Yes I agree, they are both critical. But I don't necessarily see any disjuncture between optimal health and avoiding degenerative disease, including CHD.



I don't think AC uses post WO carbs for health. He uses it to boost his WO effectiveness. If it's not in that 30 min post WO glycogen repletion window the carbs revert to being a metabolic downer (pro bodyfat gain, pro inflammatory etc.- all the reasons low carbers avoid carbs for health).
I actually think the many differences in the human gene pool are too often used to obscure the fact that humans are metabolically pretty identical. Some may cope with excess carbs worse than others and be even more susceptible to degenerative disease. But as I said, take a look at the size of the human pancreas. We are fat burners by design with a carbohydrate back up when we occasionally hit the honey pot. The 'everybody's different' card is too often played IMHO. Men and women are more different metabolically within cultures than the greatest differences between say males of any culture, yet you never hear different macronutrient ratios being suggested for men and women.



Quandong are only mildly sweet and about the same carb levels as a commercial strawberry ie. very low. All wild fruits are, eg wild mangoes, sandpaper fig bush tomato. In fact 'bush tucker' restaurants routinely sweeten native wild fruit dishes because they are not nearly sweet enough for the western palate. Bunya Nuts are indeed very high in carbs, but they only fruit (enmasse) every four years. The reason aboriginal communities succumb to western degenerative disease so quickly has little to do with the 'processed' or unprocessed factor. A good parallel is ancient Egyptian culture where the diet was very unprocessed, but carb rich. They experienced similar levels of degenerative disease as aborigines do today. The only difference is that most of the Egyptians died from tooth decay long before diabetes and CHD could get them. At least we treat the symptons of too much carbohydrate with all the bells and whistles 2000 years of technology can produce. Aborigines who return to a native diet are certainly better off for the tiny amount of metabolizable carbohydrate in their averaged daily calorie intake being unprocessed. But it's not the major reason they suffer less degenerative disease. Which IMO is getting most of their energy from fat, not carbohydrate. This is not just wishful thinking Val, I've experienced exactly the same improvement in health (as has Anthony, notwithstanding his post WO targeted carbs) by changing from a high carb unprocessed dietary approach to highfat/low carb/mod protein.