Is it actually more environmentally friendly to eat fruit?

[Hanna]

Do you think Lex's disappearance of precancerous skin lesions and increased jaw bone density were figments of his imagination?

How is Lex doing now? Is he still well?

When my caries remineralized, I ate nearly vegan. But often low carb (not more than 100g sugar), I guess.

[alphagruis]

It's not absurd if the 50-100g /day of plant carbs bring back many of your past symptoms, like spikes and troughs of hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia, painful cystic acne, dry skin, poor sleep quality, increased hairloss, poor circulation, yada, yada, yada.

How many times do VLCers and ZCers have to explain why we eat this way? Do you think Lex's disappearance of precancerous skin lesions and increased jaw bone density were figments of his imagination? Do you think I choose to eat this way merely because I want to when I have stated countless times that I love the taste of raw fruit and raw honey? Both Lex and I have talked about adding back plant foods if necessary, and I've even been trying to find a way to do it. Why is this message not getting across? Why do we continue to see comments from multiple people that contain built-in assumptions that there's no rational reason for anyone to do VLC or ZC?

And I pose the same questions, with terms modified as necessary, to the ZCers who keep assuming that everyone does well on ZC. Once again I plead with people on both sides of LC vs. Mod/High Carb opinion swaps to speak for themselves when talking about who does well on what. If you can't do that, then at the very least, provide some evidence beyond your own opinions. Both sides are obviously not persuaded by the opinions on the other side. Surely we can all agree on that.

I've been trying for a couple months or so now to find a way to fit more plants and seaweeds in my diet, in part to see if it will help with my life-long constipation, with not much luck so far (I appear to handle seaweeds and some low-starch veg OK, but haven't noticed any benefits yet). It doesn't make things any easier when people make such broad-brush characterizations of VLC/ZC and VLCers/ZCers when for at least some of us it's not even a diet of our own choosing. I came to it kicking and screaming, and opinions expressed by people (such as my physicians, nutritionist and others) along the lines of Alphagruis' only worked to further my suffering. I don't know what the final answer will be, but I would have been better off encountering Lex and other VLCers and ZCers long ago. Alphagruis, please think twice before you advise people to eat 50, 100 or more grams of plant carbs. At least include some qualifiers. Every individual is different.

Paleo Phil,

I'm sorry but there is a misunderstanding.

I'm perfectly aware that there are some of us who have serious trouble with even a minimal amount carbs in their diet and related suffering and I do not of course advise them to eat carbs. That said I doubt that this is the normal condition of many ZC's who discard even a minimal amount of carbs from their diet just because of ideologic irrational demonization of them. Also I doubt that the condition of those who can't tolerate any carbs now won't improve this situation in future. Paleo Phil since you tolerate a bit carbs in the form of greens I suggest you keep them in your diet (for instance seaweed or organic chicory, dandelion or lettuce, even lightly seasoned with a bit virgin olive oil, salt ,garlic if you prefer and tolerate it, you must find out ). Even if this apparently doesn't markedly improve your condition, it might be important in the long term and healing may unfortunately take years.  

To come back to my statement, please, notice also my precise wording: "it is quite absurd in terms of energetic and biochemical efficiency". Nobody who looks at the biochemistry involved can deny my assertion. It costs typically 11 ATP units to get one molecule of glucose and the nitrogen in the initial amino acid must be laboriously cut off and get rid of.

I do not deny that our organism can readily cope with the quasi absence of dietary carbs if needed. The question is whether this is our normal optimal long term condition. Looking at the biochemistry involved I doubt it. This was the idea I wanted to convey and I apologize for my too short statement being irritating all those who ( temporarily IMO) do not tolerate any carbs at all.

[Josh]

"it is quite absurd in terms of energetic and biochemical efficiency". Nobody who looks at the biochemistry involved can deny my assertion. It costs typically 11 ATP units to get one molecule of glucose and the nitrogen in the initial amino acid must be laboriously cut off and get rid of.

Mainstream nutrition says that carbs should be the primary source of calories for the same reason.

Eating carbs is a valid choice, but the argument based on efficiency of one process seems meaningless to me as with so many factors we can't say what wins out for an optimum diet.

[alphagruis]

Mainstream nutrition says that carbs should be the primary source of calories for the same reason.

Eating carbs is a valid choice, but the argument based on efficiency of one process seems meaningless to me as with so many factors we can't say what wins out for an optimum diet.

I don't know of all what mainstream science precisely says but I'm sure that their usual preference of carbs versus fats has nothing to do with my argument at all.

My argument is not at all that carbs are better or worse than fat (absolutely ill-conditioned question by the way) and that we should eat more carbs than the minimal irreducible body requirement of 50-100g equivalent a day. My argument is that it is better to eat directly that minimal amount rather than an excess of protein and then laboriously convert them into sugar.  

