Hi Neil, Robert, Ken O, and  Ken A,
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. While I agree that Cordain's 
position on ph  does not square with observations of the real world, it 
is only through careful and detailed observation, sometimes using a 
microscope, that we now have insight into the autoimmune stimulating 
dynamics associated with consumption of many neolithic foods, especially 
gluten grains and legumes. So, looking through a microscope does, I 
think, help us understand some features of a healthy diet.

I view our own bodies as our best guide to our collective evolutionary 
past. Our proportionately short intestines, reduction of the appendix to 
a vestigial echo of cellulose fiber digestion, and our enormous and 
positive changes in body conformation, improved cardio and vascular 
health, increased cancer resistance, improved energy, etc. etc. all 
point to our having evolved eating a high fat, meat dominated diet. Many 
of us experience dramatically better function in ketosis. That, too, is 
a message from our evolutionary past. These messages are telling us that 
the 'science' of  Nutrition at its current stage is quite retarded. In 
2009 we are at about the same level as Medicine was when they were 
leaching sick people and recommending against bathing more often than 
once a month.

Similarly, when we look at populations that consumed 80% fat and 20% 
throughout most of the year, over thousands of years, it becomes clear 
that Cordain's conclusions about ph and fat consumption just don't stand 
up to scrutiny. Every nutrition guru has her/his Achiles Heel...... 
usually several of them. Cordain, although a major force behind the 
paleodiet movement, is mired in many of the superstitions of current 
nutritional wisdom. His work has helped expand the boundaries of human 
knowledge and is therefore venerable. But his ideas are not above 
question. Anointing prophets should be eschewed in favor of rigorous 
challenges that may render his ideas down to a core of one or two 
significant contributions to the field. If he is responsible for just 
one one or two significant insights into human nutrition that stand the 
test of time, he will be most fortunate. Most scientists labor their 
entire lives working toward a single discovery that they never reach. 
Giving Cordain the status of a prophet diminishes him as a scientist. 
Assuming he has mastery of his entire field is just silly.

I am grateful for Cordain's pathbreaking work in the field of gluten 
grains (see: Cereral Grains: Humanity's Double-Edged Sword). I am 
grateful for his work fostering a paleo perspective in nutrition. These 
are both, in my opinion, major contributions to the field of human 
nutrition.  However, I will keep on challenging his ideas any and every 
time I see  something that I consider to be faulty. That, I believe, is 
the fairest and most scientific approach I can take to his work. I used 
to cc him with emails when I was critical of something he had published. 
His responses were cranky and hostile so I have stopped cc'ing. That 
doesn't mean that I will stop challenging his ideas.

The readers of Dangerous Grains or one of my papers, that I value most, 
are the  ones who challenge me on one point or another. They make me 
think. They get me to reconsider the information I've offered, but in a 
different light than when I wrote it. They open pathways to new insights 
for me. Sure, I like to read comments like "great book," etc., but those 
who give me the greatest gifts are those who speak up and say 'what 
about this or that? - I think you're wrong!'

I'll borrow Neil's line and say that "I could go on and frequently 
do....." and I'll end here.
Best Wishes,
Ron

Sorry