Talk:Paleolithic diet/Archive 2

Medicine Assessment
Just wanted to say that the "B" rating for WPMED is not meant in any way to affect the Good Article assessment. If it passes GA status, then please feel free to update the project assessment ratings at that time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Good article pre-review
In a very brief review I see that this article is not stable (Good Article criterion #5) and will likely not pass a comprehensive GA review. I suggest that the nomination be withdrawn. MilesAgain (talk) 20:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your pre-review MilesAgain. As per WP:WIAGA, "nominations for articles that are unstable because of constructive editing should be placed on hold." In any case, I think all major edits are pretty much done. Cheers! --Phenylalanine (talk) 21:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Question
I know it's cited and whatnot, but "According to Kopp, "the implementation of high-glycemic/high-insulinogenic food, like refined cereals, potatoes and sugars, into human nutrition only about 200 years, or 10 generations, ago, occurred too recently on an evolutionary time scale for the human genome to adjust." seems ridiculous. Weren't potatoes eaten by pre-Columbian cultures in the Americas? Murderbike (talk) 17:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're right. I think Kopp meant that potatoes were introduced as food staples in the "Western" world (being Europe and North America) only about 200 years ago. The statement under the image would need to be changed accordingly. Good point. --Phenylalanine (talk) 01:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I fixed the text for the image, but I'm not sure what to do with the quote. --Phenylalanine (talk) 01:34, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that the statement would just be kind of irrellevant since there isn't much biological difference between "Western" and "American" peoples, so there wouldn't be any significance to the potatoe being adopted by "Westerners". Either way, if it isn't removed, it should qualified so as not to show our bias towards "Western" peoples. Murderbike (talk) 01:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC) ✅
 * I'll e-mail the author and see if he can shed light on this matter. --Phenylalanine (talk) 01:47, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * No response from the author. I'm removing the statement and image. --Phenylalanine (talk) 20:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I fail to see how an image of some potatoes can be considered "biased". It's a nice picture, actually, and serves to break up the sea of text. The caption was wrong, that's all. A caption explaining that foods similar to potatoes are restricted under the Paleolithic diet would be appropriate. =Axlq (talk) 20:35, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
 * A simple loaf of bread might do the job... --Phenylalanine (talk) 21:00, 6 February 2008 (UTC) ✅

Also...
This: "has attracted a number of criticisms,[9][85][86][87][88][89][11][10][75][90][91][92]" is really ugly. I don't know if there's a MOS issue here, but it's really unsightly. Is there any way these refs can just be tagged on the specific criticism? Otherwise it looks like a linkfarm disguised as refs. Murderbike (talk) 01:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC) ✅ Phenylalanine (talk) 14:45, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * This would require a bit of work but it's doable. --Phenylalanine (talk) 02:12, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I wouldn't want to do it, I just imagine that it could be a GA problem. Murderbike (talk) 02:21, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, right off the bat, I removed the ones that are already attributed to specific criticisms in the subsequent paragraphs. --Phenylalanine (talk) 02:28, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I cut them down to 4 sources. The rest of the sources were already attributed to criticisms in the subsequent paragraphs, even though the criticisms mentionned in these paragraphs do not cover all those presented in the sources removed, but they cover the main criticisms. --Phenylalanine (talk) 14:42, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I hate to keep nitpicking, but "Whether a diet can be considered environmentally sustainable depends on the ratio of plant to animal foods consumed, the type of animal foods eaten and the sources of these foods." seems like it should also say that it depends on the scale with which any of these sources is being exploited. 100 people hunting-gathering or farming is going to be sustainable forever, but 6 billion doing either is never going to be sustainable. Murderbike (talk) 03:48, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I was actually considering removing that sentence altogether and adding it in another article on the subject of sustainability that I could link to. I'm not sure whether it could be considered as an analysis of published research used for the purpose of advancing a position with regards to Paleolithic-style diets to which these sources do not refer. In any case, you raise a good point. --Phenylalanine (talk) 04:05, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I finally decided to removed that sentence. I moved it the article "sustainability", which is linked to from the section on sustainability. --Phenylalanine (talk) 14:25, 2 February 2008 (UTC) ✅ Phenylalanine (talk) 14:45, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I've also done some reviewing of the article.


 * When you mention the "Department of medicine at the University of Lund," the word "medicine" should be capitalized. ✅
 * "It was argued that humans are carnivorous animals and that the Stone Age diet was that of a carnivore - chiefly fats and protein," The hyphen should be replaced by an em dash. ✅
 * "Paleolithic-style diets also seem to generate beneficial health outcomes in controlled medical studies." This seems rather POV, as the paragraph that follows it describes things that, in my unexperienced medical mind, do seem beneficial, rather than merely seemingly so. ✅
 * "7 crucial nutritional characteristics of ancestral hominin diets," the "7" should be changed to the word "seven," per the Manual of Style. ✅
 * "Since no processed foods or added salt are included the sodium intake (~726 mg)," I believe that using the approximately equal to sign (≈) would be more appropriate here than simply a tilde. This usage occurs several more times in the paragraph. ✅
 * "…the statement that the human genome has evolved during the Pleistocene…" Simply the word "evolved" is better to use here, as the Pleistocene period was quite a while ago. ✅
 * "Echoing Milton's criticism, Ströhle et al. argue that it is questionable if all hunter–gatherers…" "Hunter-gatherer" is a compound word, therefore an en dash should not be used, just a simple hyphen. ✅
 * "She argues that Dioxin, which is stored in animal fat," "Dioxin" should not be capitalized. ✅
 * And finally, the way the sections are separated into "proponents" and "critics" portions creates a sense of POV. (See Words to avoid.) I know that this would be a gigantic thing to fix, but if it is, I believe that the article would be most definitely a GA. Kakofonous (talk) 14:58, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Just a couple more things:
 * There is quite a bit of overlinking in the article, but I see that you have already begun to correct that problem.
 * If you do not believe that you will be able to correct the section problem in seven days (the time allotted for an on hold nomination), then I will fail the article. This does not mean in any way that the article is not a good one, simply that the major correction will take longer than is really possible for the scope of an on hold nomination.
 * One of the links (for the "Hazards of Dairy" article) is dead, temporarily, because of a typing error. Simply remove the "/" after the .pdf extension and the file will come up fine. Kakofonous (talk) 15:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC) ✅

Thanks for your review Kakofonous! I should be able to address those points in seven days. I'll check them as I go along. Cheers! --Phenylalanine (talk) 17:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Formatting criticism
I'm affraid that integrating the criticism in the article would disrupt its flow.

