I have a high respect for Sally Fallon at the Weston A. Price website too. But she is not a doctor nor has she been published in the medical journals. Therefore, you wouldn't get very far arguing that her opinion is more important than Cordain who is a recognized expert on Paleolithic Nutrition. However, I agree for the most part with Fallon's review.
Cordain created Paleo Diet out of his understanding of current nutritional guidelines
despite , not because of, what he knows of paleo nutrition. He has been heavily influenced by the low-fat phenomenon. He truly believes there are studies that show saturated fats are bad. Of course, these studies are biased in their conclusions, because the results were predetermined before the studies began as Dr. Enig has shown.
Cordain's Paleo Diet Book contradicts the evidence he has actually published in peer-reviewed medical journals on the hunter-gatherer diet. His articles show that the paleo diet consisted of:
1. Greater than 50% animal foods (65% animal, 35% plant)
2. Protein intake: 19 - 35%
3. Carbohydrate intake: 22 - 40% (high fiber, whole plant foods)
4. Fat intake: 28 - 58%
[Note: Cordain/Eaton include high fiber plants as a percentage of energy although these would be substracted from the low-carbers carb count. Therefore, protein intake would actually be more than carb percentage.] This diet was likely ketogenic.
I agree with Cordain and disagree with Fallon that there is less fat in wild game when one analyzes the same species in the wild compared to the same species that is farm-fed. Cows fed grains have more saturated fat than cows allowed to feed on pasture grasses. Dr. Eades in PPLP supports this.
I agree with Cordain's view of less salt consumption and disagree with Fallon. Although Fallon is correct that there are salt brines and flats around places like the Dead Sea and African marsh grasses were in some cultures added to foods, Paleolithic man designates man from a period of time extending from 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago. The period in which added salts would most probably have been used in food preservation and diet would have most likely occurred during the Upper Paleolithic (tool industry) period from 40,000 years ago. The availability would have been limited by region. Most paleontological studies suggest that the region most likely to be the birthplace of hominids was the African savannah which is unlikely to have had much salt availability.
Fallon also argues against Cordain that Paleolithic man ate grains. She says:
"Cordain makes a lot of other crazy claims. He says that Paleolithic peoples had no carbohydrate foods like grains or starchy root foods—never mind reports of grains found in the fire ashes of some of the earliest human groups, or the widespread use of tubers among primitive peoples, usually fermented or slow cooked." Here I disagree strongly with Fallon who is not in favor of low-carbing and wants to insist that Paleolithic man ate grains and starches. (Fallon is for saturated fat, yes, but she is also for grains and starches.) The only primate to ever eat grains was man. No modern primates eat grains. Grains and starches became a staple in the human diet only with the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago.
In other words, if the Paleolithic period were compared to a 24 hour day, the period without high consumption of salt and grains would be 23 hours and 54 minutes of that 24 hour day. That means man primarily went
without large quantities of salt, grain and starch for 99.9% of the Paleolithic period.
So Cordain's research shows that the Paleo Diet consisted of mostly fats, then protein, then carbs. I call that low-carb. Cordain's book Paleo Diet is afraid of saturated fat, but against grains and starches. Cordain is well aware that Paleolithic man did not eat skinless chicken breast but he recommends it. So much for science.
Cordain's articles:
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...&threadid=50470
On Sally Fallon:
Sally Fallon is the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats (with Mary G. Enig, PhD), as well as of numerous articles on the subject of diet and health. She is President of the Weston A Price Foundation and founder of A Campaign for Real Milk. She is the mother of four healthy children raised on whole foods including butter, cream, eggs and meat.