You Probably Ought Be Done With Nora Gedgaudas and Lisa
A comment on a Facebook post:
#AHS16 was rather fantastic, overall – or at least an obvious improvement from the low carb BS peddling that it was early on. Stephans presentation has to be one of my favorite this year.
But the question is: Have you, by any chance, had a “clash” with this years Nora Gedgaudas’ presentation? Because hooooly shit…
Her arrogance is beyond belief. In the Q&A she practically said to this one guy, who apparently noticed an improvement when he introduced starches into his diet, that “he is sick, because otherwise he wouldn’t need glucose” and “he better find out why he needs carbs before he fucking dies because of the poisonous glucose.” – obviously I’m paraphrazing. But in al honesty, her whole presentation was totally ridiculous. Amongst other silliness, she also abused Weston A. Price’s findings to manufacture “evidence” for her low carb fairytale.
What someone needs to do is go to AHS17 or whenever the next damn AHS is gonna be and explain to all of those “evolutionary” minded low carb gurus that Humans, in fact, evolved in the tropics for millions (like tens of millions) of yars – how can anyone miss that?! There is no winters, or ice age or whatever carbohydrate shortage there. In the tropics there is only dry and wet season – and the only food that is actually seasonal there is animal foods NOT carbohydrates. Who made paleo low carb? How is this even possible? And to present the Inuit as paleo poster boys? Are you fucking kidding me? They came at least 5000 years after agriculture. Is this just me, or is the whole low carb paleo movement delirious?!
I saw them both at PaleoFX. We never exchanged even a glance.
Same with the DR. GRACE, who goes around the world trying to scare people off of anything she doesn’t approve of. She’s next, when I get around to it.
But just as dismissive.
UPDATE: Everything You Believe About What Paleoman Ate Is Way Wrong
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I don’t understand why she’s even allowed ro present in these conferences anymore. She’s an idiot. I couldn’t believe she’s still talking the same shit after all these years. It’s surreal.
It’s really really confusing to me as well. What makes it even more “amazing”, or as you said it even better, surreal, is that her talk was followed by whistling and cheering. This gives an impression, at least to me, that her weird ideas still gather a lot of support with the AHS crowd.
Besides, I noticed some pretty fringy characters attending. Raw meat eating, zero carb, feeding their children exclusively animal diet, and so on. Those people give off some sort of a “cultish” vibe – very similar to hardcore vegan folk. I don’t know, I like AHS very much. I certainly hope crazy zero carbers don’t hijack it…
LOL, I thought the photo is for the avatar. Sorry for that.
Ha, no prob on the photo.
“What makes it even more ‘amazing’, or as you said it even better, surreal, is that her talk was followed by whistling and cheering. This gives an impression, at least to me, that her weird ideas still gather a lot of support with the AHS crowd.”
Well, now check this out. Of all the AHS16 videos uploaded so far, she has WAY more views than any other, except one which focusses on activity, I believe.
youtube.com/user/AncestryFoundation/videos
So, yea…
I view the Inuit and Siouxans as regressed Asian neolithics. They’re proof that paleo still works. But they’re descended from agricultural cultures, and carry their adapted genetics. It is not surprising that their Southern relatives – Incas. Aztecs, Navajos, etc. – developed Asian-style agriculture using indigenous grains and animals.
They also built much more durable cultures than the Northern tribes. They were not starting from scratch in developing civilizations. If you look at 3000 year old Salish basket construction and use, it is more or less identical to 10,000 year old neolithic Turkish basketry. These peoples had not forgotten that they were Neolithics.
IMO the Eurasian cultural traditions were preserved by the women who made the baskets. They collected, cooked (hot rock) and stored meat and grains in them. 3000 year old Salish baskets are identical to 19th century Salish berry, clam and dried fish baskets.
You and I had talked on FTA comments, about a year or so ago, about how worn out and haggard Nora looked on a recent podcast. Now I see she is wearing a ‘wrap’, in the middle of the summer, to cover up her plumpish arms and body.
I’m not trying to make this personal, she certainly isn’t obese…….but if you are promoting something as the ‘Universal way we humans should eat’, shouldn’t you at least ‘look’ the part?? Was Jimmy there? Another
shinning example of VLCHF.
Vegans may be crazy Mo-Fo’s, but at least most of their main drum beaters are very slim (too slim?).
Jimmy was there, and we were very cordial to one another.
Just watched Guyenet’s presentation. It was AWESOME! And much of his facts, unintentionally shot holes in Nora’s B.S.
Definitely shoots holes in the ‘calories don’t matter’ B.S., usually associated with low carb.
You’re too kind – really. You should send that fat fucker to school – preferably one with a gym!
The Paleo low carbers are the worst. They’re absolutely cultish and self-righteous because they’re certain that their diets are evolutionary correct.
My cousin was “paleo” during her pregnancy (and to her that meant copious amounts of meat and minimal carbs). Her baby was born premature, hypoglycemic and with respiratory problems.
I wanted to punch people in the face when they said, astonished, “She did everything right!”
If she’d been vegan and her baby had had these issues, it would have made the news and she’d have been crucified.
Low carbers are the new vegans, and they’re putting their children at risk just as much.
Oh and by the way, she’s still low carb and torturing her kids with the diet.
Oh and by the way, she’s still low carb and torturing her kids with the diet.
