When you get desperate for pizza, order up and then just eat the toppings. ;-) What’s really wild is that you get full way faster when you leave the crusts behind than when you consume them.

I am not the smartest guy in the world but still I figured I needed a different approach. For me, if something doesn’t work, then do a 180. To me that meant protein and fat. Hmmm, what did humans eat 10,000 years ago? Meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, some dairy (or some goaty) and nuts. No Cocoa Puffs, Pop Tarts, or Tostitos.

I did read Atkins and did follow the strict first 2 week plan. After that, I just stayed away from the carbs and sugar. With no real intent to do so, I began to eat more vegetables and did eat a lot of meat, eggs, and seafood.

After 3 months, I had lost 25 lbs. What I noticed was that I did not get sleepy after lunch. I stopped snoring (wheat allergy?). I felt much better, much more lively. Up until then, I was getting a pretty good headache once a week. I’d end up taking 600-800 mg of motrin for that. Not good, because you’ll end up burning a hole in your digestive tract. For fun, read the detailed explanation that comes with prescription motrin. The question isn’t if it is bad, it is how much motrin for how long and how big a hole do you want. The headaches went away too. Even so, I felt like I was doing “bad” things because I was eating a lot of protein and fat.

Time came for my physical for life insurance. I was really worried because I had been eating a lot of (i.e. living on) steak and shrimp. From borderline “we need to hospitalize you” my blood work improved greatly. My cholesterol dropped a lot and the HDL to LDL ratio was more than 5:1. My blood pressure was really low and my triglycerides were now so low that they were right at the line between healthy and too low. In a bizzare twist, I qualified for the ultra healthy insurance rate because the blood stuff was so good. Mind you, this happened in 3 months.

I know everyone is different but I was flabbergasted that I could eat like that and get blood results like that. I was shocked I tell you, shocked.

It is hard to do it all the time; I’d slit your throat for a pepperoni pizza but it seems, at least for me, to be much better for me than any other approach.

I also found that I was never as ravenous as I was before. From what I have read, I’d say that was due to the eveness of my blood sugar when compared to the more carb heavy diet where the blood sugar levels fluctuate lot.

I’m not writing a book but for a white, English, Scottish, German, Native American male, cutting processed carbs and sugar really seemed to help me.

To your caution about commercial interests, I’d add that the interests of the medical establishment (whether they involve commercial, political, or not-invented-here motivations) also sometimes run contrary to quality science.

Taubes starts his book with a tale of the first popular diet book ever, written by William Banting in 1863, and how it was slammed by the medical critics even though many of them agreed with its recommendations (low-carb, by the way). It’s a nasty business when The Lancet says “We advise Mr. Banting, and everyone of his kind, not to meddle with medical literature again, but be content to mind his own business.” Ouch. Touched a nerve there, did he?

A really helpful way of looking at nutrition involves recognition that, ideally, food choices should be both appropriate and adequate. Confusion arises when researchers fail to recognize there exists a wide range of metabolic responses to food intake. Suggest you read Biochemical Individuality by Roger J. Williams, PhD for further insight into this matter.

The problem of obtaining adequate nourishment involves both the biological potency of the food consumed and the balance of nutrient materials required for energy needs and tissue repair. Meet these criteria and sound health is yours. Hard to do these days given the way food is produced and processed. Meat, dairy, and poultry products are not what they once were. Read “Food for Nought” by Ross Hume Hall, PhD.

Also, even if you buy the carbohydrate hypothesis, there are different ideas — that is, it’s not “settled science” yet as far as I can tell — about how much plant-eating is appropriate or desirable in the context of meat-eating. Though I haven’t read Michael Pollan yet (thanks are due to Simon Phipps for suggestions about that), I suspect there are some interesting deltas between his and Nina Planck’s approaches on the one side, and the approaches suggested by Taubes’s evidence on the other.

I definitely plan to discuss all of the above at some point. But at my once-a-week pace, you may have to wait a while…

Now I am not saying these folks who lived much shorter lives were healthier, I am only saying we humans grew up as a species eating high fat meat and no processed foods with sugar and refined grains. Such is the nature of our digestive system; we crave and are at our best when we eat what we were bred to eat. It really is that simple.
Okay, Eve, your turn.