Hiram:

Great news!

It's bizarre that the advice to those with a disorder of uncontrolled blood sugar is to eat more sugar.  I'm glad you've found your way to a more reasonable approach.

Note that as Paul mentions, Paleolithic humans had a reasonably long lifespan...as do modern hunter-gatherers. 

Gurven, M. and Kaplan, H. (2007), Longevity Among Hunter- Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Examination. Population and Development Review, 33: 321–365

JS

sam:

"i have no problem with meat eaters eating meat….as long as they kill it with their bare hands and rip it apart with thier teeth then eat it raw"

We have opposable thumbs for several very good reasons.  One is to hold sharp rocks, which we've been using to scrape meat from bones for at least 3.4 million years…and we've been making the sharp rocks ourselves for at least 2.6 million years, since we were little 65-pound savanna apes.

Furthermore, there is no evidence of our ancestors using stone tools for anything but killing or butchering meat for millions of years!  The first evidence for starch grinding is perhaps 100,000 years ago, and it didn't become common until the Neolithic, 12,000 years ago.

Steve:

There's no hard limit on white rice…but it's nutritionally empty, unlike tubers (e.g. potatoes, sweet potatoes), so I only eat it when I'm experiencing potato fatigue.  And since starch shouldn't be more than perhaps 20% of your calories (unless you're very physically active), you're not going to be eating that much of it anyway.

Brown rice is higher in antinutrients, and I don't recommend it.

Wheat pasta is not OK, even in moderation.  If you need pasta, get some rice noodles.  They're usually intended for pad thai, and commonly available at Asian markets…read the ingredients carefully, as some of them contain wheat as well.

Most "low-carb" pasta is fraudulently labeled, so I'd avoid it even if it claimed to be gluten-free.  Most importantly, you won't be eating so much pasta that it matters whether it's low-carb or not.

Alex:

Most veg*ans live in an alternate universe in which our ancestors were always frugivores.  Of course, in such a universe, we'd never have left the equatorial forests, and our brains wouldn't have grown beyond about 300-350cc.

Conveniently, those alternate-universe creatures exist!  They're called "chimpanzees".  First, they're both mean and violent: your average vegan wouldn't stand a chance in a troop of chimpanzees.  And second, they're not even vegans...the average chimpanzee eats about a McDonald's hamburger worth of meat every day during the dry season.

JS

Harry:

I don't know any metabolic benefit to fructose.  Apparently a small amount of it mixed with glucose causes it to be absorbed slightly more quickly by muscles and the liver -- but this is a marginal difference which is (AFAIK) only of import to sugar-fueled endurance athletes eating during an event.

That being said, the small amount of it contained in reasonable amounts of fruit (not fruit juice) hasn't been shown to be harmful in any way.  More importantly, fruit is far more nutritious than white rice...so yes, go ahead and eat some fruit as part of your carbohydrate intake!

JS

Ryan:

I haven't studied that issue, so I can't make any specific recommendations.

Stuart:

Thank you!  Please spread it as widely as possible.

JS

Lesley:

Though it's not polite to say so, it's a feeling most people have.

However, as I said by way of opening my AHS 2012 presentation: "It's important to recall that people aren't obese because they enjoy being obese, and diets don't fail because people dislike being slim and healthy.  Diets fail because hunger overrides our other motivations." 

This is an important distinction!  Most claim that they're totally OK with fat people -- but when pressed, blame fatness entirely on sloth and gluttony ("Just put down the fork, fatty") and not, say, 30+ years of bad dietary advice from all quarters, government included. 

In contrast, I don't blame fat people for being fat: when we're all told that weight loss involves restricting calories until we're hungry all the time, and probably eating lentils and brown rice (no salt or butter!) instead of actual food, it's no surprise most of us either fail repeatedly or never get started.

Re: TGC, there's no timetable on a Kindle version, so I'd recommend simply buying a copy.  Thank you for helping keep the lights on at gnolls.org!

JS