[Paleo Donk]

I have now been for a while it seems on the trail, so to speak, to find out what our optimal protein intake should be. It does seem that since humans are relatively poor at dealing with nitrogen end-products that minimizing this conversion rate would seem to be a decent idea. Though I doubt that it would be optimal to eat exactly the amount of protein needed to maintain nitrogen balance and then getting exactly the amount of glucose from carbs to feed the brain and then loading up on fat for the rest of the fuel. This is the idea behind the Kwasniewski's optimal diet - http://homodiet.netfirms.com/

I keep seeing that anywhere from 5-10% of the fat molecule, the glycerol (2 of them together) can be converted to glucose. It does seem absolutely necessary for the body to obtain at least 50g of glucose as this is the minimum amount oxidized in long term starvation studies(4+ weeks). Assuming that a long term ZC also has similar requirements to those in starvation and gets around 200g of fat a day which produces 10-20g glucose this still leaves around 40g of glucose to be manufactured from protein to be in a safe range and since about 1/3 of the energy is lost in this conversion(1 molecule of glucose produces 36 ATP and we lose 10-11 in conversion) you'd need about 60g of protein to be converted to glucose a day to meet the body's glucose requirements. So, a zc'er who is eating 90-100g (like Lex) of protein really only gets 30-40g of protein for maintaining nitrogen balance which seems to be in the low end of the range for maintaining balance.

I have seen some studies of nitrogen balance being achieved at low levels of protein, around 50g a day. I do need to double check the minimum glucose requirement of 50g because I recall nitrogen loss to be measured at just 3g/day in one long term starvation study which is equivalent to about 20g protein. But, then one would assume that when not starving glucose minimum requirement would be higher than optimal glucose.

[PaleoPhil]

Paleo Phil,

I'm sorry but there is a misunderstanding.

I'm perfectly aware that there are some of us who have serious trouble with even a minimal amount carbs in their diet and related suffering and I do not of course advise them to eat carbs. That said I doubt that this is the normal condition of many ZC's who discard even a minimal amount of carbs from their diet just because of ideologic irrational demonization of them.

Yet this distinction rarely seems to get made in the carb debates. This kind of qualifier is all I ask. Please try to avoid lumping all LCers together with broad statements.

Also I doubt that the condition of those who can't tolerate any carbs now won't improve this situation in future.

I hope you're right, and that was my wish before I embarked on LC.

Paleo Phil since you tolerate a bit carbs in the form of greens I suggest you keep them in your diet (for instance seaweed or organic chicory, dandelion or lettuce, even lightly seasoned with a bit virgin olive oil, salt ,garlic if you prefer and tolerate it, you must find out ).

Yes, those are exactly the sort of foods I've been tinkering with.

Even if this apparently doesn't markedly improve your condition,

Correct, it hasn't added any noticeable benefits. As a matter of fact, I always feel better on days that I eat only meat, fat and organs.

it might be important in the long term and healing may unfortunately take years.

Perhaps, but why would I think that eating in a way that makes me feel worse couldn't also have negative effects down the road? All I have is your assurances, which are no guarantee.

To come back to my statement, please, notice also my precise wording: "it is quite absurd in terms of energetic and biochemical efficiency"

But your missing the larger real-world point that if one gets sick eating plant carbs the "energetic biochemical efficiency" is irrelevant. In other words, real world experience generally trumps high theory.

Looking at the biochemistry involved I doubt it.

I read your posts about biochemistry and take biochemistry into consideration (and biology, and clinical medicine, and morphology and paleoanthropology and other fields of inquiry), but I'm not going to base my diet solely on extrapolations from biochemistry books.

This was the idea I wanted to convey and I apologize for my too short statement being irritating all those who ( temporarily IMO) do not tolerate any carbs at all.

Thanks for the apology.

My argument is that it is better to eat directly that minimal amount rather than an excess of protein and then laboriously convert them into sugar.  

Again, unless doing so for an individual has negative effects that outweigh the benefit of doing that. We shouldn't rely solely on high theory.

[kurite]

It's not absurd if the 50-100g /day of plant carbs bring back many of your past symptoms, like spikes and troughs of hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia, painful cystic acne, dry skin, poor sleep quality, increased hairloss, poor circulation, yada, yada, yada.

How many times do VLCers and ZCers have to explain why we eat this way? Do you think Lex's disappearance of precancerous skin lesions and increased jaw bone density were figments of his imagination? Do you think I choose to eat this way merely because I want to when I have stated countless times that I love the taste of raw fruit and raw honey? Both Lex and I have talked about adding back plant foods if necessary, and I've even been trying to find a way to do it. Why is this message not getting across? Why do we continue to see comments from multiple people that contain built-in assumptions that there's no rational reason for anyone to do VLC or ZC?

And I pose the same questions, with terms modified as necessary, to the ZCers who keep assuming that everyone does well on ZC. Once again I plead with people on both sides of LC vs. Mod/High Carb opinion swaps to speak for themselves when talking about who does well on what. If you can't do that, then at the very least, provide some evidence beyond your own opinions. Both sides are obviously not persuaded by the opinions on the other side. Surely we can all agree on that.

I've been trying for a couple months or so now to find a way to fit more plants and seaweeds in my diet, in part to see if it will help with my life-long constipation, with not much luck so far (I appear to handle seaweeds and some low-starch veg OK, but haven't noticed any benefits yet). It doesn't make things any easier when people make such broad-brush characterizations of VLC/ZC and VLCers/ZCers when for at least some of us it's not even a diet of our own choosing. I came to it kicking and screaming, and opinions expressed by people (such as my physicians, nutritionist and others) along the lines of Alphagruis' only worked to further my suffering. I don't know what the final answer will be, but I would have been better off encountering Lex and other VLCers and ZCers long ago. Alphagruis, please think twice before you advise people to eat 50, 100 or more grams of plant carbs. At least include some qualifiers. Every individual is different.

