The paleo diet gives us the null hypothesis that the best thing to eat is
meat, fish, eggs, fruit and vegetables.  You are correct that our
discussions in this group lead to variations on the this hypothesis.  For
example, some favour lean meat and others say that it doesn't matter or that
fat meat is better.  Some favour more vegetables and others less.  Some feel
that organic food is required and others don't.  There are debates on the
importance of fish oil or the perils of legumes.  But we all agree that
pizza is not the place to start.  So as a null hypothesis it works pretty
well. If there were no room to debate the variations, we wouldn't have this
Support List.

It would be extraordinary if non-paleo foods were healthy, because we
evolved eating something else.  The idea that our bodies would have evolved
for 2 million years eating foods A,B,C, D and E but would operate most
effectively eating food F, is unlikely.  We would expect that eating food F
would lead to health problems, and I think a fair view of the evidence is
that they do.  The proof that a food is healthy must come from studies in
peer reviewed journals.  However, many of the nutrition studies are
epidemiological studies which are hard to do.  So a lot of them have serious
methadological errors.  If one study said that pizza was good for you I
wouldn't start eating it.  If study after study led to the same result, I
would.  (I haven't  eaten pizza for a while and I am really quite fond of
it.)  Ken

----- Original Message -----

> I have no problem using some paleo "rule" as a guiding principle, which
> is what paleodiet is all about after all.  As you say, we have to make
> dietary choices somehow. But which rule?  The problems begin when we try
> to *justify* one rule rather than another.  The paleo diet doesn't give
> us just one null hypothesis; it gives us several..
>
> You say that studies that encourage us to eat non-Paleo foods should be
> met with "extreme skepticism," and that we shouldn't eat them until the
> proof is there.  What makes the claim that a non-paleo foods is healthy
> extraordinary?  And what counts as proof that a food is healthy?
>  Without clear answers to these questions, Sagan's dictum does no work.
>
> Todd Moody
> [log in to unmask]
>