This was an awesome and highly informative article but I feel that you've glossed over the true value of nuts. The key is here:

"To avoid increasing caloric intake, regular nut consumption can be recommended as a replacement for consumption of refined grain products or red or processed meats."

I can tell by reading this that Jeff (and perhaps most readers as well) is a long-time vegetarian and so this statement probably does not have much personal impact. However, for people who have just recently chosen to abandon the standard American diet this statement is significant. More explicitly, if you are trying to give up meat and dairy then nuts and seeds provide an important source of alternate nutrition.

I recently switched to a pescetarian diet which consists of some fish but otherwise no meat or dairy. (My doctor allows fish, but I was never a big fan so my diet is practically vegetarian.) I've found a small handful of nuts or seeds after a meal consisting of fruits, grains, and vegetables to be very satisfying. It makes the meal feel "finished". I started this diet in early March 2012 and as of late July 2012 have lost about 45 pounds. I do not count calories or restrict food intake but I do limit myself to healthy plant-based foods occasionally supplemented by fresh fish. (Oddly, although I don't generally like fish I have learned to enjoy fresh sashimi.) I eat as many nuts and seeds (mostly sunflower and pumpkin) and if they have slowed my weight loss then that is fine; my current rate of weight loss is more than satisfactory.

People who have not achieved their weight goals and who include nuts in a healthy plant-based diet should certainly consider eliminating nuts from their diets but people who are eating the standard American diet should concentrate on eliminating dairy, meat, and processed foods and utilize nuts as a substitute.

People who promote the paleolithic diet forget some important facts.

> The hunter-gather lifestyle occurred during a specific window in our past. During other periods we followed different diets.

> It is only recently that we have had much control over our diet. In the past our diet was a reflection of our environment and we adapted to whatever foods were available. That doesn't necessarily mean it was ideal. Evolving to survive a specific dietary constraint doesn't necessarily mean we will thrive with the constraint.

> The high-protein high-fat diets of the paleolithic era supported the strenuous requirements of the hunter-gather lifestyle. Readers wishing to adopt the diet would be advised to adopt the entire lifestyle, which includes wandering around in the woods all day either gathering edible vegetation or hunting for game, depending on your gender.

> 64% of people adopting this lifestyle will of course die by the time they reach 45, with 43% of all children dying by age 15. The rest of you will be brimming with health until you die at about 65.

I'm also a vegan chef and have a background in nutritional biochemistry (but am not a registered dietitian). My experience with a weight loss plateau was identical to AJ's. I've put on about twenty pounds over two years from medications and a good serving of old-fashioned laziness. Without thinking about it, I've also added too many very flavorful oils and nuts to my diet. I was able to start paring down the flab only after I returned to my lifelong low-fat diet, even though total calorie intake before and after was the same. When I decreased the proportion of fats and increased starchy vegetable consumption a bit, I finally started making progress.

Hello everyone who is interested in this topic. It's been about 4 months for me now of eating only low-fat whole plant foods, and to date, I've lost 20 lbs. I've been stable at this point for several weeks, so I suspect this may be the bottom of my weight loss. I look & feel much better. When I was going up a steep flight of stairs recently, I realized how much easier it is now. That 20 lbs was like carrying 4 five pound gym weights with me everywhere!