Sorry to hear. When you were on a SAD could you eat carbs? What do carbs do to you?

[Paleo Donk]

But your missing the larger real-world point that if one gets sick eating plant carbs the "energetic biochemical efficiency" is irrelevant. In other words, real world experience generally trumps high theory.

I don't believe he is missing your point or discounting your experience at all(not that you think he is). He did acknowledge the fact that some will benefit from no vegetation in the diet.

And we have no idea whether or not the "energetic biochemical inefficiency" will cause problems many years down the road with loads of excess protein being converted to glucose.  I don't see this as something to worry about in the beginning of the diet, say the first 5-10 years, but in my opinion should be something experimented with down the road. Literally no one has survived long term without some vegetation and even carnivores will consume greens and they are more completely adapted to a carnivorous diet and get the freshest non-domesticated animals with all the organs, blood and bones. So, even if these carnivores with their essentially "perfect" diets which are so much better than ours need greens once in a while it would make sense to me that humans do as well.

[PaleoPhil]

Sorry to hear. When you were on a SAD could you eat carbs? What do carbs do to you?

Sure I could eat carbs, and hydrogenated vegetable oils, and gluten grains, and refined sugar and you name it. I just didn't realize the extent of the damage it was doing, and when I tried to follow the advice of physicians, a certified nutritionist and vegetarians to eat more fiber, eat more "healthy whole grains," eat "plenty of fruits and vegetables," avoid "artery-clogging saturated fats," and other dogmas I did worse and worse. When I started cutting down on the plant carbs (beginning with gluten grains--which had the biggest single benefit for me) the opposite happened--I got better and better. There's more about it in my journal and still more I didn't post. So when people say to eat more plant carbs it rings hollow with me. Should I change the facts of my experience to make fans of fruit, potato or 100% ZC purity (I can handle eggs and liver) happy?

I do feel good and my health responds well when I eat raw liver. Is it because of the animal carbs or something else or a combination? I don't know. I just know that liver seems to work for me, whereas other favored foods like raw fruit, cooked tubers, raw dairy, and raw honey currently don't, and no amount of people telling me that it's absurd changes the reality. People will argue biochemistry and theory forever over why this or that is healthy or isn't, but it doesn't help me if it doesn't make a change in my actual health in the real world.

That said, if folks actually supported their theories with detailed, easy-to-understand explanations and decent sources I wouldn't mind nearly as much. It's the endless opinions, "just so" claims and appeals to authority that I don't care for. And even when we support our claims with personal experience or scientific knowledge, why is it so difficult to qualify our statements with acknowledgment of at least the possibility of exceptions?  

I don't believe he is missing your point or discounting your experience at all(not that you think he is). He did acknowledge the fact that some will benefit from no vegetation in the diet.

He did qualify what he wrote afterwards, but instead of talking about how absurd it is to not eat more than 50g carbs and then later qualifying it, it's much more accurate and polite to include the qualifiers from the start. Why does it seem so difficult for many of us to do this and why do such requests tend to get met with excuses instead of affirmative answers? I think it may be because both sides are focusing on their argument, thinking about how to refute the other side, and not putting themselves in other folks' shoes. I do it at times too, we all do, but it tends to get out of hand in these carb debates--on both sides. What say we try to think more before we post so we don't have to say quite so often afterwards, "What I meant was...."? I'm not trying to criticize, I'm trying to appeal to people's better angels. I believe we all can do it if we try.

I think one reason this forum basically seems to be a laughing stock among other dietary forums is because folks come here and read extreme statements and hyperbole about no one doing well on VLC for more than a short time or all forms of carbs or cooking being poison for everyone. They may think "That doesn't match my experience, so these folks must be crazy." Granted, most of them haven't tried RPD, so they don't know what they're full experience is, but it doesn't encourage them to try RPD or take us seriously if we don't put much thought into our posts. Our approach is extraordinary, so to be taken seriously we have to go the extra mile in acting in a calm, thoughtful, rational way. Otherwise we just fall into the mold of their stereotypes about us.

[Paleo Donk]

I agree that the focus on trying to "win" an argument is a tremendous driving force for the person delivering the post. Ego is an infectious bitch. I know before I submit a post whether or not I've thought about the perspective from the other person's vantage point. The structure of sentences change dramatically when I do so and are far less aggressive. There have been several occasions where I will go back and correct myself before submitting once I have calmed down. That said, I think alpha's statement from the beginning was implicitly qualified or at least thats how I took it and my initial reaction to your comments was that you were acting emotionally instead of with your normal good reasoning.

I do wish I could be more calm, thoughtful and rational when I post. It simply requires realizing that its ok to act accordingly without ego and then the post follows naturally. We all know how to deliver a thoughtful, insult-free post - its not hard to do. But this is a message board and so the ambiguity of communication with just words is inherently problematic. Message board words have very much scarred me in the past and so I know how much value there is in pleasant communication across these forums. I'll say its quite uplifting to not have any negativity or any purposeful communication that is intended to put someone down while making yourself look superior. I could easily be one of the worst at this because many, many times my initial reaction is to do harm. There is something quite appealing about making someone else look like a retard. Its a quick ego boost. Perhaps its just the usual misfiring of our fight-or-flight sequence that seems to do so poorly in modern society.