How old is her kid ??? Putting a kid on low carb for no other reason than following a fringe diet made popular by strangers on the internet who were obese as adults and lost weight that way is past insane. You should report it for the sake of the kid’s health.
Well, actually L. Amber O’Hearn presented in AHS16, with a presentation “Optimal Weaning”, where she basically said that “low carb is best for weaning”. She, in fact, spent half the presentation “bragging” how her 2 year old never had any plant food at all. The other half was standard bullshit of how “ketones are magic baby fuel”. New vegans indeed.
All this made me think yesterday and I might have had some sort of a eureka moment (at least for me): While everybody is bickering and arguing what little detail about ancient human diets we can glean from chemical and physical analysis of teeth, bones and other fossil material, there might be one super simple method that is way better than any of aforementioned.
Finding a broad(universally foundational?) ancestral diet is much easier when you accept, that primates, and especially human primates, are opportunistic foragers. Reconstruct ecosystem (as close as possible, doesn’t have to be even close to perfect), then apply optimal foraging theory (many modern anthropologist have actually applied OFT when studying contemporary HG – they found for example, if there is honey available, hunters stop hunting ASAP and go for the honey).
They almost certainly ate whatever gave them the highest return on investment. And guess what that is in the tropics? Especially for early Australopithecines and early Homo that were lacking modern humans’ cognitive sophistication and technological development.
The idea meat was a super valuable resources for early hominids is an assumption that is often stated without looking at handling time and costs, and other available resources. Only crazy ones go chasing after big animals which then have to be heavily processed (mind you that early hominid molars lack shearing surfaces which would make the chewing of fresh vertebrate muscle, unmodified by cooking, very challenging), when everyone else can pick up plenty berries, fruits, honey, bugs, eggs, smaller creatures, dig for USOs (many edible raw) and such.
Ancestral human diets would be animal-based only if there was a huge shortage of carbohydrate in Mio-Plio-Pleistoecene Africa. Essentially, she’s convinced either that:
(1) one crazy group of primates abstained from eating carbohydrate, all while living in the tropics, where fruit, honey and USOs (all edible raw) are plentiful and easily accessible, or
(2) that there is no carbohydrate in the tropics.
You tell me which of those is more ludicrous. I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of super amazing mental gymnastics she must have performed to make either of those conclusions.
Besides, Human hunting is a dietary luxury only possible when frequent failure doesn’t seriously impact food supply, because it is largely maintained by simple foraging. And that’s exactly what you can see in the anthropological record.
Maybe Nora should study some more actually paleoanthropology and modern HG anthropology and watch a bit less of The Flintstones.
I am finding that ‘non religionizing’ food has made me happier, more sane, more relaxed… and shocker… fitter and stronger than I have even been! down to junior year in high school weight…
so for me – I tend to be one of those cuckoo guys who is pretty meat and eggs (a lot of it raw), BUT I reading this site I’ve added a nightly cocktail (again, most nights) of greens, inulin, acacia fiber, tigernut starch (or some combo of) and feel a lot better
I do a lot of fasting
when I really get sick of that crap – I just take it as a sign that my body wants something else and instead of going to cake and candy or eating meat if it sounds unappetizing to me – I have started to enjoy stuff like rolled oats and fruit (soaking it in cashew milk or almond milk is awesome) or fried potatoes (I keep a pound or too always steamed and cooled in the fridge) then I have that for a few meals in a day… then back to my ‘regular’ meaty stuff
yay flexibility…
You ungrateful cur. By your own admission, Nora treated you like a king, and this is how you repay her? No wonder you end up ostracized (or driven in shame) from every community of which you are a part.
Everything they say about me is true, and understated.
I think I read Nora’s book
I liked it… but if indeed that is what she said about someone responding well to glucose that something is wrong… well then that’s wrong too
luckily, us humans are always right and wrong about something all the time
I must agree with an earlier poster – I realize I haven’t listened as much to her because imo if someone is really living all the time off of whole foods meats and fats then should look the part – I know when I do I get leaner – so its’ the opposite of the Mark Sisson effect – because of his measured approach I listen to him… but I listened to him first because he looks like someone who I think exhibits power and strength and masculinity
Richard.
This is what any rational person that has a basic grasp of health and nutrition has been saying about all of these paleo guru’s that you have been promoting over the last 8 years.
I don’t check these paleo blogs like yours often anymore, but when I do, I’m still somewhat surprised that some of you people are still falling for some of this clap trap.
Let me guess, even those of you that have dug yourself out of the lowcarb/paleo rabbit hole, probably still believe that your high LDL is fine because it’s big and fluffy right?
I haven’t blogged about cholesterol in years, James. I never had elevated LDL anyway…so was never a HUGE Fluffy issue for me anyway. I get your point, though.
If you poked around here a bit more, you’d find it’s about two to three years that I have been pretty damn contrarian about all things Paleo and low carb. My recent podcast with Abel James is pretty much my current definitive statement and it’s contra-Paleo way more than Paleo, definitely anti-LC and especially gluttony.
Thanks for dropping by.
It’s funny when everyone still describes you as a “Paleo” blogger, or coach, or whatever, even though you keep telling them how grains are not bad at all, that legumes are in fact super good, that fruit is not a poisonous fructose cocktail, that tubers are much more than a toxic bag of alcaloid death, and such similar sinful things. Haha.
“Paleo’s bastard sons” is what we are. Embrace it.
Here’s an “update” of sorts: freetheanimal.com/2016/09/everything-believe-paleoman.html