Initial Thoughts from the Ancestral Health Symposium

Hi there, if you’re new, you probably know me as “that chick who live tweeted the entire #AHS11″. I may have inadvertently provided some of the most complete coverage of AHS until the videos go up. You can check out my Twitter feed here, @gone2croatan.

So a brief introduction: My name is Lindsay Stärke. I have no particular qualifications. I am not a scientist nor an anthropologist nor a trainer. I was never overweight. I am, if nothing else, a dilettante.

I am knowledgeable about: 20th century Latin American literature, American counterculture/quantum psychology theory, classical Greece and Rome, indigenous Mesoamerican culture, the hard sciences, 19th century Russian Literature (hi, Robb), cooking pretty well, making a small living modeling, and social media. Not in that order. Also, I have a sweet autoimmune disease, ankylosing spondylitis. And I dabble in Crossfit at Atlanta’s best gym.

So I came to the Ancestral Health Symposium to listen more than to speak, to meet more than to pontificate. And it was glorious. Sure, there were plenty of navel-gazing moments where a bunch of people said “don’t eat crap” to a bunch of people who already know not to eat crap, and the whole low-carb vs. carb-agnostic thing reared its head yet again, but by and large the feeling was one of community and of greater concepts. If the event had a theme, one could say it was generalities vs. divergences, theory vs. detail.

I am familiar enough with anthropology to have been troubled by the cuddle-washing of hunter-gatherer societies as egalitarian, non-violent, and enlightened among people like Boyd Eaton. Ever since Rousseau there’s been this trope, and it’s dumb. People are variant. (Actually, “people are variant” would probably be my favorite theme of the conference.) Anyway, we can only use anthropology as a starting point from which to form hypotheses, something which Mat “The Kraken” Lalonde covered thoroughly in his brilliant presentation of an organic chemist’s perspective on paleo, which was one of my favorite of the conference because it slapped down the easy rhetoric of generalizations and poorly-understood science that drives me batty (also, I love o-chem). In a similar way, Richard Nikoley’s discussion of self-experimentation reminded us that we aren’t all the same.

Speaking of hunter-gatherer societies, the dark horse of the conference was Tucker Max of all people, who talked about MMA and paleo (or, in a macrocosmic sense, our dissociation from violence, which was certainly part of HG society). It left me wanting to check out the muay thai gym down the street from my house (and maybe ogle some men expressing the primal urge toward battle there), just as watching Erwan talk made me want to check out MovNat even more. Denise Minger’s “how to win an argument with a vegetarian” was funny (god, she’s cute), but sympathetic, and one of the big conference moments was seeing just how many of us are former veg*ns (50-75% of audience). Melissa McEwen’s discussion of anthropology and gut health was probably the biggest learning moment for me, elucidating some of the practical moments from the other talk on gut health. And my pals Dr. Emily Deans and Jamie Scott knocked it out of the park with a discussion of mental health and paleo and then implementing paleo in populations.

Also, doing Crossfit makes me fidgety, but that’s only because I’m so damn Elite.

Speaking of elite, Robb Wolf. Like, oh, everyone, I’m a Robb fan. But I was floored meeting him in person and watching him speak: he really is the genial, approachable, funny, compelling, down-to-earth dude that he seems to be online and in his writing. This is important, because if we are really going to turn this little tiny movement into Something, we need somebody like Robb as our ambassador: somebody who makes us look wonderful because he or she is kind of wonderful. I have complete confidence in Robb after this weekend. His “Paleo Solution” talk was nothing new, but it was the best elevator pitch we have.

I went to plenty of other talks and enjoyed them (and hated missing Matesz and Guyenet!); a partial summary is available on David Csonka’s blog here. I was so happy to meet many of my internet friends (Andrew, Emily, Jamie, Melissa, etc.) plus make new ones (David, Jeff, Cliff, etc.) plus make an idiot of myself in front of people like Chris Masterjohn. Jimmy, Diane, Stephan, Rhys, Danny, Dr. BG, the PaleoHacks contingent, the BTB family, everyone! I’m not going to name names, because it will go on forever. Wish you were there, Katherine.

Generally, everyone I met was wonderful. We are a fit, smart, and beautiful tribe, but we are also genial and friendly, which was really damn heartening. We have to remember to be good as well as wise if we want this to go somewhere. I suppose I can say: I am from Georgia. I know from graciousness.

Thanks to everyone for coming and speaking and volunteering and hanging out and thanks to everyone who expressed gratitude for my goofy Twitter journalism in person and online. Thanks to Aaron, Brent, and everyone else who set this up. Thanks to whatever stars aligned somewhere to bring all these forces together at a crucial time.

So if we distill anything from #AHS11, I would say this:

1. There is much divergence in viewpoints about specifics.
2. We mostly agree on the generalities.
3. We are not identical.
4. But we are all one tribe.

Four points. Not a bad place to start.

Obligatory doofy photo with Robb