Andrew Carangie was right. His book, How to Win Friends and Influence People really makes a good case for making those around you feel special.

[alphagruis]

Paleo Donk, Paleo Phil,

I basically agree with your comments, Paleo Donk.

Yet I don't really understand what all this fuss is about and believe that your reaction, PaleoPhil, is understandably but excessively emotional.

May I add just this: I just recalled a basic unescapable scientific point that at least casts some doubt on long term viability of the ZC approach. I did not yet even claim that the latter doesn't work in the long term neither did I challenge the now obvious fact that it may be highly useful as a temporary diet for healing. But in the long term we just don't know yet

 And by the way I do not even address many other aspects such as the obvious unescapable fact that except temporarily during the past cheap energy century man never ate just what he wanted but what local nature offered him and in this respect from a pure ecological point of view it is pure delusion to believe that in future more than tiny minority of privileged people can still be nourrished in ZC way. Where do you think will all the needed high quality animal fat come from if a substantial part of world population switched on ZC ?
  
So as long as there will be ZC's claiming arrogantly that carbs are toxic and should be definitely excluded from our diet without any serious scientific backing and more importantly any convincing long term experience they should not wonder why scientists such as me feel repeatedly compelled to baldly recall some basic scientific or ecological truth that makes such peremptory claims at least highly questionable.

 

 

[carnivore]

[...] This was the idea I wanted to convey and I apologize for my too short statement being irritating all those who ( temporarily IMO) do not tolerate any carbs at all.

I seriously doubt that a ZC diet can heal any carbs intolerance. On the contrary, after my 1 year ZC experiment, I became simply carbs intolerant, and my ability to handle them had seriously diminished. at

To my knowledge, the only way to improve a carbs intolerance is to have small intake of carbs (fruits or honey) with fat in order to avoid insulin spikes/BG swings and have a constant supply of energy. That definitively works for me!

[alphagruis]

I seriously doubt that a ZC diet can heal any carbs intolerance. On the contrary, after my 1 year ZC experiment, I became simply carbs intolerant, and my ability to handle them had seriously diminished. at

To my knowledge, the only way to improve a carbs intolerance is to have small intake of carbs (fruits or honey) with fat in order to avoid insulin spikes/BG swings and have a constant supply of energy. That definitively works for me!

I'm happy to see that you successfully re-introduced carbs in your diet, carnivore.

Maybe you're right, at least it is clear that re-introducing carbs in our diet after a long period of ZC  certainly needs some more or less difficult adaptation.

ZC diet however can undoubtedly heal damages caused by years of previous veganism or SAD.

[Hanna]

That said, if folks actually supported their theories with detailed, easy-to-understand explanations and decent sources I wouldn't mind nearly as much. It's the endless opinions, "just so" claims and appeals to authority that I don't care for. And even when we support our claims with personal experience or scientific knowledge, why is it so difficult to qualify our statements with acknowledgment of at least the possibility of exceptions? 

Sugar is contained in mother´s milk. So it can be expected that sugar is not noxious, and that no human being is an exception in this respect.

What exactly happens when you eat a little amount of sugar?

Combining food rich in fat or protein with food rich in sugar during a meal causes problems in my case.

[Hanna]

I keep seeing that anywhere from 5-10% of the fat molecule, the glycerol (2 of them together) can be converted to glucose. It does seem absolutely necessary for the body to obtain at least 50g of glucose as this is the minimum amount oxidized in long term starvation studies(4+ weeks). Assuming that a long term ZC also has similar requirements to those in starvation and gets around 200g of fat a day which produces 10-20g glucose this still leaves around 40g of glucose to be manufactured from protein to be in a safe range and since about 1/3 of the energy is lost in this conversion(1 molecule of glucose produces 36 ATP and we lose 10-11 in conversion) you'd need about 60g of protein to be converted to glucose a day to meet the body's glucose requirements. So, a zc'er who is eating 90-100g (like Lex) of protein really only gets 30-40g of protein for maintaining nitrogen balance which seems to be in the low end of the range for maintaining balance.

I have seen some studies of nitrogen balance being achieved at low levels of protein, around 50g a day. I do need to double check the minimum glucose requirement of 50g because I recall nitrogen loss to be measured at just 3g/day in one long term starvation study which is equivalent to about 20g protein. But, then one would assume that when not starving glucose minimum requirement would be higher than optimal glucose.

Interesting! But what is "optimal glucose" - i never heard this term?

[alphagruis]

I have now been for a while it seems on the trail, so to speak, to find out what our optimal protein intake should be. It does seem that since humans are relatively poor at dealing with nitrogen end-products that minimizing this conversion rate would seem to be a decent idea. Though I doubt that it would be optimal to eat exactly the amount of protein needed to maintain nitrogen balance and then getting exactly the amount of glucose from carbs to feed the brain and then loading up on fat for the rest of the fuel. This is the idea behind the Kwasniewski's optimal diet - http://homodiet.netfirms.com/

I keep seeing that anywhere from 5-10% of the fat molecule, the glycerol (2 of them together) can be converted to glucose. It does seem absolutely necessary for the body to obtain at least 50g of glucose as this is the minimum amount oxidized in long term starvation studies(4+ weeks). Assuming that a long term ZC also has similar requirements to those in starvation and gets around 200g of fat a day which produces 10-20g glucose this still leaves around 40g of glucose to be manufactured from protein to be in a safe range and since about 1/3 of the energy is lost in this conversion(1 molecule of glucose produces 36 ATP and we lose 10-11 in conversion) you'd need about 60g of protein to be converted to glucose a day to meet the body's glucose requirements. So, a zc'er who is eating 90-100g (like Lex) of protein really only gets 30-40g of protein for maintaining nitrogen balance which seems to be in the low end of the range for maintaining balance.

