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• Your life and health are your own responsibility.
• Your decisions to act (or not act) based on information or advice anyone provides you—including me—are your own responsibility.
I’m sure everyone who wasn’t there is experiencing some combination of fatigue and jealousy upon seeing everyone post about the 2011 Ancestral Health Symposium—because it’s nearly impossible to say anything about it without blatant namedropping. I’ll get to that in a moment.
First, though, I have to recognize those who were, to me, the most important people in attendance:
YOU.
My readers, fans, and commenters.
I was thrilled to meet so many people who read, enjoy, and learn from the articles I write here at gnolls.org—and to meet so many fans of The Gnoll Credo, both at the Friday night “Meet the Authors” event and throughout the Symposium. From the MD who told me “I refer people in the ER to your website” to the person who had just bought his fourth copy of TGC because his friends won’t give them back, I was honored by each and every one of you. Writing is communication, and your respect means I’ve succeeded.
Thank you.
You Never Forget Your First Time
Beginnings are always special. There’s something magical about meeting someone else for the first time. Multiply that by several hundred in attendance and an exploding field of knowledge…
Having been present at or near the beginnings of other now-famous events and movements, I can say this: the AHS will be huge next year. Not only is everyone talking about what a great time they had—it’s become obvious that there’s much more to discuss. 2011 was mostly about diet, and the presentations didn’t even come close to exhausting that subject, let alone all the other evolutionary discordances of modern life.
Disagreement Is How Science Gets Done
Though the AHS was mostly a hugfest, there were disagreements. This is healthy! The ancestral health movement depends on many hypotheses, and science is how we decide whether they are correct—or just plausible.
Plus, if everyone already knew everything and agreed on everything, we wouldn’t need to have conferences.
I’ve noticed several people dismissing Dr. Boyd Eaton’s talk as utopian, and embracing the “nasty, brutish, and short” stereotype. Ask yourself: where does the human sense of fairness and justice come from? Why do we instinctively desire it? Perhaps…because it was our evolutionary context? (See: The Civilized Savage and the Uncivilized Civilization)
Also consider the difference between individual and tribal violence (single and small-group combat) and institutional violence (war, genocide, famine). I’ll have more to say about this in the future.
Special Mention: The Namedropping Section
Many people have commented on the physical health of the attendees. However, I was more impressed by the vitality of everyone I met. Faces were animated, discussions were intense, speech was articulate and quick. I was surrounded by people who were mentally sharp as well as physically capable. The energy was intoxicating.
No doubt I will forget some of the wonderful people I met, but here goes:
First I must appreciate my dinner guests for the first night: since I eat like a carnivorous horse and realized that Animal would be tapas-like portions (and not gluten-free), I organized an outing to Koreatown for delicious all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue.
Yes, that's thick-sliced pork belly. And brisket. Not shown: everything from tongue to abomasum.
I had the honor of being joined by the frighteningly smart yet totally unassuming Dr. Paul and Dr. Shou-Ching Jaminet; the amazing, dynamic Dr. B G and her wonderful sister; David Despain, who should be better-known in the ancestral nutrition community; Dr. Tim Gerstmar, whose presentation with Dr. B G was excellent; and Jolly the unstoppable conference photographer. We sampled everything from thick-sliced pork belly to beef tongue to cow abomasum, and of course, plenty of delicious kimchi to aid and replenish our intestinal flora. Thank you all for a wonderful evening!
And after the MovNat session went for twice its allotted time, I was glad to be invited to Fogo de Chao (aka “Meat On A Sword”) on Saturday night by Clifton Harski, James Dang, Justin, and the rest of the crew which caipirinhas made me not remember.
I blame Brazil.
I had the further privilege of meeting and speaking with:
More “down time” to talk with the other attendees. I was often faced with a choice of cutting off a great conversation or missing a presentation.
A mix of short and long time slots. I think there are a lot of topics that would be well-served by a 20-minute presentation, and it would give more people a chance to present.
A barbecue or other paleo food option on site. I brought gravlax, tri-tip, fruit, and Greek yogurt in a cooler—but it was a long walk to the car and back in order not to miss anything, and I wasn’t going to eat the junk from the food court.
Live in freedom, live in beauty.
JS
Any other ideas for next time? Suggestions for a location? Did I forget you by accident? Leave a comment!
My series-in-progress, Why Are We Hungry? (part II, part III), will return after the Ancestral Health Symposium. I’m anxious to continue, because we’re just starting to dig into the meat of the problems with Part III)—but due to conference preparations and unexpected workspace issues, I simply don’t have the time to do it justice right now.
I’ll be signing copies of The Gnoll Credo at the Friday evening author event—so if you’re attending AHS, make sure to stop by and introduce yourself!