This matter has been discussed before (Archive 1): -- "I have eliminated the "criticism", "counter-criticism" and "support" sections and have created an "Archaeological and anthropological evidence" section and a "Sustainability" section. I have integrated the material from the deleted sections into the new sections and the renamed "Health" section. --Phenylalanine 02:17, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this appropriate? At least to this reader, it obfuscates the difference between supporting evidence and opposing evidence. Perhaps I'm just unusually stupid or inattentive, but it seems to me that someone scanning or skimming the article (most readers) will not remember the initial premises of the diet long enough to remember if a point is a "pro" or a "con." I see what you're trying to do here, of course, and it is laudable (having criticism, counter-criticism, and counter-counter-criticism sections is just as confusing), but is there really any reason not to simply have a criticism section (perhaps with archaeological, sustainability, health, and theory sections, or something similar), and corresponding sections for evidence/arguments favoring the paleolithic diet? As it stands, the article appears POV simply because criticism is dispersed and buried in the prose. I'm sure this was not your aim. I also feel obligated to let you know that I'm not opposed to this diet, I'm just not sure its basis is quite as rock-solid as a cursory reading of the article (as currently sectioned) would suggest. Kajerm (talk) 09:37, 18 November 2007 (UTC)"

This dietary concept could be considered as a "point of view" in itself (for example "transhumanism"):

--Phenylalanine (talk) 01:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The appropriate way to structure criticism may depend on the style of the article. In articles on people, places, things, etc., it can be very useful to integrate criticism into the article. In articles whose subjects are themselves points of view, such as philosophies (Idealism, Materialism, Existentialism, etc.), political outlooks Left-wing politics, Right-wing politics, etc.), religions (Judaism, Christianity, Atheism, etc.), intermingling an explanation of the article's subject with criticism of that subject can sometimes result in confusion about what adherents of the point of view believe and what critics hold. To avoid this confusion, it can be useful to first explain the point of view clearly and succinctly (including disagreements among schools or denominations), and then explain the point of view of critics of the outlook. Criticism
 * Criticism that is integrated into the article should not disrupt the article or section's flow. For example a section entitled "Early success" should not contain one paragraph describing the success of the topic and three paragraphs qualifying or denying that success. This is often why separate criticism sections are created. Criticism
 * I agree with you. Essentially the only reason I raised that concern was because I sometimes have a bit of difficulty ignoring all rules, and interpreted the guideline as being set in stone. Kakofonous (talk) 01:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Successful GA nom
This article is now a good article! The only issues I had were the grammatical problems and the other, which is now moot. Kakofonous (talk) 01:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your diligent review! --Phenylalanine (talk) 02:30, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Length of Lead Paragraphs

 * Phenylalanine, you've worked really hard on this article, and I'm glad to see it pass GA status. I have, however, placed a tag on the lead section in the hope that it can be made more concise somehow. The lead seems a just a tad long in proportion to the rest of the article. Overall, the article looks really good, so I won't complain if you remove the "toolong" tag. Otherwise, I suggest that the following phrases indicated may be struck without detracting from the thrust of the lead section:


 * Proponents of the diet consider that the healthiest foods for the human body are those that humans are best adapted to eat, arguing that many modern ailments are diet related and can be avoided using this nutritional approach.[5] They believe that human genetics have scarcely changed since the Paleolithic Era, and therefore that an ideal diet would be a reconstructed prehistoric diet such as the one humans and proto-humans consumed before the Neolithic Revolution.[6]


 *  In support of this theory, advocates argue that modern human populations, such as contemporary hunter-gatherers, that subsist on traditional diets similar to those of Paleolithic hominins seem to be largely free of diseases of affluence,[7] and that such diets produce beneficial health outcomes in controlled medical studies.[8] In this regard, supporters point to several potentially therapeutic nutritional characteristics of preagricultural diets.[6] Critics of this nutritional approach have taken issue with its underlying evolutionary logic....


 * Try that out. The parts I struck out are expanded later in the article. What remains describes the gist of the proponents' claims, and gives more balanced weight to both proponents and critics in terms of number of words devoted to each in the lead. =Axlq (talk) 04:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks Axlq. I shortened the lead a bit, and moved some info to the "theory" section. If it's possible, I would like to keep the info on the medical studies in the lead. I'll see if I can further compress the text. Cheers! --Phenylalanine (talk) 09:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Organization of Lead Paragraphs
I have some issues with the current organization of the lead:
 * 1 - The description of the nature of the diet should come before the description of its theory or supporting/unsupportive evidence.
 * 2 - The description of support should not predominate or be placed apart from the criticism, which suggests that the supportive evidence is uncontroversial, which is not the case, or that it's more worthy of mention than the criticism, indicating a non neutral point of view.

I suggest that the lead be organized in the following order: Regards --Phenylalanine (talk) 22:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
 * 1 - Description of the Diet;
 * 2 - Description of the theory;
 * 3 - Description of the supportive/unsupportive evidence (arguments in favor/criticisms).


 * I have some issues too. I tried to revise it as follows:
 * Descriptive sentence
 * Origins of the diet ("Deriving from the field of evolutionary nutrition....")
 * Proponent views, begining "Promponents differ in their dietary prescriptions...."
 * Opposing views
 * My attempt at organizing was reverted. At the moment, I see it looks like this:
 * Descriptive sentence
 * A proponent perspective of what it is ("Proponents differ in their dietary prescriptions...")
 * Origins of the diet ("Deriving from...")
 * More proponent views
 * Opposing views
 * To me, the lead looks disorganized in its current state with the views of proponents scattered throughout. In particular, the "Deriving from..." sentence needs to be the second sentence in the lead. State what it is, how it originated, and then go into details about differences, benefits, and criticisms. I'm happy to see it's more concise, though. =Axlq (talk) 15:35, 6 February 2008 (UTC) ✅


 * Good point. I reorganized the lead as per your suggestions. --Phenylalanine (talk) 17:12, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Comment
It has struck me that in the discussion of paleolithic diets little is said that on a non-paleolithic diet life expectancy has show dramatic increases over the last 100 years. The article seems to allude to that, but the discussion is indirect regarding that. Also, it seems that in the past it was important for humans to put up a good inflammatory response, wheras now inflammation is counterproductive.

The comment that hunter-gatherer now that live to 60 are free of chronic disease needs to be challenged. I'd like to see what happens from 60 to 80. Most modern people that get to 60 are free of chronic disease. What happens from 60 to 80 is where most of the excitement happens to us, medically speaking. Kd4ttc (talk) 17:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comments. I don't think it's necessary to mention the increase in life-expectancy, nor the time frame. For the purposes of the article, what matters, in my opinion, is the life-expectancy discrepancy, which presupposes an increase at some point in post-agricultural history. The point about inflammation is interesting, but without a source to relate that matter to Paleolithic nutrtion, it would be inappropriate to mention it in the article. Regarding the last point, notice that the statement in the article says "60 and over". --Phenylalanine (talk) 01:52, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Featured
Well done getting featured. I am on this diet and am 130 years old (and no I do not care or want to enter any sort of worlds oldest man competition), it's done me very well so far. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.251.229.70 (talk) 00:26, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Wow it must work then! Congratulations on reaching such a ripe old age. :)  Great article by the way.  By coincidence I was only recently thinking that I should be eating what my ancestors ate and low and behold I find an article on it Tremello22 (talk) 18:45, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. Kudos to the editors of this article on their hard work.  However I'm very disappointed to see it featured in this form.  The criticism section (including against low carbohydrate diets in general, which probably doesn't even belong here) is 2/3 the length of the article, and the benefits section that was here in previous revisions has completely disappeared.  --WayneMokane (talk) 01:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey WayneMokane! Thanks for the comments. The article is basically divided up into three sections: description of the diet, support for the diet (renamed "Theory") and criticism of the diet. You're right that the "criticism" section is a bit longer than the support section, but I see it more like a controversy section, where both views are exposed. The criticism about the low-carb approach is not about low-carb diets in general, but specifically about Paleolithic-style low-carb approaches, since they seem to be dominant. Nice to see you back here. --Phenylalanine (talk) 02:09, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually one bit of praise I forgot to add before was, the formerly sprawling sustainability section is now completely under control and succinct. Fantastic!  And you're right about the low carbohydrate section - I responded before reading it carefully enough.  --WayneMokane (talk) 03:11, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * But you sure don't talk like a person who was raised in the 1800s! Elle vécut heureuse à jamais  (Be eudaimonic!) 03:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * This was my first Wikipedia edit. I only changed one word, but I figure I should start small.  Any help, ideas, etc. are welcome.  Thanks! Lavishlova (talk) 03:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Welcome to Wikipedia! I checked out your edit to this article and it was spot on.  Start small, but at the same time, be bold and have fun.  --WayneMokane (talk) 04:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

