Ah, quite true, both in spirit and also in how some people follow either one...

Yes, I too call it "broth" and yes, I'm aware of a lot of the overlap (or borrowing) from Weston Price... The "cult" reference is because paleo has gotten so trendy and dogmatic and being part of any group with those characteristics is really unlike me...

Yet, here I am, trying to pick through yet more information to find the nuggets that will help me personally...

Yes, Wahls' approach of massively increasing nutrients from vegetables (and berries) along with some other requirements does push her ketogenic plan in a different direction from typical low carb ones.

The ketogenic plan, by the way, has six cups of vegetables, not the 9 cups of her other plans. Still far from the 20g of Atkins, probably higher than most anyone goes on OWL (because most people would add other rungs, not just more and more veggies).

I'm currently eating AIP and consuming what feels like a massive amount of vegetables, and I think I'm not quite at her 6 cups - and my total carbs are just over 50g most days...

"Cult" can be used towards Paleo only in jest; it does not qualify. There is no person at the center who is infallible, there is no organized "shunning" of those who don't follow the rules, and it does not make demands on people's lives which are detrimental to them... quite the contrary.

My own experience is that all carbs are not created equal, and that ratios, timing and size of meals, and even calories can create variables.

For the past couple of years, I've been sick and my weight hasn't budged. I took steps to address my Adrenal Fatigue, and my carbs have gone up with yogurt and more berries and nuts... and I've lost four pounds in a little over two weeks.

It might be, as so many folks say, that they "only lose on Induction level carbs" but it might be different when their bodies heal up? Look at the dramatic difference brought about by people getting their thyroid supported!

In the case of The Wahls Protocol, this is for people with auto-immune disorders; and hers was very serious. I can only think she got some benefit from the Paleo regimen or she would not have modified it in order to get better. She might have been short of the very nutrients vegetables have; people who were not as sick might not need as many... and those who aren't sick might not need much at all.

All good points, WereBear (as usual!)

Wahls says in her book that going Primal helped her - but not to improve, just to stabilize. When she went off it, she immediately declined. She was primal and also taking many supplements. Her next step was to find the equivalent dose of the supplements in whole food instead - that's why she advocates the amount and proportion of vegetables she does, believing that the whole food provides much more than supplements ever could. And that's when she started to improve (and took dairy out of her diet - from what I understand she has always had a problem with eggs).

Her stance on eggs & dairy is the hard-line paleo one of "eliminate" except that she actually says that some people can tolerate some of them, she advocates a minimum 30 day exclusion and then testing for tolerance. The plans (3 levels of her diet) are laid out as she did them herself, and that's also how her clinical trials are built. Since she can't tolerate eggs, eggs are out, but she can tolerate nightshades, so they are in. It doesn't mean that will work for everyone, it just means that her IRB insisted that the protocols they work from be identical to what she herself had done (not even her evolved thinking, if you listen to some of her interviews).

Her reintroduction plan is pretty vague compared to some others (Sarah Ballantyne, or even Whole30). My hope is that I'll be able to reintroduce at least a little raw, whole-milk cultured dairy, and eggs. I'm kind of leaning towards using April as a transition month from AIP to Wahls Paleo Plus, keeping the major exclusions of both (dairy & eggs among them) but starting the reintroductions with things that Wahls doesn't exclude and that I'm really missing & I don't think have much chance of being problematic for me (pepper! seed spices! maybe even coffee).

Interesting observation you have about the variables we each have (and I believe we have over time). I had never given much thought to the idea of our bodies healing - until two months ago my eyes rolled whenever I heard mention of "leaky gut" thinking it was just a fad pseudo medical condition. But I'm beginning to think there might be something more there than I had thought, I know my body seems to be different, more energetic etc now that I've been following the AIP for almost a month. Nothing dramatic, and nothing I can really pinpoint, but just overall feeling energetic and good. I can imagine many of our fellow low carb friends might indeed have healing to do, both from a standard American diet, and also from the way many people implement a low carb one...

And just to clarify, I was (am) using the term "cult" in jest, both for Paleo and for Low Carb. I actually am more poking fun at myself than anything, since I feel like I've "got religion" recently!

The Wahls Protocol is very close to what I've been doing for a while now, without knowing there was a Wahls Protocol. The only difference is that I only eat 1 or 2 tablespoons of CO every day, not 5, and berries 2 or 3 times a week, not every day. I'll read this book and see if I can tweak my diet for better results. Thanks for posting!

Eliminating eggs isn't a paleo stance at all.

Question for you, Paris, do you have a link to the AIP diet?

I think paleo followers say "bone broth" to distinguish it from canned broth and bouillon cubes, which probably have little nutritional merit.

