For one, I don't claim the "line" is individual....the only individual line I contend exists (from posts elsewhere) is nutrient levels to thrive - nutrients being those essential to our health and well-being. Due to genetic variations, some individuals need significantly more of some nutrients and less of others. But carbohydrate has no fixed minimum that is essential, thus your contention that I believe carbohydrate is individual is baseless....I've never said that.

What I have said and will continue to say is that unless you can provide a biologically plausable means to lay down fat in the absence of carbohydrate, you're doing your arguement no favors -- you see, Martin, you need to be able to point to how it is biologically possible for something like necessary fat storage in pregnancy, to happen if one isn't consuming any carbohydrate for your POV to be considered and pondered as possibly true.

You haven't pointed to any evidence of any population, that is in the record and documented, as having survived and thrived sans any carbohydrate from plants. You've pointed to the Inuit - a very diverse population of many peoples in many different and distinct areas by the way - yet even those populations included plant-foods well before any outside influence.

You can go with the Masai since they consume dairy, rich with carbohydrate and even their women abandon the traditional diet - not due to outside influence, but that's how it is and has been for forever - for one rich with carbohydrate in the latter part of pregnancy and into the lactation period. Why?

Why is it that every traditional culture has special dietary practices and rituals for women getting pregnant, pregnant or lactating? Gee, and those dietary changes are carbohydrate-based changes.....Why?

We don't need or require carbohydrate....so why would any population include any carbohydrate ever? That's the question you need to be able to succinctly answer - why would the population willingly subject itself to consuming poison (as you call it) even before nutrition science existed - long before we even made distinction between nutrients and/or plants versus animals? Ya know - back when food was simply food - we walked around, picked up some nuts....saw the animal, took him down, all feasted....got up and did it again the next day, perhaps this time finding some yummy honey to gorge on....why would we do that?

Why even have a mechanism to reduce blood glucose if it's not needed - seriously -- a valid question here.....if, in the past, we never consumed carbohydrate to any excess, ever.....we'd have no mechanism now to reduce blood glucose back to normal, would we? So why do we? Why do we have more ways to raise glucose levels than to reduce them? It's because excess carbohydrate wasn't the threat that low glucose was/is.....but we still have a system to reduce blood glucose, don't we? That developed in response to glucose ups and downs, which you point out come from carbohydrate --- so obviosuly we've consumed carbohydrate for quite some time now, eh?

You're being rhetorical, but missing the point - if a woman must lay down fat to be fertile, how exactly would she do it sans carbohydrate? That is a simple biological question that, given your position, you should be able to answer....or simply say, I don't know. You're saying, it seems, that any fat accumulation is excessive fat.....but if it's necessary for fertility and to support pregnancy and lactation, how does fat get laid down?

Stefansson's writings are unambiguous. The populations that he observed ate no plant matter whatsoever and reproduced just fine.

The question then becomes, why would anybody eat poison if they can live without it? The answer is in the poison: The poison causes us to eat more poison. In other words, eat it once and we will continue to eat it the rest of our lives. This is in fact a common reason for the difficulty people face in cutting out carbs. Carbohydrate is addictive. The more refined, the more addictive it is.

About the mechanism to lower blood glucose, insulin. If carbohydrate was common in our evolution, we would have more than just one mechanism to lower blood glucose. However, the fact is that we have many more mechanisms to raise blood glucose which tells us that carbohydrate must have been very scarce indeed for us to have develop the need for those mechanisms. Conversely, having only one way to lower blood glucose again tells us that carbohydrate sources must have been truly scarce for us to develop only a single way of lowering blood glucose back to normal. However this single way, insulin, is all powerful in that it can override all other mechanisms.

Then there's the evidence that glucose shortens the lives of C. Elegans dramatically. and the evidence that monkeys live longer on restricted high carb diets. We are not so far removed from either to be immune from the effect of glucose on longevity. In fact, our cells grow insulin resistant and although I don't know what cells know, I'm certain that they know what is good for them. And even though them growing insulin resistant causes us to grow sick, I'm sure cells do this as a way to protect themselves against even worse effects of glucose and insulin. Note that cells don't grow insulin resistant if the diet contains no plant carbohydrate. Indeed, cells reverse their insulin resistance. This indicates that it's not insulin that is toxic but glucose yet insulin is toxic in its own way.

Remember where this started? CRON

Optimal nutrition is impossible to achieve with a restricted high carb diet. It is impossible because carbohydrate drives insulin and insulin is a storage hormone. It literally empties the bloodstream of nutrients and stores it in fat tissue and everywhere else for that matter. The more refined the carbohydrate, the greater this effect. This is due to the lack of nutrients coming in to replace those that are taken from the bloodstream. The only way to make this work for humans is to avoid carbohydrate entirely. This way there is no excess insulin secretion and there is no emptying of nutrients from the bloodstream. The bloodstream is the primary source of nutrients for cells. If it always lacks nutrients, optimal nutrition is impossible. The concept of CRON is flawed.