No discussion of recent human evolution?
I see no discussion in the article of recent human evolution. It appears that neither proponents or critics of the diet acknowledge that humans can have evolved over the time interval between the Pleistocene and now. Yet in discussions of human evolution I have read that traits like lactose tolerance have evolved relatively recently in the human population, and in concert with cultural adaptations like the domestication of cattle. This, then, would seem to be an important argument in favour of the concept that human dietary requirements evolve with time, and against the idea that modern humans should adopt a diet to which they may no longer be optimally adapted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.180.175.109 (talk) 03:54, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes this appears to be a very valid point. Recent human evolution which results in modification of dietary traits thus making us more suited to "modern" foods, is a rather potent argument since it manifests itself in many forms. Lactose tolerance being one of them. I would recommend you add it yourself to the criticisms section. -Bodhi 122.167.21.185 (talk) 04:11, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * This is discussed in the section "Criticism of evolutionary logic". While "lactose intolerance" isn't specifically mentioned, the idea that populations who have been eating agrarian diets for hundreds of generations should be in some way adequately adapted to eating grains is presented. Before adding any additional information, make sure that it's really useful and that it's not original research. --Phenylalanine (talk) 04:18, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Agriculture
Homo sapiens did not "invent" agriculture. They discovered it. You wouldn't say that homo sapiens invented fire would you? Same principle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.44.99.120 (talk) 06:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * They didn't discover it either. Unless another animal had been using it already. --Leladax (talk) 09:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I would add 'invent' is at least technically accurate, though not usually used. --131.227.208.46 (talk) 10:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- I changed it to "developed". --Phenylalanine (talk) 08:11, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * We discovered that sparks cause fire; but we invented striking flint against iron for the purpose. We discovered edible plants, but we invented transplanting to neat rows near our homes and digging irrigation ditches. Agriculture is the directed activity we invented; as opposed to gathering edible plants from where we find them. All invention involves discoveries, and some insects cultivate fungi (although we didn't discover that until later); it's a matter of degree. Pete St.John (talk) 14:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Resticted foods
How is "potato" an example of a root vegetable that is inedible when raw? Boomcoach (talk) 14:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * It contains a toxin (solanine) that will make you sick if eaten raw.   --WayneMokane (talk) 14:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)


 * No, it doesn’t. — NRen2k5 (TALK), 23:22, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- I removed the statement about potatoes being inedible raw. The article "potato" explains that in some cases, potatoes are highly toxic in limited amounts, but supermarket raw potatoes usually don't contain enough toxins to be harmful in moderate amounts. --Phenylalanine (talk) 23:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Only green or actively sprouting potatoes, I believe. I haven't looked it up though. Eperotao (talk) 02:51, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Unless your name is Dan Quail, the singular is spelled potato, not potatoe. The plural is potato with an 'es' added to come up with potatoes. Same rule as with tomato. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.110.245.176 (talk) 17:21, 23 March 2008 (UTC) ✅

Cooking really "Widely Accepted"??
Hi phenylalanine. This is a great article. I have been reading about this elsewhere--journal articles-- and a friend sent me here. I have two criticisms so far. 1. I think what is in the diet or not seems repetitious. The same information seems to show up over and over. 2. I don't agree that it's widely accepted that cooking goes back 250,000 years. It's been proposed, and there is tentative evidence at, I think, two sites for extended evidence of ancient fires with bones. But regular fires with a surround of stones that are clearly human made are more recent. And even at the two sites with a long history of fire, it's not clear if they were controlled fire built by humans, let alone if deliberate cooking was involved. I think, like you, that it was. But there remains the rest of the area where hominins lived, where there is NO evidence of cooking. In any case, it's NOT widely accepted. Just a hypothesis, so I think you need to back off on that. Congratulations on a great entry.Eperotao (talk) 02:51, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comments. This peer-revied source says that it is widely accepted that humans cooked their food as early as 250,000 years ago: . Also, could you give examples of which descriptions you find repetitious. Cheers! --Phenylalanine (talk) 01:47, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Contemporary
The word "contemporary" means "at the same time". It's often used to mean "at the present time", but when used in conjunction with a word that denotes another time, like "paleolithic", it means "at the same time as the paleolithic". 82.3.223.77 (talk) 18:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Well noted. Thanks. --Phenylalanine (talk) 13:40, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Tedious
This article can be summed up in four words: "Some but not all" If I read that qualifier once, I read it a hundred times. OK, we get it - there are fringes on the fringe of this fringe and of that fringe and they are all demanding to be recognized and represented - but there has got to be a more encyclopedic way of handling this. Some, but not all, Liliputians are less than six inches tall. Some, but not all, Liliputions are more that five inches tall. Yada, yada, yada...65.69.81.2 (talk) 21:02, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- I removed all instances of this wording. --Phenylalanine (talk) 23:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

so how many people actually eat this way?
These questions could be addressed by this article: What percentage of the population, and in what countries, eats this way? Among which age ranges, socio-economic statusses and cultural environments is it popular? Is this a fringe diet, or is it gaining significant popularity? Addressing these questions would help frame the article's subject in a broader context. Spebudmak (talk) 03:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comment. I totally agree that this would be very helpful. There's just no data on these questions. I'll keep my eyes open. --Phenylalanine (talk) 12:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Um, not strictly true

 * "the Paleolithic (the Old Stone Age), a period of about 2 million years duration that ended about 10,000 years ago when Homo sapiens developed agriculture."

Not so. The Palaeolithic ended in the Mesolithic, the Middle Stone Age, which was broadly speaking the continuation of the Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer way of life but in a post-glacial environment. The Mesolithic is called the called the Epipalaeolithic in those parts of the world where there was no glaciation, such as the Middle East. The Neolithic, the period when agriculture was developed, followed the Mesolithic/Epipalaeolithic, not the Palaeolithic period. 86.143.70.75 (talk) 14:51, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Also the Paleolithic began 2.6 million years ago not 2 million years ago becuse the first stone tools were invented around 2.6 million years ago.--Fang 23 (talk) 19:52, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

✅ I fixed the date and I removed the fact that the Paleolithic ended when humans invented agriculture.--Fang 23 (talk) 20:02, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The statement that the Paleolithic ended with the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago is verified by a peer-reviewed source in the article, so I changed it back. This seems to be confirmed by the article "Paleolithic".