I haven't heard of AIP till now. No seeds at all, it sounds like. That would be a bit rough since most spices are seeds. I hate having to give up more and more categories of things. It makes us harder to socialize with and live with, too. Maybe that's okay if you're already married but it makes a single person seem like an irrational freak.

Hadn't thought of that, since I'm married.

But now there can be Paleo dating sites!

I'm sure you're right about that, and probably it is a helpful qualifier for many people. But I learned to cook from my mother (and inherited a number of her "oddities"), and she was "not able" to throw out bones that could be made into broth. I mean this literally. In her later years she said that she wouldn't host Thanksgiving if she didn't get a promise beforehand that someone would take the leftover turkey off her hands. She lived alone, didn't need anymore broth filling the freezer ... but was unable to contemplate throwing the bones away I have the leftover roast chicken bones from the other evening simmering in the slow cooker at this moment.

Oh dear, no eggs? Will have to rethink my interest in the Wahl Protocol.

Or do Wahl + egg?

Capmikee, who hasn't been around here for years always said that it's the egg white that people have a problem with. Maybe you could keep the yolks.

I have Sarah Ballentyne's book now (yikes, what a monster..should get full credit for a graduate nutrition course if I read it cover to cover) and The yolk only option was listed as a way to ease into her AIP. If you can't give up everything at once, (which she of course recommends) first trash the whites where more of the problematic proteins are.

Nancy, here is the link to her many articles about AIP. If you read them all, that will be more graduate credits for you! http://www.thepaleomom.com/autoimmunity

From this list, here is her WHY NO EGG explanation: http://www.thepaleomom.com/2012/06/...tocol-eggs.html

I too was waiting in Wahl's book for when to challenge back eggs and dairy, but it never came. Especially if you are trying to heal from a severe disease state, to be fair you would have to give her protocol a very long trial. Chris Kresser's Your Personal Paleo Code has the best detailed procedure how to test back each food in each category, but these two AI books seem to assume you have to eat this way forever to be healthy.

She explains how healthy people can do well with eggs. But after reading it, I will up my breakfasts of pork rind pancakes and slightly down my egg based ones.

1/ The link Janet provided (PaleoMom.com) is what I would have shown - she is the author of The Paleo Approach, the giant and difficult text explaining the autoimmune protocol. She basically took Robb Wolf's autoimmune protocol suggestions and ran with it, expanded and tested and researched them. There are several other slight variations to AIP but hers is the most documented and the most restrictive.

2/ my husband and my mother in law would both be nodding their heads about "irrational freak".... There are far more restrictions on AIP than on low carb or "regular" paleo, even more than on Whole30 (strict paleo) and Ballantyne's protocol is stricter than the Whole30 AIP.

But, it's not forever (as long as you don't have bad reactions as you reintroduce).

Yesterday I planned out my reintroductions for next month. I will start Wahls as I do this, although possibly the last week I'll try reintroducing egg yolk (but maybe I'll hold off until May 1). I'm so excited to get some seed spices back (cumin! Mustard! Most of all, pepper!) but my first reintro will be butter (Wahls actually allows ghee, not butter, but I have amazing-quality butter here in Paris, and that's what I'm going to try. Any other dairy reintroductions will be further down the line..)

Wahls recommendation is to do the diet without eggs, then test for tolerance. Since I've already done 28 days egg free (which actually has been easier than I expected) I'll try to go a little longer before reintroducing. But again, her rationale for excluding them is flimsy scientifically, valid for her personally. She personally doesn't tolerate them, and her IRB insisted the diet she test follow how she had done things herself, hence no eggs for everyone. She does have a good point that if you reintroduce you pay close attention to the feed of the chickens and the quality of the eggs.

I think this might make a huge difference.

I now pay more for the eggs from the health food store. The grocery store eggs have runny, pale, yolks, and they seem to take forever to cook. While the healthfood store eggs are from local farms, the chickens run around in the open, and the yolks are deep gold, firm, and they cook quickly.

It's almost like two different foods.

Since my husband and I have sought out better sources for our food, we are astonished like this over and over again. We got sausage, no fillers, from a local farm and it tastes like I remember sausage used to taste. I got some Vietnamese cinnamon and it took me back to my Grandmother's kitchen.

I don't know what they are feeding us. But it's starting to seem that it's not really food.

And that just might be the bigger problem.

That made me laugh....in a sad, wistful kind of way. Hopefully there's a band of freedom fighters in an underground hideout somewhere, working feverishly to discover the antidote to whatever The Food Industry put in the water. And when they find it, the veil will be wiped from our eyes and we'll see the truth: that what we thought was food was just an hallucinogenic illusion and what we are actually holding in our hands are little mounds of chemicals and pills.