Indeed, it is the only way to make this work and it works naturally with no further effort on the part of the dieter. Those who cut carbohydrate end up spontaneously reducing their total caloric intake.

Then there's the AGE (advanced glycation end product) argument. These are what causes cells to age. They don't age as much as repair themselves crooked. It's this faulty repair that shows up as aging. Well these AGEs are not caused by an all meat diet. They are caused by a high carb diet.

Can you agree that the approach of restricting carbs while practicing a Calorie Restricted Optimal Nutrition lifestyle might bestow the best of both world benefits?

Are you implying that the concept of a Low Carb CRON lifestyle is flawed?

Bo

CRON is flawed no matter how we look at it. It's flawed on a high carb diet, it's flawed on a zero carb diet. We are hyperphagic by nature. Restricting total caloric intake with a high fat, zero carb diet is akin to inviting nutritional deficiencies however less so than with a high carb diet because of the inherent effect of carb on existing nutrients. We are hyperphagic during the day because of the sleep period especially. Cutting total calories means to cut calories below our actual needs. Optimal nutrition explicitly includes fuel and thus total calories. As a consequence, optimal nutrition is impossible to achieve. Therefore you can eat CR or ON but not both. Choose wisely.

You really need to look beyond the work of one person - there is a vast and rich body of work on the subject of the various peoples whom we call Inuit.

That said - the Inuit did and do eat plant foods. It's a small amount, seasonally - but they consume plants. They also consume foods unlike those we typically eat - specifically the nutrient profile of the Inuit foods is vastly different than our offerings here. As I said, there is an excellent database detailing the foods and even nutrient profiles of the foodstuffs of the various populations called Inuit.

Agreed - refined carbohydrate is something we don't need and probably should avoid at all cost. No arguement here on that.

Again, my point is, there is and has never been, a population consuming no carbohydrate.....so you can't take the position that all carbohydrate is bad and none is ideal when it's impossible to consume a zero-carb diet anyway.

It comes down to, IMO, at what level does carbohydrate present a problem within normal human physiology?

I don't think it's as low as you contend, nor do I think it's very high either.....and yes, to some degree there is going to be some individualization in the mix due to genetics......while you keep saying we're the same as we ever were genetically, I can point out that we're not - that there is identified epigenetic changes and significant differences in gene sequences between individuals that raise and/or lower nutrient requirements.

IMO nutrient-density trumps macronutrient profile. I've said it many times - it is possible to meet/exceed all nutrient requirements consuming only animal foods....it's not easy doing so, care has to be taken on select nutrients. Just because there are folks eating just beef or just chicken or just whatever without any overt problems at the moment does not mean that eating such a diet is ideal or optimal in the long-term. But, I have no problem with someone experimenting on themselves!

I could look beyond the writings of a single man. But I don't see why I should look at populations that ate plants as a guide when those who didn't eat plants were just as healthy if not healthier. The book Nutrition and Physical degeneration by Weston Price supports the idea that those who ate the least amount of plants were the healthiest. The book GCBC by Taubes supports the same idea. The Minnesota semi-starvation study by Ancel Keys in the '40s supports the idea too. So while I don't look at or refer to other Inuit populations, I do look at more than just Stefansson's work. And even if I did not, it would still be valid.

The semi-starvation study is very pertinent to this subject especially CRON. It shows that CRON is impossible for humans on a high carb diet unless the purpose is to suffer emaciation and neurosis. I don't see why the researchers here decided to ignore one of the most significant study on the human diet especially since that study's results are immediately transferable to other humans since it was done on humans. Unlike this one which was done on monkeys. Indeed, CRON is impossible without supplementation but then it quits being CRON and starts being something else.

The total caloric intake for the subjects in the Minnesota study? 1600 calories per day. How can anybody claim to be able to provide optimal nutrition on CRON when these subjects suffered emaciation and neurosis at this caloric level? The claims of CRON are absurd.

Stefansson and another man subjected themselves to this precise experiment in a metabolic study and they suffered no ill whatsoever except when they ate very lean muscle meat. Stefansson was not special, he was human like the rest of us. The results of this study can be immediately transferred to all other humans.

Fresh meat is the most nutrient dense food there is. There is no other food like fresh meat that can keep a human in perfect health indefinitely. Fresh meat cures scurvy in four days. The body repairs itself for a time afterward though it can't repair damage if too severe. Further, a priori fresh meat contains little or no toxic elements typically found only in plants like lectins, alkaloids and phytic acid.

The current nutrient requirements are established on a basis of a high carb, low fat fixed calorie (2000kcal/day) mixed diet. As far as I know, it's never been established how much of anything we require if all we eat is fat meat. However, the experience of Stefansson and the populations he observed tell us that whatever is in fat meat is enough if not ample. It implies that we should analyze fat meat and use this as the absolute barometer of nutrient requirement for a human then adjust for the effects of carbohydrate on nutrients.