Proposal to rename the article "Paleolithic diet"
I'm not happy with the title of the article "Paleolithic-style diet". This dietary approach is most often referred to as the "Paleolithic diet". I only found one credible source using the term "Paleolithic-style diet" en passant. The rational for using the later term is that it's more descriptive and indicates that this dietary concept is not about exactly mimicking the ancestral diets of the Paleolithic. Nevertheless, I think we should use the term under which this concept is best known, i.e. "Paleolithic diet". --Phenylalanine (talk) 12:35, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree this article should be renamed to Paleolithic diet becuse only one reliable source says that it is called the Paleolithic style diet.--Fang 23 (talk) 20:30, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I would wonder if that might be confusing to people who are looking for the ancestral diet. Perhaps 2 separate pages, one with the ancestral diet as reconstructed from archaeological evidence and the other for the modern fad diet?Trilobitealive (talk) 13:54, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * That's a possibility. Otherwise, we could have a disambiguation notice at the top of the page: "This article is about a modern dietary regimen. For information on the dietary practices of Paleolithic hominids, see "Paleolithic"." Or something along those lines. --Phenylalanine (talk) 16:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I'm going to go ahead with this name change, and I'll add a disambiguation notice at the top of the article for now. --Phenylalanine (talk) 22:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Because of the the article move, the first line of the article no longer complies with WP:LEAD:
 * A Paleolithic-style diet, popularly known as a Paleolithic diet, paleo diet (or paleodiet), caveman diet, Stone Age diet or hunter-gatherer diet, is a nutritional program which emulates the diet of ...
 * Sandy Georgia (Talk) 23:41, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I fixed the lead. --Phenylalanine (talk) 01:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to emphasize "peer-reviewed" descriptions of the diet
I suggest that the content of the "Practices" section which is not "peer-reviewed" be merged into the history section. This is because the description of the paleolithic diet in peer-reviewed sources is often different from that found in books and websites. The later sources focus on adapting the diet to make it convenient and luring to ordinary people, while the "peer-reviewed" focus on describing the actual ancestral diet and it's health implications. --Phenylalanine (talk) 12:35, 31 March 2008 (UTC) ✅ --Phenylalanine (talk) 01:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Tagged sentences
WayneMokane, I see that you've tagged the last sentence. Here's the specific quote it refers to: "'Recognise the human evolutionary basis for the choice of an optimal nutrient profile, based on a diversity of foods:" "* Encourage consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables, thereby reducing consumption of energy- and materials-intensive processed foods and animal foods." "* Discourage the view that meat is the mainstay of an affluent diet. For dietary optimisation the level of per-person meat consumption need only be moderate.'" McMichael AJ (2005, September). "Integrating nutrition with ecology: balancing the health of humans and biosphere". Public Health Nutr. 8 (6A): 706–15. doi:10.1079/PHN2005769. . --Phenylalanine (talk) 13:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

For the other 2 sentences tagged, here are the specific quotes:

"'As the scale of the world feeding task mounts, and as urban consumer preferences for animal-based foods grow, so too, currently, does our reliance upon environmentally damaging modes of food production.'"

"Encourage consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables, thereby reducing consumption of energy- and materials-intensive processed foods and animal foods." And see box 2 - "Sustainable Livestock Production"

--Phenylalanine (talk) 23:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry I must be missing something - the sentences you reproduced here don't appear in the Pubmed abstract (in that abstract there is no mention of "animal" or "meat"). Are they only found in the full article? --WayneMokane (talk) 02:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, they are only found in the full article. --Phenylalanine (talk) 09:32, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, my mistake! --WayneMokane (talk) 23:01, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem. I removed the tags. Cheers. --Phenylalanine (talk) 23:28, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Post paleolithic dietary mutations
I'm moving this discussion here from my talk page as this seems to me a more appropriate place. I've just copied and pasted; sorry about the lack of links.

Hi Warren, thanks for your contribution to the Paleo diet article. I noticed that you added this to the article:


 * "A few post Paleolithic dietary adaptations are known. Different mutations for adult lactose tolerance occurred independently in and now dominate four separate pastoral populations which came to depend on dairy in their diets after the paleolithic; these mutations are still rare or absent in other modern populations.  Some sources posit that blood types other than O are in part an adaptation for cereal grains in the diet. "

As per No original research, the criticism section is reserved for published criticisms of the Paleolithic diet. The sources given above do not appear to directly criticize the Paleo diet. You need to provide sources which clearly state: "The paleo diet is flawed because of ...[add dietary adaptation arguments here]...". Accordingly, I have removed the above paragraph from the article for the moment. If you can provide sources for the criticism which comply with Wikipedia policy WP:OR requirements, the paragraph will certainly be restored.

As an aside, Paleo diet advocates do not deny that some human populations have developped adaptations to certain novel foods, they argue that humans are not fully adapted to the new diet. While populations like Europeans may have developed some adaptations to grains and milk, other constituents of these foods may remain hazardous for human health. --Phenylalanine (talk) 02:16, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I restored that bit. Although it's true the sentences aren't exactly criticism, they are interesting and relevant facts with encyclopedic value to the article subject. If the sentences don't work in the criticism section, they should be included somewhere in the article. =Axlq 04:26, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * No, I respectfully disagree. This research is relevant, but the sources do not explicitely refer to the Paleo diet, and so the paragraph constitutes original research, no matter where you put it in the article. To be acceptable, the sources must clearly state in what way this information is relevant to the diet. --Phenylalanine (talk) 04:37, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * First, I'd like to say that I personally am in no way against the Paleo diet. I've always ignored the high carb "health" diets and have followed something close to the Paleo diet myself, and upon learning the theoretical underpinnings of the Paleo diet, I've recently been making modifications to come further into line with it, such as switching to free range eggs and grass fed beef, and getting more carbohydrates from fresh fruit and root vegetables rather than grain.


 * I agree with you about the implications of the lactase and grain mutations. On the one hand, they argue that some adaptation has occurred in some people since the paleolithic; on the other hand, the fact that the number of mutations is limited and the mutations have not had time to spread through the entire human population argues that any recent adaptation is far from complete, as you say.  For example, I myself lack the lactase persistence mutation and am lactose intolerant.  Nor does the fact that these mutations have attained a significant frequency necessarily mean they will continue to spread; they may eventually disappear instead.  I apologize if my wording implied otherwise.


 * However, I do still believe that the existence of these mutations is highly relevant, since the theoretical basis for the Paleolithic diet has everything to do with dietary adaptations and their speed. The job of Wikipedia is to present relevant facts in an unbiased way.  Even for advocates of the paleo diet, it's better to get issues like this out in the open so they can be understood and discussed, rather than trying to popularize the diet by hiding facts.


 * I don't agree that inclusion of the material constitutes original research, nor do I agree that it's inappropriate for the "Criticisms" section of the article as currently constituted. With regard to the appropriateness, there is already material in that section that is the opposite of criticism of the diet, and actually defends the diet instead, so the section likely needs renaming anyway.  With regard to original research, sources do not have to specifically mention the article title to be relevant to it, and the sources are secondary sources, not primary sources (primary sources would be people like you and me who might have tried the diet), so use of those sources with respect to this article is not original research.  If I were trying to present the information to advocate against the diet, that would be original research, but I'm not:  I'm just trying to present factual information to the reader so the reader can draw their own conclusions.


