Hello all, FWIW I use dietary strategies in my daily practice as a clinician and from my experience a diet high in carbohydrates, whether from cereals and grains OR fruits ends up having the same effect in promoting insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia. Fruit has certainly always been an important part of the human diet but with two important caveats: 1) fruit was only consumed in limited amounts during specific periods of time, at least in temperate populations. In my part the world for e.g., in Alberta, Canada, good luck to you to try to grow any kind of fruit at all, and if you do, the season is extremely short; 2) most fruit available today is the modern hybridized version of ancestral fruits, the latter of which have an overall higher fiber content and usually more seeds, containing additional sources of proteins and fats (e.g. the Saskatoon or Serviceberry [Amelanchier alnifolia], that despite being an important food for First Nations and early pioneers, most modern folks find them too mealy). This latter point also applies to the modern hybrized versions of many vegetables, e.g. the carrot (Daucus carota), which bears little similarity to the sweet, fleshy orangey-pink version of today as for eating raw foods, I think it might be interesting to note that in the ancient systems of medicine, including Ayurveda and TCM, raw foods are avoided because they are considered to be difficult to digest. This perspective is certainly borne out in my clinical experience, in which I will emphasize a diet rich in quality animal proteins along with above-ground steamed vegetables, and when patients follow this, I can almost always suspend any additional therapy. Despite Gandhi's admonishment for folks to "chew their juice and juice their food," most modern folk don't chew their food all that well, reducing to a substrate that can then be acted upon by chemical means, and given the lack of cellulase produced in the human GIT, all those crunchy raw foods pretty much pass through the GIT undigested, and are at best a source of prebiotics. On Thursday, August 21, 2003, at 06:16 PM, Bob Avery wrote: > Tamsin, > >> Until the message is clear that most > people will never be able just to eat as much as they want and stay as > thin as they like, then the growing trend of increasing obesity will > continue > > If one eats only uncooked fruits and veggies, one can accomplish just > that. It's been proven over and over. You will probably even get > thinner than you like! (:-) > > Bob Avery > > ________________________________________________________________ > The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! > Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! > Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! > > Todd Caldecott, Cl.H., AHG Clinical Herbalist Wild Rose Clinic ******************************************* Director of Clinical Herbal Studies Wild Rose College of Natural Healing ******************************************* 400 - 1228 Kensington Rd. NW Calgary, AB T2N 5P6 CANADA tel: (403) 270-0891 ext 315 fax: (403) 283-0799 email: [log in to unmask] http://www.wrc.net/phyto *******************************************