I have seen some studies of nitrogen balance being achieved at low levels of protein, around 50g a day. I do need to double check the minimum glucose requirement of 50g because I recall nitrogen loss to be measured at just 3g/day in one long term starvation study which is equivalent to about 20g protein. But, then one would assume that when not starving glucose minimum requirement would be higher than optimal glucose.

Paleo Donk, why do you think that the energy (11 ATP) needed to convert amino acids into glucose must come from protein ? I can't see why it cannot come from usual fat oxidation. If ATPs are used somewhere their quantity decreases and triggers this usual oxidation process anyway. Thus conversion of 40 g of protein might be enough, actually to cover our glucose minimum requirement.

[Paleo Donk]

Alphagruis - Yea thanks, I got sloppy with explaining something I didn't know enough about. I didn't even think about what the energy source would be used for conversion. Now the numbers seem to make more sense.

Hanna, I didn't mean anything by optimal glucose really. I was just lazy with the keyboard and didn't produce enough words to explain what I meant. During starvation the minimum glucose requirement is somewhere around 50g/day. It would seem for the brain to function optimally, even during ZC, a bit more would be used, especially if there is intense activity going on.

What would be an interesting experiment (especially for someone like Lex, hint, hint...  ) would be to continually lower protein consumption on a zero carb diet while keeping calories and activity level constant until there is a noticeable decline in lean mass. This might take a very long time to see but would give us a decent indication on what both daily protein needed to maintain nitrogen balance and glucose requirement would be for those of us who get almost all our protein from raw meats. Lex does well with just 90-100g of protein per day so almost surely he can go a bit lower. But, how low? I'm not sure I have seen anyone else here report their daily protein intake.

[alphagruis]

What would be an interesting experiment (especially for someone like Lex, hint, hint...  ) would be to continually lower protein consumption on a zero carb diet while keeping calories and activity level constant until there is a noticeable decline in lean mass. This might take a very long time to see but would give us a decent indication on what both daily protein needed to maintain nitrogen balance and glucose requirement would be for those of us who get almost all our protein from raw meats. Lex does well with just 90-100g of protein per day so almost surely he can go a bit lower. But, how low? I'm not sure I have seen anyone else here report their daily protein intake.

I agree, Paleo Donk, good point.

Maybe forumers here could do useful work in trying to report on, as a first step, their daily intake of protein, calories etc.

Useful software in this respect from caloric restriction people called CRON-o-meter can be downloaded for free.

http://www.scientificpsychic.com/health/crondiet.html

By the way much can be learned from caloric restriction experiments in terms of longevity and health.

[PaleoPhil]

... That said, I think alpha's statement from the beginning was implicitly qualified or at least thats how I took it and my initial reaction to your comments was that you were acting emotionally instead of with your normal good reasoning.

I don't think Alphagruis' comment included the qualification that I would have liked to see, which would have acknowledged that the textbook arguments that people should eat 50g or more of carbs for efficiency reasons may not apply to people like myself, Lex, Katelyn, Del Fuego, and others who find they do worse when they do that. More frustration may have come through than I intended because repeated requests for such courtesy have been so far generally ignored and people continue to post things that imply that no one does well on less than 50g of carbs a day for more than a brief period or that everyone thrives on fruits. I wasn't trying to pick on Alphagruis--his comment just happened to be the most recent one along these lines and served as a good example of what I am requesting that people try to avoid. It was just meant to be a request, nothing more. His apology was quite sufficient.

We seem to get a lot of people writing things to the effect of "People thrive on _____ (usually plentiful fruits/honey or ZC)" or "People don't do well on ____." If someone then dares to point out that their experience doesn't match the broad claim and to ask that the other person speak for themselves and not make such claims for everyone, the fan of fruit/honey or ZC then tends to deny that the statement suggests all people. It's very simple. If one doesn't mean all people, then one only has to use slightly different wording to indicate this. For example, "People thrive on ZC" could be replaced with "I thrive on ZC" or "The following people thrive on ZC: ...." or "Many people thrive on ZC." It only takes an ounce of effort and I don't think it's too much to ask. And where I fail to do this, I hope others will call me on it too. It's more the pattern that has developed in this forum that concerns me, than individual cases of it.

Andrew Carangie was right. His book, How to Win Friends and Influence People really makes a good case for making those around you feel special.

Yes, I enjoyed Dale Carnegie's book and try to follow some of its principles, admittedly inadequately.

I basically agree with your comments, Paleo Donk.

Yet I don't really understand what all this fuss is about and believe that your reaction, PaleoPhil, is understandably but excessively emotional.

