I nuke them when I'm in a hurry, bake them otherwise (40 min at 200ºC/400F), because baking makes the skin crisp.

Crikey Martin, you do like to split hairs. All carbs are not the same...there's a huge difference between a sweet potato, or brown rice, and a loaf of white fortified sliced bread.

I eat as few carbs as possible because I have found that this way of eating suits ME best. I believe that I pretty well understand how low carb works, and what is bad about too many carbs. Eating like this helps me control my appetite...I don't have a stop button. But lots of other people don't have that problem....they manage perfectly well and are as healthy as anyone. e.g. Shobha's family village.

There is a difference? All those stupid physiology and biochemistry books that claim that all of this stuff turns into the same plain glucose no matter whether the label says white bread or brown rice.
Oh yes there is a difference, in the case of the brown rice your body has to go through the ordeal of getting rid of the indigestible cellulose. Bloating, gas, troubled digestion?

It does, but white bread isn't just starch. It's the other stuff that makes you ill (gluten for a start). If all we got from white bread were glucose, then it wouldn't have been so bad.

Here is some reading to get you started: How to eat grains, by Stephan Guyenet

Oh ...what I mean is that you can live as long and healthy life eating reasonable carbs. I'm not arguing that they don't turn to glucose or have annoying fibre , I'm just saying that I don't think that they're 'poisonous'.
So if one can live to be 90 on a 'normal' diet, does that mean that if we DON'T eat carbs we could live much much longer, as we haven't 'poisoned' ourselves. or what?
Whatever.....

I have no doubts that people live long lives while having carbs in their diets, history is full of supporting evidence.
It is just that, my own experience of twenty years of being vegetarian followed by ten years of no carb, points into different direction. My health improved dramatically and I will never miss the digestive problems caused by the 'oh so healthy' fiber.

Well yes, I have a gluten allergy..another reason for my choosing to eat like this...but it's each too his/her own I say.

I also didn't feel very well when I was a vegetarian a long time ago. But the Kitavans are omnivores and so am I. There's no need to be radical and choose between a vegan diet and a carnivore one. Humans can be healthy eating all sorts of diets, including plants and animals, although the SAD isn't one of them, clearly.

I think it depends on the status of your metabolism. If you're young and healthy and not suffering from high peaks of blood sugar after eating, then you can probably tolerate some carbs. But once you've broken the system with too much fructose for too many years, your body is less able to handle them. I think some people end up not being able to add them back.

My sister is fond of saying "Everything in moderation". Lately I've been correcting her and saying, once you've broken the system then it can't handle certain things, even in moderation.

My sister is a great example of how moderation doesn't work. Very, very overweight not a particularly big eater or binger.

I've heard that sweet potatoes are way more nutrient dense than ordinary potatoes. And, counter-intuitive though that may sound, have less carbs than potatoes (could be just due to the fiber though).

That's interesting. Eating carbs causes us to require more nutrients of all kinds.

Possible. But, if you don't eat meat, but are able to supply those extra nutrients .... so be it.

I have similar opinion like M Levac.

In my opinion Kitavans eat KETOGENIC DIET, because they consume two ketogenic foods:
1. coconuts with high content of MEDIUM CHAIN TRIGLYCERIDES, AND
2. high amount of RESISTENT STARCH that is converted by colonic bacteria to SHORT CHAIN FATTY ACIDS.


Interestingly, they also excrete extremely high amounts of HIPPURIC ACID in the urine (about 30 times more then people consuming western diet.

Leptin seems to answer all these questions and solve all these problems

http://www.amazon.com/Rosedale-Diet-Ron/dp/006056573X

It doesn't falsify the "carbohydrate hypothesis"; it falsifies the strawman you've set up and named "carbohydrate hypothesis" in its place.

If there is no caloric surplus, you won't get fat on pure sugar, and you won't get fat on pure lard. But there is a lot more to health than "are you fat".

Now, lets turn this on its head a bit, in the presence of energy balance, or caloric surplus, what are the reactions in obese people? From what I can tell, when an obese, inactive person drinks a 32oz sugar/hfcs beverage, those carbohydrates hit the blood stream fast, muscle tissue provides almost no free storage, and so it goes straight into adipose tissue and the liver and is stored as fat; the person has just consumed enough "food energy" for the day, and is absolutely as hungry as they were just a few minutes before. When that same obese person, takes the same calories as mostly fat with water to drink, the digestion takes a long time, energy is trickled into the bloodstream slowly more akin to the actual rate of metabolism, and hunger is shut down for a significant portion of the day.

The carbohydrate hypothesis is that it "causes obesity" because, IN THE PRESENCE OF SURPLUS fast-carb foods, eating mostly carbs causes obese people to eat more calories than they burn.

Bottom line, the islanders were not in the presence of surplus food, nor surplus sugars; the indicated diet also indicates high physical activity throughout the day, further pushing energy balance in the islanders' favor. So. Not fat.

As to blood sugar and risk of diabetes, I can only offer my personal observations. I eat even a small serving of carbohydrate rich foods, even natural or paleo-approved, my blood glucose goes up and over typical normal ranges. I eat 5-10 times the calories of that carb snack but with less than 5g of carb... blood glucose doesn't even budge, and I'm satisfied for a long time. (i'm eating at energy balance, maintaining, so I no longer get freeby good numbers from being at a solid deficit)