 * I am going to try to address some of your concerns by editing further; for convenience that means reverting once just to get a starting point. Please be patient and take a look at what I come up with. Warren Dew (talk) 18:00, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm done with my edits for now. I did end up moving the information out of the "Criticism" section to avoid the implication that the information disproves the validity of the Paleolithic diet. Warren Dew (talk) 19:01, 19 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Warren, I appreciate your willingness to address my concerns. However, as I have explained above, I believe that the material you added (bolded below) to the article violates WP:NOR. The "No original research" policy requires that sources provided to verify information added in a Wikipedia article clearly establish a relation between that information and the subject of the article, in this case, the modern dietary regimen called the "Paleolithic diet".:


 * In the roughly 10,000 years since the invention of agriculture and its consequent major change in the human diet, however, natural selection has had too little time to make the optimal genetic adaptations to the new diet.[1] Isolated dietary mutations have occurred for adult lactose tolerance in pastoral populations that came to depend on dairy after the paleolithic, and for blood types other than O which may increase tolerance of agricultural cereal grains; however, none of these mutations have spread beyond a minority of the modern human population.[53][54] Physiological and metabolic maladaptations result from the suboptimal genetic adaptations to the contemporary human diet, which in turn contribute to many of the so-called diseases of civilization.[3]


 * But I may be wrong. Which is why I am going to formally seek a third opinon on this matter. --Phenylalanine (talk) 02:32, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


 * 3rd opinion. I believe it is correct to say that "Paleolithic diet" in this context is no different from "F-Plan diet" or "Macrobiotic Diet" - it is a notable modern dietary strategy that is what its proponents say it is. A comparison with actual paleo-anthopological diet should be based on notable and reliable sources. Warren's data should not be added here but elsewhere. However, I hope editors will wikilink thoroughly and very visibly to suitable pages, so that the type of data that WD wants to add will be readily available, since otherwise you run the risk of making implied statements about the actual ancient diet that may not be supported by the best sources (and ignoring adaptive mutations). By the way, the page has a lot of repetition and IS short of criticism. Redheylin (talk) 20:36, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your input. I ordered this book a couple of days ago: It should prove to be an interesting read and will provide me with ample critical arguments to add in the article. You mentioned the article was repetitious, could you give me specific examples of this? Cheers. --Phenylalanine (talk) 00:03, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion
These questions could be addressed by this article: What percentage of the population, and in what countries, eats this way? Among which age ranges, socio-economic statusses and cultural environments is it popular? Is this a fringe diet, or is it gaining significant popularity? Addressing these questions would help frame the article's subject in a broader context. Spebudmak (talk) 03:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Congrats

 * My son, who is way “into” nutrition and fitness directed me to this article. I’m a reasonably experienced Wikipedia editor but I was struck by how well done this article is. It certainly deserves its star and I hope other editors study this article. Greg L (talk) 03:40, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Antinutrients
The lead statement you added is verifiable, but, in my opinion, it's too detailed (WP:SS). I don't see why we should highlight this particular point among all the others arguments, which is why I don't think it belongs in the lead. I moved the paragraph you added in the body of the article, and reworded and sourced the material. I hope it's alright. Thanks for bringing up the issue of anti-nutrients. You're right that the article was lacking in this regard. --Phenylalanine (talk) 05:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC) I disagree. I think it is a major support of the paleolithic diet, and should not be hidden. Rather, it should be front and center. If you don't put it back in the lead, I will. If you resist, I will continue working on it and reinforce the position with more research. If you leave the anitnutrient entry in the lead, I will step down. I think the lead says little of nothing. Instead, it needs to be a quick review of all strong points. If I am wrong in my position, then there will be enough others that will correct me, and I will step down and have learned. I do appreciate your moving the section on antinutrients out of the wrong place. Your writing style is very sophisticated and commendable, as well as hard to understand by the average joe blow. Wikipedia should be understood by all. --Campoftheamericas (talk) 06:14, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Campoftheamericas, the body of the article is roughly 24 000 characters in length (not counting spaces). According to WP:LEAD, an article of about this length should have two or three lead paragraphs, so we're spot on in this regard. In theory, I support your proposal to add more detail to the existing lead paragraphs, specifically the third one. If we mention antinutrients in the lead, we will need to specify the principal therapeutic factors which have been associated with the Paleodiet in peer-reviewed journals, in order to avoid WP:UNDUE per WP:LEAD. The principal favorable dietary factors identified in the article are: glycemic load, fatty acid composition, macronutrient composition, micronutrient density, acid-base balance, sodium-potassium ratio, fiber content, a reduced amount of antinutrients and molecular-mimicking proteins. Also, this approach proposed requires an equivalent amount of added detail for all aspects covered in the lead. So we will need to briefly note the main criticisms of the diet, in general (criticism regarding comparative life expectancy, the etiology of the diseases of affluence and the evolutionary assumptions underlying the Paleolithic diet) as well as those specific to low-carbohydrate and high-protein versions (criticism regarding the therapeutic merits and anthropological evidence). It's going to be a challenge to fit all of this new material, and possibly other required details, into the lead, per WP:LEAD, in a way that isn't tedious. But, I'm willing to try.


 * Perhaps we can work together on the article's lead section, here on this talk page, until we reach a version that is mutually satisfactory, before directly editing the lead section in the article. Thanks. --Phenylalanine (talk) 03:12, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd like to apologize. I think this is an excellent article.  Looking more closely at it, I have a hard time finding any fault.--Campoftheamericas (talk) 23:55, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I appreciate your contributions and suggestions for improving and expanding the article. --Phenylalanine (talk) 02:34, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Undue weight under Sustainability concerns?
I'm wondering if anyone else thinks this section is suffering from a slight case of WP:UNDUE? Specifically it seems like the claims in the second paragraph are entirely backed by references to one Anthony J. McMichael. As someone who has researched this topic extensively for a couple years now, I'm inclined to believe there must be more and possibly better sources for these extremely common criticisms. What are your thoughts? --WayneMokane (talk) 04:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I moved the second paragraph here so that it can be appropriately sourced and/or reworded. It appears that Anthony J. McMichael is not directly criticising the paleodiet on the grounds that it is environmentaly unsustainable. Rather, he discusses the paleodiet seperately from issue of the environmental impact of meat-based diets. We need sources raising envionmental concerns directly in relation to the Paleolithic diet per WP:NOR.


 * "Concerns have also been raised about the detrimental effects of meat-based diets on the environment. According to Anthony J. McMichael, director of the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University, 'in order to achieve a world nutritional state that is health-supporting, equitable and ecologically sustainable, we can learn much from consideration of the interplay between the evolutionary, environmental and ecological realms.' He further indicates that the level of per-person meat consumption need only be moderate for dietary optimisation in accordance with human evolutionary biology."


 * --Phenylalanine (talk) 04:12, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment
I had a look over this cooked-palaeolithic diet page, and it certainly seems to have changed, since a year or two ago. Instead of a description plus details, favouring neither side with a small pro- and con-paragraph or two, it seems that there is now a very large, undue weight given to anti-Palaeolithic diet arguments - it just looks unbalanced, IMO, by wikipedia's usual standards. I'll see eventually about suggesting various ways to put forward the pro-cooked palaeolithic diet POV and provide counterpoints to some of the pro-vegan arguments. I noticed that reference number 6 leads to an error-page, should be deleted, IMO.Loki0115 (talk) 12:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link error notice, I added a url link. Seems the "doi" is not working properly. I agree that the "Criticism of low-carb and high-protein versions" section could be condensed and trimmed a bit. I'm in the process of expanding the "Basis" section. I also have some material to add to the "Criticism and controversies" section. Ideally, the "Basis" section should take up at least as much space as both controversy sections combined. Thanks. --Phenylalanine (talk) 22:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

