PaleoHacks

I’m pleased to announce a new resource for all you palo / primal / evolutionary fitness "hacks" & self-experimenters out there. Always remember that you are your own chief authority in health matters and it’s up to you in the end to find your way. Of course, all the blogs, including this one, are here to help, and not only from the posts but from the awesome commenting community; and yes, even those who give me a hard time sometimes about the my rage and vulgarity.

Without further ado, let me introduce you to enthusiastic reader and commenter, Patrik. He came to me a few weeks ago saying that he wanted to do something to contribute, but rather than another blog or forum, he had something far different in mind. I think it’s a good idea and I hope you’ll contribute to the effort with your knowledge.

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I am Patrik, a long time paleo enthusiast and commenter amongst the Paleo community. I remember when most of us were commenting mainly on Art de Vany’s blog just a few years ago (seems like eons now) and Richard’s blog was more varied in subject matter, and included commentary on politics and other subjects. And now, wow, things have changed very rapidly, paleo is on the verge of being The Next Big Trendy Thing and Richard is in the spotlight of international media.

For me, eating/living paleo has changed my life for the better (I won’t go into it now). And I have long wanted to deepen my involvement in and give back to the paleo community. At first thought I surmised I might start blogging, but I quickly realized that I would leave that to people that are more intelligent, more knowledgeable as well as better writers than myself.

But I always thought there might be a way to improve and facilitate (the tremendous and evolving) knowledge transfer within the paleo community. And so I came up with www.PaleoHacks.com. PaleoHacks is using the StackExchange platform in attempt to do the following:

1) Answer the right questions by letting the community ask and answer them

These questions evolve dependent on where a person is in the paleo lifestyle.

2) Organize and centralize the paleo community knowledge

Blog authors don’t have to spend time re-answering common questions, plus PaleoHacks is built on a platform to allow for the answers to change/evolve to those same common questions as more experience and information comes to light.

3) Empowering paleo enthusiasts to help themselves

As Richard has often remarked: paleo is about empowering yourself and NOT relying on a guru.

So, what is a hack? A hack can be thought of as a rule-of-thumb or quick fix. For example, the quick answers to common problems and experiments, things like what works in terms of IF-ing, paleo recipes, paleo lifestyles and Paleo-eque exercises (be it CrossFit or HIT) etc., etc.

In short, what people in the tech world call "hacks".

In sum, paleohacks.com is an attempt to leverage technology for the Paleo community. I envision it as a site that complements, not competes with, the existing ecosystem of paleo blogs such as FTA, Hyperlipid, PaleoNu, Robb Wolf, Theory to Practice, Whole Health Source and many other amazing resources out there.

You might be asking yourself, "How is this different from a forum?" Great question. I think the specific functionality and UI of the StackExchange changes user behavior to focus on questions and answers versus drawn out discussions (which certainly have their place in forums elsewhere and/or blog posts/comments).

I envision it serving as an easy-to-use crowdsourced question-and-answer site that evolves with current paleo thinking, much like I have seen FTA evolve (to Richard’s credit). But ultimately, it depends on whether or not the paleo community finds it useful and helpful. So, check it out, I have seeded it a few questions so you can see how it works. I invite you to ask AND answer questions regarding paleo. If you have a question regarding X, Y or Z – chances are that there are hundreds, if not thousands who have the same!

Let’s have fun with this.

And, we’re also on Twitter: @PaleoHacks