----- "Geoffrey Purcell" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: 
> 
> I've read Kurt Harris' site and it is pretty misleading, IMO. For one thing, legalistically speaking, he shouldn't even be using the word "paleo", since his advice isn't really palaeo at all, just more of the usual cooked,low-carb dogma a la Atkins. I seem to recall that his view was that if a person experienced no immediate allergic reaction to dairy , that they should go for it. He forgot to mention certain statistics such as that most of the world are lactose-intolerant to varying degrees; in other words, there are always going to be some people who may not immediately incur clearly observable problems from dairy/butter in the short-term, but who eventually get health-problems years later, as a result of consuming it. 

I disagree. I think his site is one of the best on the internet, precisely because he is at pains to support his views with evidence, and to admit when the evidence is inconclusive. He also explains his conception of "paleo" at length, which he clearly states is not a "paleo re-enactment" approach. He admits that he is still on the fence about dairy, in general. See this blog entry on that. He is preparing a blog entry on butter now, so perhaps you should wait and see what he has to say before dismissing it as rehashed Atkins. 

The term "paleo" as applied to diet is, in fact, undefined. It can be, and is, used to mean any of the following: 

1. Eat only what we know actual paleolithic people ate, in roughly the manner and proportions that they ate it. (re-enactment) 
2. Eat only what we know actual paleolithic people could have eaten, even if we don't know whether they, in fact, did. (Neanderthin) 
3. Eat only what paleolithic people could have eaten before they started cooking, whenever that was, and don't cook it. (raw paleo) 
4. Eat only foods that contain the kinds of nutrients that paleolithic people had access to, in roughly the amounts they ate them. (Cordain paleo) 
5. Avoid the neolithic foods for which there is convincing evidence for a causal role in disease. 

No one camp has exclusive rights to the word "paleo." Harris's approach is the last one listed above. 

Note that in his view, the three most dangerous neolithic foodstuffs are fructose, PUFA, and grains, especially wheat, in no particular order. He is at pains to point out that he does not think that a particular carbohydrate level or macronutrient ratio is indispensable. His position is that it is fructose, PUFA, and grains that break metabolisms (mainly via liver damage), and, once broken, an inability to handle significant amounts of carbohydrate in general is a result. This is not the Atkins view. 

Harris can be be rough, but personally I appreciate that. He has little patience for dogmas, but when actual evidence and arguments are presented--and not merely alluded to--he engages it. 

Much as I enjoy Harris's site, I think I enjoy Peter's Hyperlipid site even more. I like Peter's attitude and also his relentless analytical energy. 

Todd Moody