One other thing I have a problem with. Wikipedia entries seem to be using american english spelling versions(eg:- "paleolithic" instead of the British-English "palaeolithic". Is this mandatory, or are we allowed to provide alternative British English spellings in the main text?Loki0115 (talk) 12:37, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Both versions are fine, see WP:ENGVAR. --Phenylalanine (talk) 22:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Loki0115, both spelling versions are fine, but you can't use both in the same article. "If an article has evolved using predominantly one variety, the whole article should conform to that variety, unless there are reasons for changing it on the basis of strong national ties to the topic. In the early stages of writing an article, the variety chosen by the first major contributor to the article should be used, unless there is reason to change it on the basis of strong national ties to the topic. Where an article that is not a stub shows no signs of which variety it is written in, the first person to make an edit that disambiguates the variety is equivalent to the first major contributor." (WP:ENGVAR) --Phenylalanine (talk) 23:22, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'd thought it was OK to mix, my mistake.Loki0115 (talk) 14:08, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem. Cheers. --Phenylalanine (talk) 15:14, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Pictures
This article had two pictures of seafood dishes and one of a vegan (all vegetable) dish. That gave a misleading visual impression for a diet one of whose major features is meat; paleo is decidedly not a subset of pisco vegetarianism. I've replaced one of the seafood pictures (the tuna steak picture in the body of the article) with a meat picture, specifically a paleo style pork roast dinner. A paleo style ungulate might be better - a grass fed beef steak, for example - but I couldn't find one on short notice.Warren Dew (talk) 07:34, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Nice work. Cheers, Thermoproteus (talk) 04:56, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Raw Paleolithic diet
Discussion copied from User talk:Loki0115

Hi Loki, thank you for your contributions. Can you provide a reliable source for: "though some adherents choose to follow a raw version of the Palaeolithic Diet." I am not aware of any notable Paleolithic diet proponents who advocate the consumption of raw paleolithic foods over cooked ones. Cheers, Thermoproteus (talk) 20:40, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

There are some forums catering for those specifically following a raw version of the Palaeolithic Diet:-

http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/ http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawpaleodiet/ http://www.rawpaleodiet.com/

Here's an article :-

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/the-raw-meat-diet-do-you-have-the-stomach-for-the-latest-celebrity-food-fad-493908.html

(I should add that rawpaleodieters also use the term "raw meat diet" or "raw animal food diet" to refer to their diet).

It can be a bit confusing as the term "Raw paleolithic diet" is also, occasionally, misused by a few people who eat a rawpalaeo diet but also consume raw dairy, but the above websites are for those following a non-dairy version.

Oh, and here's a websites' resume covering the issue:-

"Several of the primary advocates of the partially-cooked Paleolithic, Caveman, Neanderthin, and Paleothin diets, as well as the Atkins diet, have stated that one improvement which could be made to their systems would be to find high-quality meats and eat them raw rather than lightly cooked. It is becoming known in the raw-foods world that some followers of the Paleolithic, Atkins and Zone diets eat all-raw versions of those diets; such diets include raw animal products, but the "purist" Paleo diets exclude raw dairy, while the Zone diet and the Atkins diet include it." taken from:-

http://www.rawpaleodiet.org/rvaf-overview.html

Loki0115 (talk) 14:02, 27 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Loki, the Independent article doesn't mention the "Paleolithic/Caveman/Stone Age/hunter-gatherer diet" and the other websites are self-published sources. You need a third-party reliable reference indicating that these sites are notable. --Thermoproteus (talk) 21:01, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

You're missing the point; "raw palaeolithic dieters" also refer to their diet by a number of different alternate terms(such as "raw meat diet", as mentioned specifically in the Independent on Sunday article). Loki0115 (talk) 14:13, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * But the Independant article does not mention that "raw palaeolithic dieters" also refer to their diet by a number of different alternate terms, such as "raw meat diet". The standard in wikipedia is "verifiability" and "notability", which has not been established. --Thermoproteus (talk) 15:04, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

It's irrelevant whether the Independent article refers to raw, paleolithic dieters or as "raw meat dieters" - it's made clear on a number of rawpalaeo websites/forums that  the terms are used to describe the same group of people. The fact that the Independent choose to use only 1 of the types of official description doesn't change that as it's still referring to the same group of people. Besides, a rather obvious clue is given by the fact that the 1st paragraph refers to raw cavemen:- "Cavemen may have thought nothing of eating the raw flesh of a slaughtered animal, but things have progressed since." Since cavemen lived in the Palaeolithic, the article makes it clear that it's referring to raw, palaeolithic diets, ipso facto Loki0115 (talk) 15:50, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Loki0115 is correct that editors do not need to turn off their brains. If A=definition C, and B=definition C, then sources referring to both terms can be used.  However, I think that we need a ref for these definitions that is substantially more reliable than e-mail lists and webforums.  Presumably they exist and can be found.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:53, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, there was a previous discussion about what could be included on the raw foodism page, and it was stated by the one involved in 3rd-party abritration, that it wasn't necessary to be too precise about exact definitions(at the time someone had suggested that only info about raw foodism should be included in that article, with info on raw foods(general or specific) being excluded and given a different page - this was disagreed with as raw foods are relevant to raw foodism. As regards newspaper articles, there are some on raw, palaeolithic diets, however given that these are journalists who are not raw animal foodists, it's hardly surprising that they use terms which are more self-explanatory to to non-rawists such as "raw meat diet/raw meat diet for humans" rather than "raw, paleolithic diet".

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if celebrities such as Uma Thurman and Mel Gibson follow a raw, paleolithic diet, as mentioned in that article(and others) then it's certainly notable enough to mention it, even if other alternative terms are used such as "raw meat diet" toi descirbe their diet. While there are several raw-animal-foodist websites which go into an explanation of the different terms used to describe the same bunch of raw animal foodists/raw paleolithic dieters, there are also some non-rawpalaeo info-sites which discuss the differences, such as this one:- http://www.newtreatments.org/diet.php

or general paleolithic diet resources, such as the archive-/info-website paleodiet.com which mentions that " A small subset of the people eating only raw foods are eating animal foods (RAF). And some of them have put up a resource page for Raw Paleolithic Diets."

I doubt that newspaper journalists are remotely interested in discussing the different terms used as their readers are overwhelmingly non-rawists and wouldn't be interested. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable to accept the use of alternate terms which are, anyway, used by rawists and non-rawists alike. Here's one more extract(from a book about meat) which makes it clear that what is being reffered to is a "raw, palaeolithic diet":-

"The main idea behind the Paleo diet is the notion that although we are people of the twenty-first century, genetically we remain citizens of the Paleolithic era. Up until five hundred generations ago, humankind hunted and foraged. We lived on lean protein, wild plants and fruits. But with the agricultural revolution that began some ten thousand years ago, we took an unnatural dietary detour—one consisting of root vegetables, grains and meat from domesticated animals—for which millions of years of evolution hadn’t prepared us. The mismatch between our modern diet and our Paleolithic genes, these scientists argued, sowed the seeds for modern illnesses and chronic disease. Their prescription for health? A return to the cave and a realignment of diet with our ancient genome.

That’s where Vonderplanitz and the Paleo diet types part ways. Ac-cording to Vonderplanitz, not only did we take the wrong turn with invention of the plow and the hoe, but with the taming of fire. "Heating food destroys many health-giving properties and produces disease-causing toxins that accelerate bodily deterioration associated with ag-ing processes," he writes in The Recipe for Living without Disease. "Cooking protein-foods, including all meat, above 104 degrees F pro-duces toxins. Higher cooking temperatures create more dangerous toxins … that have proved to be carcinogenic in laboratory animals." taken from:-

http://meatalovestory.com/excerpt.html


 * Loki, as established by the link above, Aajonus Vonderplanitz is indeed a notable raw foodist and advocate of a dietary system that resembles and is based on the Paleolithic diet (although he alows raw milk). As such, I think it would be appropriate to briefly mention him in the Paleolithic diet section, as well as Joseph Mercola and Ray Mears (author). However, his diet is not striktly speaking "paleo" (re: raw milk) and as such does not constitute an example of a "raw paleolithic diet". The sources presented here fall short of establishing the notability of such a diet. Cheers, Thermoproteus (talk) 04:23, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

You're missing the point. The term "raw paleolothic diet", while nearly always used to describe those who follow a raw version of the Paleolithic diet, is also used, on occasion, to refer to the Primal Diet as it is virtually the same, with the sole exception being the raw dairy.

