I think I had lectin poisoning once. I ate 2 bowls of raw wheat germ when I was a teenager. I don't know why, I just liked it I guess. I got violently ill with vomiting and diarrhea. After I got it all up/out, I was ok. A little pale and shakey, but otherwise I went on with my day. When I read about lectins recently I read about a case of lectin poisoning, sounded exactly like what happened to me.

Oh! Say! Another interesting snippet from page 2 of the article I linked above:

Hey! That's us!! Us low-carbing types!

I don't remember where I read it - DANDR, possibly - but the gist of it was that people who fit the gall bladder disease profile (Female, Fat and Forty) are also the most likely to have been eating a low fat diet in an effort to lose weight. In other words, fat does not cause gall bladder disease, but lack of fat, especially saturated fat, which the gall bladder needs to make bile, if I recall.

Wyv

Yes... this is correct. The gall bladder needs to work... if not, it will have problems.

I guess I should not have said "Grains and legumes are the true "empty calories" that should be avoided when trying to lose weight".

Instead, I should have said "Grains and legumes are the true "negative empty calorie/antinutrient food" that should always be avoided by 99.99999% of the planet's population... especially by those trying to restrict calories to lose weight, since the extremely nutrient-dense and absolutely necessary animal fat (high) calories should NEVER be restricted.

Sorry about that.

I grew up in India & we tend to be vegetarians there (though my parents aren't). Meals tend to be whole grain bread or white rice, vegetables & legumes/beans. Most people eat dairy, some will eat eggs. We soak our beans/legumes & throw away the water. Then they are slow cooked until tender with spices & ginger. Very tasty (to me anyway). Since going lc, I've tried to taste some chicken etc, but the texture of meat makes me gag and I find the taste un-appetizing. I will say that even before lc, my cholestrol, blood sugar & bp were all excellent & still are. I've been pretty healthy all my life, have always had good skin & hair - all the good things that people claim they saw only after lc. I never was & still am not a fan of supplementing either.
I'd say based only on anecdotal experience (watching myself & members of my rather large extended family), that the real culprits are refined flour, refined sugar, chemicals & additives, hydrogenated fats and processed food in general and a busy but sedentary life. I'm sure one would still hold some water weight even eating unrefined carbs, but I don't think one would be particularly unhealthy otherwise.

I agree totally.
It's the way we turned food into a drug or a passtime (with sugar and flour and fat), combined with using only the most unhealthy foods and lifestyle, that really did it. How many of us NEVER ate till uncomfortable, big dishes of starch, sugar, and fat? Who never drank juice or soda? Candy? I ate horribly. Worse, I never ever moved.

Very few people are genetically so sensitive to sugar fluctuations (or substances that make their body lose the ability to control sugar) that they become unhealthy even if such foods were never a part of their diet.

But, either way, fact is today if I don't watch what I eat I'm in trouble. My metabolism has problems that make it unable to handle blood sugar fluctuations without pouring out tons of insulin and making me miserable. I can't eat big servings of food, I do much better with small meals. My calories must stay low. Carbs have to be spread out. I have to get some moderate activity, too, for ideal control.
Maybe this wouldn't have happened if I never ate bad before, but either way, what's done is done.

Dr. Fine is testing for antibodies to the proteins of grains, soy, dairy and a couple of things in the stools of people. He's found something like 60% of people have antibodies to wheat (gluten). Currently the only way these antibodies are detected is when they get to the blood which is actually rather late in the development of the disease and they only officially diagnose you as celiac (and needing to avoid eating gluten) when your intestines are so incredibly screwed up, you're not digesting much of anything.

I think this paper is excellent: http://www.enterolab.com/Essay/

While soaking grains and legumes (and nuts and seeds) is the way they were eaten in the past, and do help make them more nutritious, I personally would rather eat more like they did before agriculture. How much fat they actually ate IS very debatable. My post above was not to be taken too seriously. If you feel better eating vegetarian, and are at least using "traditional principles" in preparing these foods, then go for it. You WILL be a lot healthier than if simply eating SAD, that's for sure. Just striving to get rid of as much processed food as you can, AND to eat more in line with how even our recent ancestors ate, is going a long way toward ensuring better health. I agree with both of you on this! Although, some animal food in the form of eggs or butter (ghee) is really something that you should look into in a big way! Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions" is a wonderful book, which I'm sure most of you have already read. She includes all whole natural foods, and describes their necessary preparation methods, as tuscany alluded to in her post. I always do much better when eliminating agricultural foods from my diet, as do others, as Nancy points out, and I honestly still struggle with how much animal fat to consume. Sally is a big fan of animal fat as well, but she is also into grains, legumes, and all whole, natural, unprocessed, (and properly prepared) foods. Check it out if you haven't already. It's a fabulous book!

But would the Earth even support us all if we were to ALL go low carb? I think not.

Good point about beans, I have always added a few in, figuring they have other healthy things in them to balance out the slight increase carbs. Glad to hear I can continue to make chili with beans, in good consciounce.

There is a lot of grazing land on this planet that is not even being used for raising animals, yet it is unsuitable for raising crops. Cargill just wants to do intensive farming on the land that will grow grains, and the governments will support that instead of developing the grazing land. Go figure! China alone has three times more of this grazing land than grain farming land, and it is not being used for this. Besides, there are WAY too many humans anyway. In the long run we better cut our numbers or it is going to be hard for any species to survive. But, NO, the earth WILL support this type of ecosystem... a lot better than the current one. Crop agriculture has done more to damage the earth than any animal husbandry ever did. Just don't mention that around Cargill execs!

Petroleum based farming is NOT really the ag of the future. Try local, small farms with a few animals and big vegetable gardens!

Yes I do indeed own the book Nourishing Traditions And I don't mean to say people who like meat shouldn't eat it. I don't personally have a philosophical issue with it at all. I wish I liked the tsate...I just don't

Regarding Celiac's disease, all I can say is in 25 years of living in India, I never came across one person that had it; could be undiagnosed of course. Are they testing people that ate whole grain wheat or refined ?

In general, I'm convinced that lc is the best way & don't plan to ever go back. I do intend to eat grains & legumes in small serving sizes only. I do have my slip-ups, but so far I have avoided the mind-set of "well, I already had i cookie, how about a couple more..."

There's celiac disease in every country. It might not get diagnosed as often in India.

Here's a guide that calculates how many cases by country: http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/c/cel...ats-country.htm
4.2something million in India.

I believe you...but there is more than 1 billion people in India & they eat wheat/rice three or more times day everyday...also these are extrapolated statistics that seemed to be extrapolated based on western statistics. I wonder if that's truly applicable to a different race living in a different climate? ie, if people lived in a cold climate where it was impossible to get much food in winter except in the form of meat, vs a race that lived in a tropical climate that was not really dependant on animal protein so much, maybe they "evolved" a bit differently ?

Also, the first link you posted said breastfeeding could reduce the risk; that could be big. Breastfeeding was the pretty much the only way to go in India until recently. Maybe that saved us all? Or to put the point on its head, maybe the increased prevalence of formula and early introduction of baby cereals has resulted in more of these "intolerance" diseases ? They do say now not to start babies on cereals of any kind before they are 6 months.