Unfortunately most people saying a calorie is a calorie discards all animal based research, since it is not applicable to humans. A shame really, I think there are some very good information coming from animal experiments, that are really hard or not ethically possible to replicate on humans.

Patrick

Exactly.

Here in India, generations have existed on rice, without much obesity or heart disease. However once sugar and refined flour came in from the West, suddenly all the diseases of civilization started cropping up.

My parents' village, for several generations, existed on rice, coconuts (in all forms), some vegetables and fruits, dairy and sesame oil. Of course the rice was not refined. And their physical activity levels were much higher.
Not saying that they did not have diseases, but diabetes and CVD were not there. Anecdotal, I agree. But all over India (and the rest of Asia) you'll find this.

India is the Diabetes Capital Of The World. The diseases of civilization were there, they just weren't as prevalent. But now that sugar made it possible to eat more carbs, the diseases became that much more obvious.

Bear in mind, in order to grow sick from eating carbs, we must eat enough carbs. The disease of civilization are merely the symptoms of carbohydrate poisoning. Like any substance, we must ingest enough to grow sick from it. The dose makes the poison. Sugar and refined flour allows us to do that with carbs. But you said "without much obesity or heart disease", you didn't say "without any obesity or heart disease". This means there were some people who still got sick even though they didn't eat sugar itself. Or sugar was too expensive so only the rich ate it which made this a rich people problem. Now that sugar is so cheap, everybody can eat it and grow sick from it.

We find the "rich people problem" throughout history when it concerns sugar.

I have spent a lot of time in India/Nepal and what I see is that sugar and REFINED carbs, coming more and more into peoples ( mostly the middle classes...poor people are still very very poor) everyday diet, makes people fatter. That does not mean ALL carbs are bad. It means that processed sugary 'food' is bad

My point was that a few generations back there was no diabetes. Its possible that it was less obvious, but don't you think that if someone with even mild diabetes kept eating lots of rice and fruits and veggies, their diabetes would manifest itself fairly obviously ? I do.

I know that people may not have known about the condition called diabetes by that name ... but I do know that, although childbirth mortality was high, people who did survive that lived very long ... and they lived healthy lives. Except those who contracted infections like TB or wounds which became infected etc.

I had an argument with my dad after reading GCBC on this very topic. And with him, I could trace back all the people in about 7-8 families in his village. And, much as I hated to admit it, he was right. Except those who died during childbirth or during the first 6 months after birth (there were quite a few of those, about 30%), most others lived to be at least 85. And they were all healthy. There were a total of 5 cases (less than 5 %) of people who died from infections and accidents, but that's it.

Its not a controlled experiment, I agree. But I think it counts for something.
None of them ate meat.

It sure does, it's an observation. And it shows some evidence that you can grow old without eating any meat. Is it the healthiest way to eat? That is another question.

Patrick

While it sounds really good, it's impossible. It's impossible because we can't get b12 anywhere but from animal flesh and b12 is essential. Unless, of course, you're talking about supplementing yet even then that's just not adequate. At least not adequate for one's entire life. You are talking about one's entire life, and not merely a short time, right? But maybe you meant "none of them ate beef because cows are sacred in India"? But meat is any animal flesh, not just beef.

I forgot, b12 is also found in dairy. They do eat dairy by the ton, especially clarified butter. But now that the low fat dogma has taken over, they switched to vegetables oils. There is no b12 in that.

They don't get supplements in an Indian village....they get the food that they produce themselves.
And they don't do low fat dogma either.
We can extrapolate from this that not all carbs are bad

The low fat dogma has hit India hard, that's why it's now the Diabetes Capital Of The World. There's even "desi ghee" made from vegetable oil.

All carbs are bad. If we eat enough of it. The carbs that don't look bad, are those that we can't eat much of. Fruits? Full of fiber. Vegetables? Full of fiber and contains very little actual digestible carbs. Grains? Unless they are somehow processed to expose the starch (cracked, soaked, fermented, germinated, etc), then we can't get much carbs from any of them.

I think they eat a lot of yogurt in India. Maybe that's where they get their B12.

Shoba, did the people eat white rice or brown rice? I don't know if there is anything to the acid/alkaline theory, but I did read that brown rice is a high acid forming grain and polished white rice is almost neutral, which is why Asians prefer to eat it over brown rice. They say its easier to digest because the acid forming bran is removed.

We produce acid to digest food. If more acid was produced by the food we ate, then it should be easier, not harder to digest it. Actually, white rice is easier to digest because we can't digest the bran, i.e. fiber unless it's processed somehow like soaking, fermenting, cracking, etc. Otherwise, bran contains phytic acid which is an anti-nutrient. Soaking, fermenting, etc, will get rid of some of that phytic acid which will make it less poisonous than whole unprocessed rice.

Yes but we're talking about the people of a village over many generations...the low fat thing is new, and most people, in villages, still eat traditionally, certainly did a generation ago.
Ghee made with vegetable fat, although not really ghee as such, is still fat.

So one gets very few carbs from, say, brown rice....thus brown rice is ok????

Yes, it was brown rice which was not at all polished.

And yes lots of yoghurt and ghee. Ghee was a staple, not only with rice and curry but also for making snacks. The only seed oil used was sesame oil, as far as I know. So limited omega-6.

And Martin, the low fat dogma is very recent here in India. Just 60-70 years old. In fact folks like my mother-in-law never bought into it at all, and still does not

True. I fully agree that carbs are bad and eggs and meat are good. There is evidence for that.

However, I don't think that we have (yet) got conclusive evidence for suggesting that all carbs are bad or that the best diet for man is an all meat diet. It may still be true, but we don't have the complete evidence yet.

The low fat dogma is not that old. It is attributable to a single man, Ancel Keys, who appeared on the front page of Time magazine in 1961, 49 years ago. The point is, India is the country where diabetes is the most prevalent. India is also the country where vegetarians are the most numerous. Put two and two together. What do you get? Carbs + more carbs - animal fat = disease.