I don't see much muscle on their biceps...

Otherwise they strongly remind me of Madonna on her latest tour - only difference being that she has bigger biceps...

So I guess Madonna isn't into severe calorie restriction, either...

amanda

"It's the next logical step because carbohydrate causes us to eat more carbohydrate therefore a high carb diet is a normal human diet if we see carbohydrate as food."

But what if there simply isn't enough carbohydrate around to over-eat on it?

In paleolithic times, the fruit available wouldn't have been the gigantic specimens that are presented to us as fruit today. Even when fruit was in season, I can only imagine that it would be eaten as a rare exotic treat. And even if people were to have gorged themselves stupid on Stone Age strawberries, this would have been a short-lived feeding frenzy.

As for other plant sources, I think the fact that processing these to make them palatable would again have precluded them being over-eaten. There was a very interesting thread posted by someone who had been to Alaska and observed what the indigenous people ate. Fruits and plant foods definitely did appear on the menu.

From what I have read, carbs (in the form of plants/fruits) appear in the majority of traditional diets. For the most part, they make up a relatively small proportion of the total calories consumed, but there are plenty of exceptions, such as the Kitavans. They still remained healthy and free of diseases of civilization - despite being heavy smokers.

Eating too many carbs is one of the things we do wrong today, but it is not the only factor which causes disease.

amanda

I think it's called gluconeogenesis, actually.

But that is the point: why would our bodies be able to make glucose (and do so) if we didn't need it?

amanda

You should re-read the Price book - the groups consuming the least refined carbohydrate had the best health - it was the influence of, what at the time classified as "convenience" food that wrecked havoc on health, not simply plant-foods.

If you want to explore human nutrition, you shouldn't box yourself into one population, at one moment in time.....we're diverse and well adapted to many things available, including plant foods. I do not think we're designed to consume an exclusive plant-based diet, by any stretch of the imagination, but including some plant foods isn't detrimental to our health and well-being...it is, IMO, the quality of the food, it's nutrient density, that matters more than its origin. Price makes this concept a center of his work - nutrient content, and how the nutrient content of foods consumed by, say the remotely located peoples in Switzerland were better than those "modernized" Swiss....this despite their consuming meat maybe once a week, their breakfast often being a slab of whole rye bread, with a slice of summer-made cheese and fresh milk from their goats. Note the "rye" bread there Martin!

And it wasn't simply bread as we know it - it was fremented, sprouted and otherwise tempered to, unbeknownst to them, reduce and eliminate anti-nutrients contained in the grains. This is something we've lost - the traditional preparations which enhanced particular foods and increased their nutrient availability to us.....again, PROCESSING is a problem, but the whole food itself was and can be part of a nutrient-dense diet!



I do think he'd agree that those consuming the least refined foods are healthiest, but I think it's a stretch to say he'd agree that all plant-based foods should be eliminated. GCBC supports the alternative theory that carbohydrate is problematic, especially refined carbohydrate....but I doubt he'd tell you or anyone to shun the salad or nuts or fresh berries anytime soon!



No, it doesn't support this....it tells us what happens under starvation conditions where protein, calories and micronutrients are all deficient to meet requirements over a period of time.....in time, under such conditions we see ematiation, psychosis and the effects of malnutrition.



Personally I think you need to read more of Steffanson's works, along with that of the researchers in the Bellevue experiment. Oh, and don't forget, we're talking about two men in the experiment - so we can't extrapolate their experience to women, especially those seeking to establish a pregnancy, sustain a pregnancy and then lactation.

Again Martin, how would a woman lay down fat in the absence of carbohydrate? Or is it that no population of women has been obseved attempting such a rigorous exclusion because you can't, because even animal foods provide some carbohydrate, some even to a fairly good level - higher in fact than one might get if they consumed some nuts instead. As I contend, it isn't the macronutrient per se, it's the nutrient density - if you look across populations, eating vastly different diets, it's those who meet and exceed nutrient requirements that thrive, regardless of the macronutrient ratios, because it's nutrients we require, not just calories from one or another source.

Which brings back the point I've made twice now - analysis of Inuit foods shows the nutrient composition is DIFFERENT than those foods we have available - ie. eating caribou is not the same as eating beef from a nutrient perspective, eating seal isn't comparable to eating chicken......at the end of the day, the Inuit diet, which contains a variety of plant foods too, is NUTRIENT-DENSE even though it contains very little in the way of plant-foods. You cannot replicate the nutrient density of the Inuit diet in the lower 48 unless you're importing very specific foods from the northern regions. Ergo, you can't say eating just beef is the same as eating an Inuit diet.....it's not the same and never will be.