Hello all. I had this board recommended to me by a friend a few days ago, and thought I'd pop on to see if you guys knew anything about these things that I've been wondering about the South Beach plan.

1) I read something yesterday about agave nectar as a substitute for honey. It was being flogged to diabetics, and one of the claims made was that it was slow to absorb, so didn't spike the GI. Has anybody else heard of this, and whether agave might be a good choice for later stage SB eating? (I'm a honey junkie, and while agave nectar isn't quite as appealing as the real golden stuff, it would do.)

2) Does anybody have a recommendation about eating Indian food? I'm also all about the occasional curry, but the curry concept doesn't seem to have occurred to Dr. Agatston. Some lovely person posted a recipe for coconut milk curry with shrimp, and I will be eating that, oh yes, but it's more of a Thai-style dish. I'd like to work out what I can eat when I go to the Indian restaurant -- I know you can't have any of the traditional curry substrates (rice, or flatbread of any kind), but can you have the curry itself? I think vindaloo is out because it's definitely got potatoes in, and you can't have raisins so much until Phase II, so that lets out some of the other curries, but other than that, I'm not sure what's in a curry, so it's hard to tell. Pakora, I think, should be okay, because it's just either veggies or meat or both in a chickpea batter (yeah, I know, you're not supposed to eat stuff that's deep-fried, but I don't think it will kill me every once in a while), and chickpea flour seems to be not a problem. Other than that, I don't know. Does anybody have any input on that?

Thanks!