I'm sorry if it came across as too emotional, but one way of avoiding that in the future would be to meet my request of acknowledging the existence in your posts of people who don't do well on an "efficient" diet and who do do well on VLC or ZC, which I don't think is overly burdensome. If you or others don't do this, it shouldn't be surprising if VLCers/ZCers respond in kind, just as fruit proponents tend to when ZCers ignore the existence of those who thrive on fruits. I've tried to be even-handed by acknowledging the extreme statements on both sides. It seems that folks are good at seeing the fault on the other side of the coin, but not so much on theirs. This is an understandable human tendency, but given that this is a RPD forum that is open to both LCers and pro-carbers, if we're going to try to keep this forum civil, then both sides are going to have to acknowledge, at least a little bit, that people have done well, at least within periods of 5 or so years, on BOTH raw VLC Paleo diets AND raw moderate-carb Paleo diets (and if anyone has had success with a raw high-carb RPD, feel free to add your WOE to the successful mix). If ZC or mod/high-carb is unacceptable here then that will tend to lead to the splintering of the forum.

As a VLCer/facultative carnivore I've been feeling increasingly unwelcome at this forum. Rational polite debate is one thing, but what I've been seeing is something else. And there have been bad behavior from the VLC camp too. I'm hoping we can find a way to engage in debate in a more polite and evidence-based manner. It was the lack of civility and evidence and overreliance on opinion, broad-brush statements and even insults that seems to have in part pushed away some excellent past contributors like Satya and earn us the scorn of commentators within the broader Paleo community. Can't we disagree without acting disagreeable and can't we try to rely more on evidence and our actual experience than exaggerated opinions extrapolated onto everyone?

May I add just this: I just recalled a basic unescapable scientific point that at least casts some doubt on long term viability of the ZC approach. I did not yet even claim that the latter doesn't work in the long term neither did I challenge the now obvious fact that it may be highly useful as a temporary diet for healing. But in the long term we just don't know yet

I agree with "we just don't know yet," which is why I hope we can avoid terms like "absurd" in the future. My only concern was that the talk about it being absurd to eat less than 50g of carbs didn't include any mention of folks like me, Lex, and others who experience problems when we eat more than 50g of carbs. I agree there are reasons to eat more than 50g of carbs, but there are also reasons for people like me to eat less. If one can handle carbs well then it would seem absurd not to eat 50g a day if carbs are available and enjoyed, but if one cannot handle carbs well then it is not absurd. All I'm asking is that in the future folks on the pro-carb side acknowledge the existence of people like myself, Del Fuego, Lex and so on. Even KGH acknowledges that some people do well on less than his 5% or so of calories as carbs per day (although he sometimes has to be prompted by people like Del Fuego to do so, as I've prompted you), so it's not impossible.

And by the way I do not even address many other aspects such as the obvious unescapable fact that except temporarily during the past cheap energy century man never ate just what he wanted but what local nature offered him and in this respect from a pure ecological point of view it is pure delusion to believe that in future more than tiny minority of privileged people can still be nourrished in ZC way. Where do you think will all the needed high quality animal fat come from if a substantial part of world population switched on ZC ?

We agree on that and that is a given, in my view. Has anyone argued otherwise? I'm thinking maybe William, but I could be wrong, but does anyone still active here take seriously the idea that all humanity could be fed on ZC? That seems to be a straw man. I've even gone further and argued that the planet cannot support everyone doing RPD of any sort, which Tyler strongly criticized. Did you see those posts?

So as long as there will be ZC's claiming arrogantly that carbs are toxic and should be definitely excluded from our diet without any serious scientific backing and more importantly any convincing long term experience they should not wonder why scientists such as me feel repeatedly compelled to baldly recall some basic scientific or ecological truth that makes such peremptory claims at least highly questionable.

I agree that if ZC's make that claim for all then they also go too far--you're making my point for me--and I wish both sides would tone down the rhetoric. If you can see that when it comes to ZC claims, then can you also see that when it comes to pro-carb claims? As I've said before, an easy way to avoid the arrogance is to speak for oneself rather than for all. If mod/high carb works, then plenty of people will attest to that and there's no need to make extreme statements to promote it. Stronger arguments require less rhetoric, not more. All the empty rhetoric promoting ZC, pemmican, fruits and honey makes me more skeptical of them as being as great as claimed, not less skeptical. It may be a futile request on my part, but I don't think I'm just going to mostly ignore the extreme claims, extrapolations and negative rhetoric any more, as it has continued to build. I may be a voice in the Wilderness, but that's better than nothing. It feels good to have spoken up and it seems to at least be sparking some thought on the subject.

To my knowledge, the only way to improve a carbs intolerance is to have small intake of carbs (fruits or honey) with fat in order to avoid insulin spikes/BG swings and have a constant supply of energy. That definitively works for me!

