> According to Todd Moody in the second and eighth posts of this listgroup,
> the PALEOFOOD listgroup was started by him with the help of co-list owners
> Dean Esmay and Don Wiss. At the time Todd was a Zone dieter with an
> interest
> in Paleolithic nutrition. Dean had started the PALEODIET listgroup, which
> preceded PALEOFOOD by a few months, and included Loren Cordain and Ray
> Audette as participants. Like Cordain, Todd has come under heavy
> criticism,
> despite being one of the founders of this forum.

You know, I can't even remember all that.  I know I was one of the first
subscribers to the list.  Was I a co-owner too?  I know that I'm a
co-owner of the PALEODIET list, which was created for more technical
discussions.  That list has been dormant for years, and in fact never had
much message traffic.

In any case, I was one of the first people posting here, and I've been
continuously subscribed.  And you're certainly correct that I became
interested in paleo after reading, and doing, Barry Sears's "Zone" diet. 
That diet is paleo-inspired but of course does not try to emulate actual
paleo nutrition.

I've come under heavy criticism at times, yes.  This was largely due to
the evolution of my own thinking here.  As you wrote, the initial
membership here were inspired by Ray Audette's Neanderthin, 2nd edition. 
I became skeptical, and critical, of some of Ray's arguments in that book,
such as the claim that Homo Sapiens are the "gracile", neotenized
descendants of Neanderthal.  At any rate this was a good place to hash
things over, and we all did so.  I don't recall ever feeling unfairly
criticized.  But things did get heated from time to time.

The appearance of Cordain's book was a turning point.  For one thing, his
book was more successful than Audette's book ever was.  Consequently, many
people associate the term "paleo diet" with Cordain, and tend to think of
it in that way.  Audette's version is largely forgotten.

Ray Audette was much inspired by V. Stefansson, and favored a very
low-carb, high-fat approach, with an emphasis on animal fats and pemmican.
 The third edition of his book backed away from that just a bit, as I
recall.

Loren Cordain, as we all know, favors a moderate carb, moderate-fat
version of paleo.  In fact, Cordain's diet is closer to the Zone, in terms
of macronutrient proportions.

The problem is, our theories about actual paleo diets are grossly
underdetermined by the evidence.  That's why we must so often resort to
inferences like, "Surely paleo people didn't walk by apple trees without
taking some" and so on.  Or we use our imagination to reconstruct how they
used fire, or why they didn't.  And of course, it's not just *we* who do
these things.  The scientists do it too.  The greater the degree of
underdetermination of theory by evidence, the more contentious the
science, and paleoanthropology is a *very* contentious science, with many
bitterly disputed claims.  They are bitterly disputed because they're so
hard to settle.

I continue to read most of what is posted here.  But I have given up
trying to figure out what the "actual" paleo diet was.  I'm content to try
to follow a generally paleo-inspired diet, and I haven't been very good at
that.  I've backslid to SAD any number of times.  In fact, at the moment
I'm back to a virtually zero-carb approach, but I allow myself some dairy
fats, in the form of butter and goat cheese.  Is it paleo?  No. I'm hoping
it's about as good as whatever paleo actually is/was.

Todd Moody