The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Food You Were Designed to Eat

"The Paleo diet is a very sensible approach to weight loss. I am all for going back to a more natural way of eating. However, I do find it rather offputting that Dr Cordain is so negative about other low carbohydrate diets - perhaps he wishes to dissociate himself from the negative publicity. But once you get past those comments, it is a good read. "Neanderthin" by Ray Audette also gives a good grounding in paleolithic eating, but without rubbishing other low carb authors.
I do not agree with Cordain's idea that you can eat fruit all the time and still expect to lose weight. After all, it would only have been available in the summer/autumn to our paleolithic ancestors even if they did move around.
He also seems to rate fats solely on their omega-3 content - and anyone who has read anything by Dr Mary Enig will have a much broader attitude towards fats in general."
~ Written on 2004-06-07

"The Paleo Diet is a serious contribution to the diet debate, though not as the writer claims (as they nearly all do) that it is the one and only RIGHT answer. It is a well-argued case but there are some statements I have to disagree with, for instance, Cordain claims that the early stone age people ate a salt free diet, which is highly unlikely given that the African Rift Valley and areas around the Mediterranean basin are rich in naturally occurring salt pans and the herds of animals which hunting tribes follow travel over great distances to seek out these minerals. Our Palaeolithic ancestors were smart enough to do the same and our kidneys are well adapted to eliminating any excess. Salt also provided the original convenience food in the form of salted and sun dried antelope strips still favoured by bushmen to-day.
Another other aspect I take exception to is his statement that since we have fruit and vegetables available all year round from all over the world we should enjoy these unlimited supplies. This disregards both the cost of these air miles in fossil fuel as well as the simple contradiction there is in eating what is not naturally available at times of the year not at all in rhythm with the seasonal rise and fall in our metabolism. For the importance of seasonal and local produce see Udo Erasmus's "Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill" Chapter 67.
Moreover, my most pointed criticism is about the attitude, fairly common among health gurus, of one-diet-fits-all. Cordain's Paleo Diet is, perhaps unwittingly, aimed at the Big Zero - that is the majority of people who still carry the Original genetic marker of the primeval hunter, blood group O. However, evolution did not stand still with the hunter; there is the cultural adaptation of the A group to agriculture rather than gathering by developing a greater tolerance to carbohydrate and of the nomadic B type to a high consumption of dairy produce as a result of the intelligent herding of animals rather than the simple chase after meat.
On the first page of Peter D'Adamo's "Live Right for Your Type" he says : "the science of blood type offers us a unique opportunity to examine the past, tinker with it, and pass along an improved version. It provides the knowledge and the tools, not only to improve our own lives in the here and now, but to codify those improvements into our genetic hard drive. "
So my recommendation to everyone interested in this line of research is to read Cordain's book in the understanding that he is addressing the O's but if you have landed on the A or B side branch of the evolutionary tree your genetic hard drive has already made the necessary adjustment to cope with their specific cultural developments. The amount of knowledge out there is so vast and the lines of research so diverse that no-one can claim to have the complete picture. The Paleo Diet provides a very useful and easily comprehensible starting point and in spite of my criticisms I highly commend it."
~ Written on 2003-03-11

"Dr. Loren has managed to explain in simple terms about the types of food which our ancestors ate as well as explaining why it should be the manner in which we should eat in the 21st century. The reason for growing numbers of obese people is only because "we are what we eat". It has been stated many times but too many folks just dont take that little extra time to prepare food from the basic ingredients- which is natural - but will use 'prepared foods' which contain salt, sugar and other preservatives which our forbears would not have had. Certainly not refined sugar! It really is a case of back to basics, eat what our Stone Age ancestors would have eaten - because that is the way our body is geared to cope with and process food. For energy, stamina amd a slim body - eat like Paleolithic Man."
~ Written on 2002-03-23