I'm back from the Ancestral Health Symposium, though a bit jet-lagged. I wanted to note my first thoughts while they are still fresh in my head. Overall, I saw a lot of solid presentations and met a lot of great people. A number of people I had only communicated with electronically before, so it was nice to meet them in person.
I met Loren Cordain, Boyd Eaton, Robb Wolf, Pedro Bastos, Mark Sisson, Richard Nikoley, and Keith Norris. I got to catch up with Doug McGuff who I hadn't seen in over a decade. I met Stephan Guyenet of Whole Health Source. I also talked to Seth Roberts and John Durant for a bit.
Some random thoughts:
- Robb Wolf is an entertaining speaker, who gave a nice presentation.
- Gary Taubes came off as a bit of an egomaniac. His presentation was about 60 slides with each containing an old quote. Then, at the end he said sugar was the cause of obesity.
- Denise Minger drew a crowd, but I was busy prepping for my own speech and therefore I missed it.
- I really enjoyed the dental presentation by Kevin Boyd and Michael Mew. Michael was an excellent speaker.
- Michael Eades continued to defend his low-carb position which I think is flawed. But he seemed in good spirits and good health for someone in his 60s.
- Don Matesz looked about 10 years older than his picture on his blog. What's up with that? Maybe I should put pictures of me from high school on my blog and then say that Paleo is anti-aging.
- Keith Norris is a big, athletic guy (and also a nice guy).
- Stephan gave a solid presentation about food reward and then was needled by Gary Taubes in a bizarre exchange.
- I missed Robert Lustig's presentation along with the ones from Saturday afternoon, but I look forward to watching them on video.
Some other general thoughts on the trip:
- It was kind of a disadvantage flying in from the East Coast. I tried to stay on a regular sleep pattern, so the nights were cut short.
- The campus of UCLA is not that scenic in my opinion. First, I couldn't even tell where the campus started. You walk by a Burger King, and then I guess you're on the UCLA campus. It didn't feel like a college campus at all to me.
- LA doesn't make things convenient. They don't have any big gas stations with restrooms and a store. Everything is packed in and also somewhat hidden in my opinion. And what's up with restaurants not having restrooms?? Isn't that illegal or something?
More thoughts to come as I recover...