Also, if you don’t see me update next Tuesday, rest assured I’m on a mountain somewhere in the Eastern Sierra.
For reasons I’ve explained at length in What Is The Paleo Diet, Anyway?, I believe the term “paleo” is sufficient to encompass the entire online and print community. The foundation of a paleo diet is our multi-million year evolutionary history as hunters and foragers, and we all understand that humans are poorly adapted to a diet of grass seeds—which we’ve been eating for perhaps a few thousand years.
However, though we as individuals can choose any point on the continuum, the print and online literature divides itself reasonably cleanly into two schools of thought. The traditionalists emphasize re-enactment of their perception of Paleolithic foods, make very specific claims about Paleolithic nutritional composition, and stress avoidance of all foods they view as Neolithic. In contrast, the new school claims that re-enactment is impossible, many claims of Paleolithic nutritional composition are either unsupported or implausible, and that we must evaluate foods, even clearly Neolithic foods, on their nutritional merits to present-day humans—though within our evolutionary context.
I believe we need a simple, descriptive term that distinguishes the pro-fat, dairy- and potato-tolerant “new school” of Paleo from the lean-meats-nuts-and-veggies traditionalists, without being pejorative to either.
To that end, I propose the term “functional paleo” to describe the new school.
Eating foods that best support the biochemistry of human animals with a multi-million year history of hunting and foraging, primarily on the African savanna.
Avoiding foods, such as grains, grain oils, and refined sweeteners, that actively disrupt the biochemistry of these human animals.
In other words, “functional paleo” is based on the biochemical function of food within the human body. It is informed by evolutionary context, but not limited by it. (Or, most likely, a contested interpretation of it.)
This functional definition carries its own risk: we can mistakenly see “food” as a collection of nutrients, an approach that ignores the many constituents of Real Food (meat, eggs, vegetables, root starches, fruit and nuts) that haven’t yet been isolated, recognized, or classified as nutritional. That way lies “meal replacement shakes” and madness—and that is why we must keep our evolutionary context in sight.
Questions like “What would Grok do?” and “Imagine yourself in the woods, or by the ocean or on some fertile plain, with nothing but your own wit. What would you be able to eat?” are mental shortcuts to evolutionary context.
However, the functional definition allows us to avoid silly arguments like “Paleolithic humans regularly ate rotten meat, so why don’t you?” and “An archeologist found starch residue in one cave in Africa, so that means cavemen ate bread and grains are paleo.” It also allows us to understand that though nuts and honey were certainly consumed in the Paleolithic, that fact alone doesn’t make them healthy to eat—especially in large quantities. I find this to be a worthy tradeoff, and I hope others agree.
Functional Paleo: Who’s In?
Here is a non-exhaustive list of sources I consider to be “functional paleo”.Please let me know if I’ve missed you or miscategorized you, or anyone else: I’ve erred on the side of caution by not mentioning any source I’m not reasonably sure of. (Leave a comment, or contact me directly.)
Mark’s Daily Apple/The Primal Blueprint – The first book to take what I consider a functional paleo approach, and still a classic. And they update every day!
The Perfect Health Diet – The purest example of functional paleo in print. Dr. Jaminet has been doing solid original research.
That Paleo Guy – Functional paleo from the perspective of a trained athlete.
PrimalMedEd – Anastasia is now Dr. Anastasia…congratulations!
I’ll be using the term “functional paleo” at the AHS and beyond, I assert no rights over it, and I encourage its use. I hope you find it both useful and descriptive!
Live in freedom, live in beauty.
JS
What do you think? Are you a functional paleo eater? Does the term speak to you? Leave a comment!
Since this is a short article, here’s a bonus video for you!
Sometimes MMA is a subtle, skillful game of strategy: a wrestler’s top game vs. submissions from the bottom, strikes vs. takedowns, two kickboxers snapping insect-quick kicks and punches…
…and sometimes it’s two giants playing the real-life version of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.
On Friday afternoon, 6/24, I was a guest on the Mike Smyth Show, where I was interviewed for a 20-minute segment on the paleo diet!
I had a great time on the show, and managed to debunk some myths (“No, meat doesn’t rot in your colon“), present the theoretical and practical foundations of paleo to a big new audience, and even throw in a few zingers. Thanks to Liza at CKNW for setting it up, and Simi for being a great host!
I’m working on getting the audio up as a download…but in the meantime, you can you can go to the CKNW audio vault and select June 24, 2 PM. I start about seven minutes in, right after the weather, and my segment is about 22 minutes long, including a commercial break.
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It costs you nothing, and I get a small spiff. Thanks! -JS
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