My problem is I started from a place of carb intolerance. As I have frequently reported, my problems with carbs didn't develop only after I went VLC. Cutting back on fruits while I was still eating significant carbs helped immediately. Trying to eat more than a tiny amount of fruits very early on in my ZC experiment rapidly brought back the old symptoms. So currently I am trying to get some carbs by eating occasional amounts of fruit (with fat) that are tiny enough not to trigger symptoms (no where near 50g), but more from liver and the small amounts of carbs in some veggies. The latter sources of carbs don't noticeably trigger symptoms. Eating fat with fruit or honey has not been sufficient to avoid BG spikes, based on my tests. So for me, the type of carbs appears to be a factor, rather than just the amount. Fruits and honey seem to be more problematic for me than some other sources of carbs. I'm not sure whether the fructose is a problem, or the more concentrated level of carbs, or a combination or what. I'm hoping that some day I will be able to tolerate more carbs like you can, as I do love fruits and raw honey. I agree with you based on the experience of you and Lex and others that ZC can exacerbate carb intolerance and probably can't resolve it, which is one reason I include some carbs in my diet and I hope the carb proponents notice that I get taken to task (gently) by Katelyn for doing so, so I get lectured from both sides, though more from the carb proponents. I know people are well intentioned and want to help others avoid their past mistakes, but I am much more persuaded by your sharing your own experiences and information you've discovered from hard science sources than I am by opinions, quotes of gurus and emotion. I'll bet I'm not the only one. Think about what you yourself find most persuasive and I'll bet it's not the unsupported opinions of others or being lectured to about how absurd what you're doing is.

Sugar is contained in mother´s milk. So it can be expected that sugar is not noxious, and that no human being is an exception in this respect.

It looks like I'm not communicating my message well at all to you, Hanna, but let me ask some questions first to see if I understand you correctly. By "sugar", what do you mean, specifically? All sugars, some sugars--if just some, which and in what contexts (in which foods)? Do you not believe myself, KGH, Del Fuego, Katelyn and others when we report negative symptoms and/or BG spikes from raw fruits or honey?

[qute]What exactly happens when you eat a little amount of sugar?[/quote]I'm sorry Hanna, but every time I mention that I don't do well on plant carbs someone expresses doubts about my experience and asks this question. From now on if anyone wants to know I refer them to my journal, Lex's journal, the Dirty Carnivore, ZIOH, and Active Low Carber forums.  I don't require anyone who claims to have problems with ZC to report their symptoms every time they mention this and from now on I'm asking carb proponents to treat me with the same respect.

Combining food rich in fat or protein with food rich in sugar during a meal causes problems in my case.

You should of course do what works for you. For me it is the opposite. Including other foods reduces my symptoms from carbs (probably mainly because it reduces the portion of food intake that is carbs), though it doesn't eliminate them. Indeed, others have recommended that I include fat with my carbs, which I do, and it makes sense, since honey hives don't contain just pure honey, they also contain fatty grubcomb and other bits. Hunter gatherers and bears eat the grubcomb as well as the honeycomb, and they certainly don't separate out the honey from the comb and discard the comb, grubs, pollen and other components to ensure a mono meal.

[alphagruis]

We agree on that and that is a given, in my view. Has anyone argued otherwise? I'm thinking maybe William, but I could be wrong, but does anyone still active here take seriously the idea that all humanity could be fed on ZC? That seems to be a straw man. I've even gone further and argued that the planet cannot support everyone doing RPD of any sort, which Tyler strongly criticized. Did you see those posts?

Paleo Phil, when ZC's repeatedly claim here or elsewhere that carbs are toxic and should be discarded from human diet, I bet that most of them are not even aware of this fundamental environmental reality. And their outrageous claim implicitely implies that all humanity may be fed ZC, unless they assume in a cynic way that only a tiny fraction of humanity desserves the privilege to be healthy. And even to this cynic behaviour I would certainly not react as I did if the ZC claims were indeed based on sound scientific evidence.

As to the fact that any RPD diet and not just ZC is not sustainable at present world population scale, I agree of course. I recalled it even very recently in this same thread:

Interesting analysis though it not even mentions the major (admittedly politically incorrect) problem in these matters: world population is already way too large to be compatible in the long term with both an overall healthy environment and a healthy diet for every human being.

 Please, note however that ZC would make things even worse.

I agree that if ZC's make that claim for all then they also go too far--you're making my point for me--and I wish both sides would tone down the rhetoric. If you can see that when it comes to ZC claims, then can you also see that when it comes to pro-carb claims?

I can see it, Paleo Phil, and accept readily the lecture.

I just can't remember (but maybe I'm wrong) that you delivered the very same lecture to your ZC friends (such as Klowcarb for instance) when they repeatedly made their outrageous claims long before I felt compelled to react baldly to them.  

[PaleoPhil]

Paleo Phil, when ZC's repeatedly claim here or elsewhere that carbs are toxic and should be discarded from human diet, I bet that most of them are not even aware of this fundamental environmental reality.

I don't know, instead of assuming, why not ask them?

And their outrageous claim implicitely implies that all humanity may be fed ZC, unless they assume in a cynic way that only a tiny fraction of humanity desserves the privilege to be healthy.

I don't know what they're assuming. Again, why not ask them what they think?

And even to this cynic behaviour I would certainly not react as I did if the ZC claims were indeed based on sound scientific evidence.

OK, but two wrongs don't make a right and don't make for a good argument, right?

As to the fact that any RPD diet and not just ZC is not sustainable at present world population scale, I agree of course. I recalled it even very recently in this same thread:

Right, and I don't claim that because you follow a diet that the overpopulated earth can only support a small elite following, that you are somehow an elitist or cynical. What is your reason for eating as you do? I'll bet it's not hugely different from that of some ZCers.

Please, note however that ZC would make things even worse.