But that's all besides the point. The fact is that plenty of people are following a raw version of the Palaeolithic Diet, celebrities such as Mel Gibson/Uma Thurman etc., so that is most certainly notable. The articles in question may refer to alternate terms such as "raw meat diet", "raw meat diet for humans",but that's fine as rawpaleodieters also use those alternate terms all the time(as evidenced by those websites I mentioned). Expecting a newspaper article to discuss the difference in terminology is too extreme as it's too vague a subject for a newspaper to deal with(especially since its target audeince are non-rawists). Plus, the actual add-on to that sentence is simply a statement of fact, not needing more than a few references to general rawpalaeodiet info-sites, there are no claims re health or whatever. Anyway, I'll discuss this with a more experienced wikipedian than myself and see what his contribution is on this issue.Loki0115 (talk) 12:36, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, please read WP:VER, WP:RS and WP:SPS. Cheers, Thermoproteus (talk) 15:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thermoproteus, is it, in your opinion, possible for a person to follow a diet plan that is both paleo and raw? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:01, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. --Thermoproteus (talk) 04:29, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you think that the article Paleolithic diet is actually harmed by mentioning (but not dwelling on) this possibility? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:47, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Adherents are free to restrict themselves to 100% raw food if they like, but the diet does not establish such a restriction. That was already made clear in the article. Speaking of a "raw version of the diet" is unnecessary and potentially misleading as it suggests that a variant of the Paleodiet establishes such a restriction. The notability of such a dietary system remains unverified. --Thermoproteus (talk) 05:20, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you aware that WP:Notability does not restrict the contents of an article? Individual, undisputed facts do not have to prove their notability to comply with Wikipedia's policies.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * it is usually not acceptable in Wikipedia to cite self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, knols, podcasts, vcasts, patents, patent applications, forum postings, and similar sources.... if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so. (WP:SPS) --Thermoproteus (talk) 21:33, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * True, but you have selectively quoted the policy to emphasize your point, and ignored the fundamental point of the policy, which applies to facts that might reasonably be disputed. In this case, nobody seems to challenge the accuracy of the information.  In fact, it's so obvious that there may be no need to provide a source at all:   it's sort of like saying that "Some people who eat animals eat birds."  So leave aside the question of how to prove this non-contentious fact:  proof is not actually needed for undisputed and unchallenged facts.
 * The policy that you need to be arguing from is WP:DUE: From the perspective of Paleolithic diet (not from the perspective of Raw food diet), how important is the overlap between paleo diets with raw food diets?
 * I suspect that the answer is "not very". (Note that "not very" is different from "not at all".)  Does that sound about right to you?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:30, 31 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Happy New Year. I see a difference between:
 * (1) stating that people can eat a raw, paleolithic diet—this is fine, and I can make that clearer in the article if necessary;
 * (2) affirming that some people do eat a raw diet that is based on paleolithic food groups, for whatever reasons, e.g. culture, personal preference, etc.—I believe that this falls in the WP:DUE category as you describe;
 * (3) asserting that some people follow a version of the Paleolithic diet that calls for the restriction of cooked foods, i.e. a seperate dietary system advocated for its supposed superior health benefits or for other well defined reasons—this requires proper verification by at least one non-self-published source.
 * "though some adherents choose to follow a raw version of the diet" implies (2) and strongly suggests (3). That is why I believe this statement should be removed. --Thermoproteus (talk) 07:07, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Can you construct an acceptable (to you) sentence (or half of a sentence) that simply acknowledges that some people eat a raw-only or raw-primarily paleo diet, with a link to raw food diet and without details? (I agree that details such as perceived health benefits require a reliable source.)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:21, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Do you believe it's worth mentioning that "some people who eat an Atkins diet eat a raw, Atkins diet" in an article on the Atkins diet? If you look hard enough, I'm sure you'll find Atkins adherents who eat their diet all raw. Has Atkins ever stressed that his diet should not be eaten raw? I don't think so. Is a raw food diet compatible with the Atkins diet then? Most probably. But has Atkins ever written about raw food diets, their health benefits or their disadvantages, or about a raw atkins diet? Suppose he hasn't? Do you still think it's relevant to mention that some Atkins adherents eat a raw food diet, whithout having at least one non-self-published source establishing the noteworthiness of such a raw diet? I can assure you that the situation is indentical for the Paleolithic diet. Cheers, Thermoproteus (talk) 22:58, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

(Undent) The existence of sources is not really the problem, but since you seem hung up on it, here are quotations from three books: "Some people make a sincere effort to duplicate the raw Paleolithic diet, but it requires a level of dedication few of us will ever have." (ISBN 9780944501153 p. 31) "However, some things that are allowed on your Basic Low-Carb Diet are not allowed on a Paleo Diet, because they wouldn't have been available to cavemen. Ray Audette gives a simple guideline: if you couldn't gather it with a sharp stick and a rock, and eat it raw, it's not on the diet." (ISBN 9781592330409 p. 122) "Our Paleolithic ancestors ate a great variety of natural raw foods..." (ISBN 9781570672040 p.123)

