pasturizing the milk leaves intact the enzymes a human needs to digest the milk. Lactose intolerance is a non-issue for raw-milk drinkers because the enzyme needed to break down the lactose is still there (among other enzymes that help break down other parts). I think raw, creamy, fatty milk would have been a perfect substitute for meat when game was not abundant centuries ago, so perhaps it deserves a look in the modern paleo diet.

Disclaimer: Raw milk would not be for someone allergic or sensitive to casein.