Sure, and that's why I'm hoping that there will be plenty of people like you who will eat more plants than me so that I can continue to afford to eat the way that I've found works best for me. Plus, a restrictive vegan diet (particularly one based on monoculture agriculture) would also make things worse, because some land is useless for crop agriculture but usable for herds. So the omnivorous approach uses the planet's resources more efficiently than either ZC or veganism. I don't want everyone in the world to eat ZC or even VLC and never have, since it's simply not possible. I am hoping that the world can slowly move to a broad range of diets that are as locally-based as possible while still meeting people's health needs and that are more traditional in the sense of the broad range of hunter-gatherer and traditional peoples. Basically Stephan Guyenet's approach.

I can see it, Paleo Phil, and accept readily the lecture.

Hope I haven't been coming across as beating a dead horse. I wasn't actually hoping for an apology--just acknowledgement that people like myself, Lex, Katelyn, KGH, Peter of Hyperlipid and others exist who don't do well on more than a small amount of carbs/day, if any, but unfortunately others took up the battle standard and kept the discussion going.

I just can't remember (but maybe I'm wrong) that you delivered the very same lecture to your ZC friends (such as Klowcarb for instance) when they repeatedly made their outrageous claims long before I felt compelled to react baldly to them.  

I don't think I delivered the exact same lecture, and I meant it more as a plea than a lecture, but surely you'll admit that I delivered the same basic message to both sides within this very thread. I've requested that both sides of the carb debate try to speak more for themselves than the other side and do more of sharing experience and evidence than lecturing. There's no rule that says anyone has to, but I think the discussion would benefit from this approach.

[Hanna]

Paleophil,

?? Sorry, I was just interested in your experiences.

I meant all kinds of sugar. I admit that mother´s milk does not contain fructose.

I have never eaten grubs and I eat honey very rarely (I don´t like it much). I suppose that grubs are much more easily digestible than, for example, meat or nuts (that I wouldn´t combine with fruit or with each other). I can eat coconut meat and sweet coconut water during the same meal without problems.

[alphagruis]

Sure, and that's why I'm hoping that there will be plenty of people like you who will eat more plants than me so that I can continue to afford to eat the way that I've found works best for me. Plus, a restrictive vegan diet (particularly one based on monoculture agriculture) would also make things worse, because some land is useless for crop agriculture but usable for herds. So the omnivorous approach uses the planet's resources more efficiently than either ZC or veganism. I don't want everyone in the world to eat ZC or even VLC and never have, since it's simply not possible. I am hoping that the world can slowly move to a broad range of diets that are as locally-based as possible while still meeting people's health needs and that are more traditional in the sense of the broad range of hunter-gatherer and traditional peoples. Basically Stephan Guyenet's approach.

I agree with this approach, yet I'm quite sure that you did notice that when one considers all the experiments nature has already done on us in the past in the form of various HGs tribes that successfully went healthy through millennia there is none that is ZC in a way that compares seriously with modern ZC's. All ingested at least some plant based foods and even the inuits ate apparently as much as they could in their harsh environment and their diet was not based essentially on terrestrial ruminant meats but sea mammals.

From an evolutionary and natural selection point of view it is obviously an advantage to be capable to live on a varied omnivore diet rather than to be constrained to a restrictive ZC or vegan diet. I said it before, I'm quite convinced that neither you nor any of the claimed ZCs are really forced to stick to such a restrictive diet ad vitam eternam.

Finally I'm certainly willing to eat some fruit and veggies so that you, Paleo Phil, can get enough meat and fat to heal with a ZC diet.        

[PaleoPhil]

.... ?? Sorry, I was just interested in your experiences.

Oh, don't worry, Hannah. I'm not angry with you. It's just a policy I've developed to help cut down on the time I spend here. I didn't mean to appear to single you out--I've gotten the same sorts of questions from others. VLC and ZC are apparently sufficiently strange to folks and enough folks have had bad luck with them that these approaches tend to spark a lot of doubt and questions and I don't have time to answer all of them here, at another forum and in real life. I'd like to be able to spend more time outdoors for the rest of the summer.

I should remember to put more smilies in my posts. Unfortunately, I'm not much into the smilies--they seem too feminine or childish to me--but they do seem to help communicate online, so I'm trying to use them more.

I meant all kinds of sugar. I admit that mother´s milk does not contain fructose.

Well, there are countless folks who don't handle sugars well, but you have to go to LC forums and blogs like Dirty Carnivore, ZIOH, Active Low Carber, PaleoNu, Hyperlipid, Free the Animal, and others to find them. I suspect that because so many good LC forums and blogs have sprung up, this forum has become increasingly dominated by pro-carbers, for lack of a better term. It's a wealth of riches, but it has splintered the ancestrally-oriented LC community--though possibly for the better, because people can a better chance of finding a LC approach that works well for them.

I suppose that grubs are much more easily digestible than, for example, meat or nuts ....

Yes, I suspect that one thing Bear Stanley is right about is that humans are designed to eat insects, grubs and other little critters more than any other food, but it's just a rough guess and there is much individual variation.

I can eat coconut meat and sweet coconut water during the same meal without problems.

I'm trying to stick to a more local approach and don't handle coconut water or oil well. I can handle coconut meat OK in moderation. If I were going to eat a tropical fruit, coconut meat would be high on my list.