Active Low-Carber Forums - View Single Post - Gary Taubes - have some of us gone beyond the point of no return?

I know I'm late to this thread, but I have a few scattered comments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GlendaRC

A bit of nit-picking here ... muscle DOESN'T weigh more than fat, a pound is a pound! Muscle is SMALLER than fat.

If you want to nit-pick, muscle isn't smaller than fat any more than it weighs more. It is denser. Anyway, I'm sure everyone knew that the poster meant weighs less per a given volume.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pilili

I read on a few websites that any diet that is followed too strictly may cause the thyroid to produce less T3 but more rT3.
Considering my own blood tests a few months ago (rT3 wasn't measured, but T3 was), I have been upping my carbs a tiny bit since a week or week and a half.
It appears that it's working. Not sure yet if I am truly starting to lose weight again, but at least I am not gaining. I want to give my body time as it has been through a rather rough period the past years.

That's Euthyroid Sick Syndrome. It happens on low calories and possibly also low carbs. It should be reversible, and that's one of the rationales cited for carb cycling, or just periodic refeeds. If you have a high ratio of RT3 to FT3, you should read http://thyroid-rt3.com/.

I think the main part of the confused discussion on corn sugar is that lil' annie said sucrose when she meant dextrose in the first place:

Quote:

Originally Posted by lil' annie

My suggestion is to get out the yellow pages and under home brewing supplies, find a store that stocks pure CORN SUGAR - this is a non-fructose sweetener; it is 100% sucrose, which is the same molecule as glucose.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BawdyWench

Amanda, you may be right, you may be wrong. I'm suspect, but that's just me. From all the reading I've done (and I did post-graduate work in human paleontology), our early ancestors ate primarily meat and fat, at first scavanged and then hunted.

You quoted:

This is merely a reporting of what they do TODAY, obviously, as I seriously doubt our early ancestors (even Kitavans of the same period) smoked like chimneys.

Also, the author's statement that "This is essentially a carbohydrate-heavy version of what our paleolithic ancestors ate" is merely this person's opinion. Unless there is scientific proof in the fossil record of ancient Kitavans (and by ancient I mean from hundreds of thousands of years ago, as there is for other ancient populations), this reflects an opinion only.

I agree with BW here. While it's definitely true that modern H-G cultures show that carbohydrates don't tell the whole story, and may be tolerable in the absence of refined crap, it still doesn't tell us much about the H-G's we evolved from. I've read that most of the evidence shows that we only started moving to significant plant use at the end of the paleolithic, probably when mega-fauna started disappearing.