Dr. Couto:

Part of your message appears to be addressed to Dana, who's quite capable of defending herself, so I'll leave any response to her.

Moving on: as far as moderation, it's a better strategy than gorging on junk,
which is why studies show that a 'balanced diet' is superior to the SAD
(Standard American Diet).  However, I agree with Peggy: just as a moderate
intake of cigarettes is not better than zero intake of cigarettes, a
"moderate" intake of grains and grain products (e.g. n-6 laden seed
oils) is not better than zero intake. 

And while there is some
doubt about the relationship between meat and certain forms of cancer
(although AFAIK it's mostly with processed meat, which I avoid), the
problems caused by anti-nutrients and metabolic disruptors in grains, particularly gluten grains, are very well understood.  (Lectins, phytate, wheat germ agglutinin, exorphins...)

If grains are so nutritious, how come we have to 'fortify' them in order for us not to suffer deficiency diseases?  We don't have to 'fortify' meat or eggs in order to make them nutritious...we 'fortify' grains in order to give us the nutrients we should be getting from meat and eggs!

And to be clear, I'm not advocating zero-carb or an all-meat diet.  I'm advocating eating the foods densest in nutrition.

Peggy:

Rabbits are politely termed 'cecotrophs': they eat their own poop in order to absorb the nutrients created by fermentation in their colon, but which they couldn't absorb the first time through.

I'm not a relativist when it comes to questions of fact.  I agree with you: there is a right answer, even if we don't know it yet, and it is not "the average of the existing answers".  I'm open to further evidence, but this (and everything on this website) is the best of my understanding so far.

Thank you for your support!

JS

Paul:

Indeed, the fat question is the Great Divide in the paleo community.

Early proponents, like Cordain and DeVany (and Robb Wolf, who is a Cordain protege) argue that the ancestral diet was relatively low in fat, and we should emulate that because saturated fat is harmful in some way.  The consensus has gradually shifted away from this view: Mark Sisson is fat-positive, the Jaminets' Perfect Health Diet is explicitly 60-65% fat, and the rest of the current paleo proponents (e.g. Kurt Harris, Jamie Scott, Emily Deans, Richard Nikoley, Melissa McEwen, myself) are all solidly pro-saturated fat.  (As are the WAPF people like Masterjohn and Guyenet.)

My analysis of the fat content of our ancestral diet, and of the Cordain papers which all the anti-fat arguments reference, can be found here: Saturated Fat Is Most Definitely Paleo.

I believe it's instructive that the Cordain argument keeps changing.  First saturated fat was uniformly bad: then, as of Robb Wolf's book, only palmitic acid was bad (which raises the interesting question "Then why does our body always choose to store excess energy as palmitic acid?"). Now it's "palmitic acid is only really bad in the presence of excess carbohydrate".  In other words, the goalposts keep moving.  

I think it's much more reasonable to assume that the population studies are correct, metabolism works the way we think it does, and saturated fat is not only not bad for us -- it's our most efficient source of energy.

The dairy argument is similar: it's possible to argue against casein (a major milk protein) and lactose (milk sugar), but if you claim it's OK to eat meat, it's very difficult to simultaneously claim you shouldn't eat butterfat.

To me, what paleolithic people did or didn't eat is a starting point for research, and a way to debunk obviously silly claims about diet and exercise.  I'm most interested in what science tells us about human metabolism, and how we can use that knowledge to optimize our health using the foods at our disposal today, right now.  Paleolithic humans didn't wander around picking Paleolithic broccoli.

Dr. Harris calls this approach "Paleo 2.0", which is correct but not very catchy.  I've simply been calling myself and others "paleo", because as I've already mentioned, the community has very much moved on from its "lean meats and veggies ONLY" days.  This is where paleo is, right now, versus Cordain's book which is basically a snapshot of ten years ago.

I'm a bit loath to give it a unique name, because it's not unique to me: it's a place that many of us came to independently.  Although if I write a book, it'll most likely be titled "Eat Like A Predator," after my guide to paleo eating, and I admit to liking the ring of "The Predator Diet" or "The Gnoll Diet".  What do you think?

JS