Now can we get past the issue of finding the perfect source to connect a Paleolithic diet with raw foods, and talk about how to briefly acknowledge the occasional intersection of the two diets? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The sources provided above are self-published. I googled the first book "Everything I Know about Nutrition..." and found no reliable third-party sources that mention the book, only online book stores. Also, it's not clear whether the authors are referring to the ancestral raw Paleolithic diet or to a modern dietary regimen akin to this ancient diet. Regarding the second source, Ray Audette is a notable Paleolithic diet proponent and he does not advocate a raw food diet. In his book "Neanderthin" (ISBN 0312975910), he states that foods must be edible raw, but can be eaten cooked. With regard to the third book, it is true that our Paleolithic ancestors ate a raw food diet before they mastered cooking around 250,000 years ago (maybe earlier), in the Upper Paleolithic. However, the subject-matter of the "Paleolithic diet" article is not ancestral hunter-gatherer dietary patterns, rather the topic of the article is a modern dietary program designed based on past and present hunter-gatherer diets. Furthermore, apart from cautioning against certain cooking methods (microwaving, high-heat frying, etc.), notable proponents of Paleolithic-type diets do not restrict cooked foods. To use an analogy, the Atkins diet may, for example, be inspired by the traditional inuit diet (partially raw diet), but that doesn't mean it's worth mentioning that some adherents eat a raw Atkins diet. For that, you need a reliable source establishing the noteworthiness of such a diet. Again, if necessary, I can make it a bit clearer that the Paleolithic diet does not prohibit the consumption of an all-raw diet, but I believe that it is not worth mentioning that "some adherents choose to follow a raw version of the diet", without proper sourcing, just as the fact that "Some people who eat animals eat birds" is not noteworthy in an article on "animal foods" unless there is something noteworthy about birds (established by proper sourcing) that makes them worthy of mention in that article. Addendum: This source provided by Loki refers to a "raw meat diet", but it's not clear whether it's a "raw paleolithic diet" since the article does not mention whether such a diet also includes raw dairy products and raw grain and legume sprouts and plant oils. --Phenylalanine (talk) 03:53, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Your rejection of the sources is irrelevant. WP:V requires sources solely for quotations and those facts that are challenged or likely to be challenged.  None of those apply.  Wikipedia's policies do not actually require any source at all for this undisputed fact.
 * Your rejection of the information as not being noteworthy is unimportant. We do not have to comply with WP:N's criteria for every single half-sentence in an article.
 * As for your comparison, nobody seems to actually follow a "raw Atkins diet". The term is used occasionally as a (usually degoratory) description (e.g., "That's basically a raw Atkins diet"), and I've found a few sources that talk about animal (cat) foods that way, but when you strip animal references and nonsense pages, Google finds less than twenty pages using that phrase.  By contrast, an otherwise identical searches for "raw paleo diet" and "raw paleolithic diet" find more than twelve thousand (unique) pages.  Raw food diets deserve a (passing) mention in Paleolithic diet simply because it's done and discussed; they do not in Atkins diet because that is not done (or at least not discussed).
 * I'm not at all convinced that the existing sentence is the right one to include. I might suggest something that emphasizes the normality of cooking food on this diet, using raw food diets by way of contrast.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:10, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * If you don't count webpages with similar content, google turns up 174 pages for "raw paleo diet", and 106 pages for "raw paleolithic diet". I looked at those pages and was unable to find one newspaper or magazine article referring to these terms, only forums, blogs, personal websites, youtube, etc. In fact, 67 of the "raw paleo diet" webpages and 18 of the "raw paleolithic diet" webpages are download pages for a Raw Paleo Diet Forum navigator toolbar . If you don't take these pages into account, that's roughly 100 relevant results for "raw paleo diet" or "raw paleolithic diet". Based on these statistics, I would say that no more than 500 people follow this diet. The "raw paleo diet" does not seem to be much more noteworthy than the "raw Atkins diet". Cheers, Phenylalanine (talk) 21:46, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Just to answer Phenylaline's point re raw meat diets. Actually, the very first sentence of that article contains a very clear reference to cavemen eating raw flesh, so it's obvious that it's referring to a "raw, palaeolithic diet". Secondly, Phenylalaline is quite wrong in stating that the Palaeolithic Diet refers, vaguely, to a copying of past and present hunter-gather societies(as that is, actually, what the Weston-Price Diet is all about - I'm sure there's a wikipedia entry on that, somewhere). In fact, the Palaeolithic Diet is a specific reference to the practising of diets followed in the Palaeolithic era(between 2.5 million years ago to 10,000 years ago), before the start of the Neolithic when non-Palaeo foods were introduced. And since cooking was only invented in the tail-end(c.last 10%) of the Palaeolithic era(c.250,000 years ago), some proponents of the Palaeolithic Diet advocate eating raw rather than cooked. So, since a raw,palaeolithic diet also fits in with the definition of what a Palaeolithic Diet is, given the above points, it needs to be mentioned.
 * Loki, I do not think that it is obvious that the reference to cavemen eating raw flesh implies that the diet they are referring to restricts raw milk and raw cereal and legume sprouts. Your other point I addressed above. Cheers, Phenylalanine (talk) 21:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I seem to recall that Ray Audette stated once that ideally meats could be eaten raw, but that one should avoid raw supermarket meats like the plague. I have his book at home, so will cull the book for relevant quotations, for tomorrow.Loki0115 (talk) 23:12, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

While it's only anecdotal, it's been pointed out on some rawpalaeo forums that Dr Atkins once stated that his diet would be healthiest followed in raw form. Dr Atkins also added a positive review/blurb of the raw meat guru Vonderplanitz's book "We Want To Live":- ""Revolutionary! This is an exciting book. An important book." - Dr. Robert Atkins, M.D., author of The Atkins Diet New York City"

I agree, though, that raw, palaeolithic diets should only be mentioned in passing as most people following the Paleolithic Diet do so from a cooked perspective. I would be willing to accept a rewording of that half-sentence, though, personally, I find it already rather minimalist and unobtrusive in tone. I certainly don't think it would be appropriate for health-benefits or much greater details re extra paragraphs to be added, just the fact that there is an alternative (raw) interpretation of the Palaeolithic Diet, nothing more - it is, after all, included within the general Palaeolithic Diet definition.Loki0115 (talk) 15:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Here are the relevant paragraphs in which Ray Audette, the Palaeo guru, mentions the possibility of eating raw meats:-

"According to your theory, shouldn't I eat all my meat raw?" (Audette's reply:- <"In a perfect world, yes>. But modern farming and food processing techniques preclude this practice. Meats, poultry, eggs, and seafood are prone to contamination by bacteria(salmoneall, e coil, etc.) and parasites(trichinosis, tapeworms etc.) and should be cooked or dried enough to sterilize them. When available, irradiated foods will eliminate this risk, and make steak tartare and raw eggs much more possible. Fruit and vegetables in the diet can compensate for the slight loss of vitamins and nutrients caused by light cooking, but these shouldbe washed throughly to remove bacteria, germs and pesticide residue."

and:- "Should I eat meat raw?" Although all meat is edible raw, you shouldn't eat supermarket meat raw. Proper care must be taken to cook or dry commercial meat to eliminate all bacterial contamination, which can cause food-poisoning. Any of the vitamins destroyed by the cooking or drying process are easily replaced by eating fruits and vegetables."

followed below by:-

" many aboriginal North Americans and European explorers ate an exclusively raw meat diet in the form of pemmican"(actually, pemmican is raw meat mixed with heated fats, so Audette is partially wrong, here).

Anyway, it's clear that a logical interpretation of Audette's generalised definition of the Palaeolithic Diet(consisting of all those foods which are edible raw without needing to undergo a technological process(such as cooking/chemicals etc.) in order to become edible) would presume the consumption of raw meat as cooking requires technology in the form of fire, which is the only reason why he would have to go in for such an explanation. Note that his main concern is the consumption of raw supermarket meats. In other words, the implication is that if one is eating raw, wild meats(such as the Inuit do, who are also mentioned in Audette's work as a prime example), then everything is OK. Plus, he goes on to describe how the Inuit and Native Americans would eat raw(ie wild) meats with no issues. So, other than the issue of there being a community of rawpaleodieters out there, there is the problem that the main definition of what a Palaeolithic Diet is, also includes the possibility of raw-meat-consumption, given the above points.Loki0115 (talk) 23:12, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I think I messed up PH's post, as I didn't expect him to write there? Also, does anyone know how I can underline important points when discussing on wikipedia? Thanks Loki0115 (talk) 23:12, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it's worth mentioning Audette's views on cooking in the Paleodiet article as he is a notable advocate of the diet: Something like "According to Ray Audette, meat and vegetables are slightly less nutritious when cooked, but supermarket meats should not be eaten raw, unless they have been irradiated, since they are prone to contamination by bacteria and parasites." Note: I agree that excessive cooking may lead to nutrient loss, but I believe that lightly cooking certain vegetables does increase nutrient availability. With regard to meat, cooking seems to have different effects on different nutrients.. So, Audette's blanket statement that meat and vegetables are slightly less nutritious when cooked is not totally accurate. --Phenylalanine (talk) 00:34, 3 January 2009 (UTC)