Although I'm not taking risks, I often wonder if restricting carbs matters at all. The Kitavans eat a lot of tubers and are healthy. Even rice and traditional fermented soy products seem to be tolerated by a lot of people.

I agree with what you're saying. The grandparents weren't eating tons of sugar either, so it's not just about the HFCS situation.

Long time ago, I noticed that Jones Soda is now making soft drinks with sugar, with a little tag-line on the packaging, it's cute..."Corn is for Cars" or something in that vein. Thing is? I'm not going to start drinking soft-drinks loaded with sugar either.

Round and round we go - and I'm really thinking that if we have to 'fix' the food in order to be healthy according to "the latest" - maybe we shouldn't be eating that food in the first place?

Oh, here's another one that really got to me - spied some granola bars at the grocery store - "enriched with omega-3". So yeah, apparently omega-3 fats are good for us, so therefore we need it *added* to the junk foods?

Huh?

I wonder about this too. I'm not really all that interested in adding rice/tubers, but ...I'm not totally convinced it all boils down to "carbs".

I think in the beginning, it counted for a lot. Some sort of 'de-tox' or perhaps healing one's metabolic issues via "low carb" definitely helped, but more and more, I'm inclined to ask, "Just what kinda carbs are you talking about?" instead of automatically assuming that any 'carb' at all is really bad for us.

I don't like rice at all, but the occasional sweet potato hasn't hurt me (much) so far. Let's see if I can lose the remaining pounds eating this way. At least I'm not obese any more.

Veggies are usually secondary to meat for me. Fruit is rare. I'm not sure I could be happy without veggies, I sure do love them.

Agh! That's horrible!

I have to break in here for a little rant about using corn alcohol as fuel. It's not environmental, folks! First off, it has all the environmental problems of growing corn for food: destroying the land and natural habitats, and fertilizer runoff killing sea life. Secondly, it takes so much fossil fuel to grow and process corn alcohol that you'd actually save fossil fuel by putting it directly in your car!

I tasted those Jones Sodas before I went low-carb. They look very hip and appealing, and something about the packaging made me think they'd have less crap in them. It's a big lie. Those things are WAY too sweet.

Aimee Joe:

I just get my ground beef at a regular supermarket -- Shaw's. It is very fresh and tasty. I don't think raw is necessarily more nutritious--Zero Carb cooked or raw is just fine, IMO. I do not grind my own or use any seasonings.

I personally think we are too phobic about germs in this culture. I think we are stronger without always making everything so "clean." I feel so great on the raw ground beef and don't want to go back to cooked. It just tastes better this way, and it is more filling and I do find I have more energy from it.

But I came to raw after months and months of cooked ZC. Cooked ZC and raw ZC are both fine, and superior to eating any carbs healthwise.

I'm a believer. I learned a lot about microbes from reading Sandor Katz and fermenting my own vegetables. (I'm interested in fermenting meat, but it's a little trickier). That pretty much killed my fear of "bad bugs."

I don't always prefer my meat raw - I like a variety. I think raw meat can sometimes be harder to digest because the proteins are not broken down as much. Fortunately, I can have all that variety in one burger if it I slap a cold one on a good hot grill...

zero fruits and vegetables for me.

I wouldn't worry about the germs either, when there are other things so much bigger; and I assume the previous poster too, ... was most likely thinking about the VAST amounts of growth hormones pumped into all the (non-organic) supermarket meat in the US.

Talk about intense.

exposure to germs is what builds our immune system. the obsession of using antibacterial this and that is not healthy.
george carlin was right on.....

George Carlin's bit wasn't about eating contaminated meat. IMO, there's a difference between chasing your kids around with Clorox wipes, and not wanting to be parked on the toilet with a bucket in your hand because, as the Fast Food Nation guy succinctly put it, "there is sh*t in the meat."

I would rather have a hangover, do naked snow angels, listen to Brittney Spears, clean toilets all day... anything but have a case of food poisoning, especially when it's so easy to avoid. I have zero faith in the mainstream meat industry when it comes to hygiene and bacterial contamination. I'm not saying they're all guilty of negligence, just saying that I'm not going to put my faith in it.

I eat a meat with every meal & sometimes that is the snack. I do eat a lot of veggies & like them better than fruit. But I also eat a lot of fruit. Pineapple is my friend!! In the summer I eat more fruit. In the winter it is mostly pineapple, apples, pears, apricots and raisins. Winter is 2 to 3 servings of fruit a day. Summer it might be like 5 or 6 servings of fruit a day. That is also because I am in the South with over 100 degree days often, or like this summer almost every day. Fruit is easier & more appealing than cooking.

I eat a lot of kale (raw & cooked), broccoli, carrots, jicama and cabbage with the occasional sweet potato.

I gave up high fructose corn syrup a few years ago. I only drink water. a rare treat might be 100% welch's grape juice diluted with water. I am having a problem with nuts now, so they are out. I also have given up bananas. I just feel off when I eat a banana.

I think what you eat within the Paleo range depends on your genes, your blood type & your lifestyle.
jeanne

Well, Jeanne, the fruit today is nothing like the limited fruit that would have been around then, even seasonally. The large granny smith apples, tons of huge bananas, extra sweet berries of today are neolithic foods. Fruit is really just sugar with a few trace vitamins--that you can much easier get elsewhere from meat without the fiber and sugar attached.

When it is very hot, it is important to eat more fat, not sugar. Studies of native tribes show that those in hot climes prized fats like coconut oils above anything else to give them the energy they needed. Fruit would have just bonked them and would not have provided enough energy for necessary tasks, let alone nutrition.

Regarding the Kitvians, PaNu, Stephen wellblog and others have demonstrated that this group was health DESPITE eating carbohydrates, and actually at a lot of fat. They were healthy with the carbs because their sugar consumption was so low. When Kitvians moved to modern areas and consumed carbohydrates that were more modern (sweeter fruits, etc.), their health immediately deteriorated vis a vis those who remained in the tribal area.

Hard to tell what the kitavans ate after they immigrated that ruined their health, but I'd be willing to bet it was the grains that was most responsible.

The kitavan diet was high in % of saturated fat, if I recall correctly, not necessarily super high in total fat though. So if they ate 30% of their calories in fat, that's not high. But if 85% of that 30% was saturated fat (coconut fats) then if you don't read carefully, it sounds like it is a super high fat diet.

In fact, from the blog you probably got your info, they ate a rather low fat diet:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.c...ic-islands.html

So I think that means they had about 38% of calories from fat total. Which isn't all that high fat by our standards.

I can think of a number of ways they could've been healthy from that diet, none are provable yet:

Coconut fat is really good for you.
Fish is really good for you.
Maybe the carbs in tubers and the sort of fruit they ate are not bad.

or some combination of those things. And they ate that way from childhood, coming from healthy mothers who also ate that way.

It might be a totally great diet, but only if you're healthy to begin with.