What I would be curious to hear about - if the data are even available - is how western people who have moved to Asian and adopted an asian cuisine have fared. I've heard it suggested that asians may have a "rice digesting adaptation" much like northern europeans (and some other groups) have a "dairy digesting adaptation", but I've not yet gotten my hands on the journal articles that discuss this.
I recall that the mechanism also suggested that higher populations can result in metabolic adaptations that are more recent than the "paleo" state. AKA, places like china/india, which have sustained high populations for quite some time, may see metabolisms that thrive on food other than what hunter/gatherers evolved for.
We've seen the result of bringing asians to the united states, but I've never heard of how people of non-asian descent do when transplanted to asia. (And by "how they do" I don't mean weight so much as incidents of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and alzheimers.)
--- In fast5@yahoogroups.com, Heather Twist <HeatherTwist@...> wrote:
>
> Both the Japanese and the Chinese have extremely low rates of obesity. They
> also eat very little meat. I don't think they have been brainwashed by
> anyone, and they do in fact gain weight when they switch to a "Western"
> diet, so it's not genes. What is even more interesting is that even when
> exercise is taken into account, Chinese men eat MORE calories and still are
> skinnier than their American counterparts. They also have a lower rate of
> diabetes.
>
> I think this is evidence that there are other factors at work, not just
> "macronutrients". It may well be that American-style carbs are deadly in
> terms of weight, and certainly *some* people do better on a diet like you
> suggest. But to generalize to "all carbs" doesn't make sense until you
> figure out what is going on for billions of people in Asia.
>
> There is another factor at work, it seems. My educated guess is that it has
> to do with *wheat* carbs (gluten messes with the villi in the intestine,
> changing satiety) and total iron in the diet (high ferritin levels correlate
> with insulin resistance, and American carbs are mostly high in bio-available
> iron).
>
> I'm not at all sure what you mean by peanuts and elephants vs. Japanese.
> Elephants aren't generally fat in any case: they have a huge belly because
> they digest a ton of grass a day. Same with gorillas.
>
> Anyway, the cutting-edge researchers right now are not focusing so much on
> percentage of macronutrients, as on details about what those macronutrients
> are. Just like you can't lump all "fats" together (trans-fats ARE bad,
> absolutely, for instance) you also can't lump all "carbs" together. Not all
> protein is the same either: fish protein acts differently in the body than
> cheese, and cheese is different than beef. You seem to be very happy with
> your diet, and suggesting it to other people can be helpful, but there isn't
> enough evidence to be absolutist about it, I think.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 4:13 AM, barnabywalker <barnabywalker@...>wrote:
>
> > Fasting benefits fat loss because of lowered insulin levels.
> >
> > Fatty meat doesn't increase insulin levels.
> >
> > Same can't be said of grains and starchy carbs.
> >
> > "Why You Got Fat"
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNYlIcXynwE
> >
> > "Big Fat Lies"
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8WA5wcaHp4
> >
> > "Diets and Hunger"
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akz9B-zMS-4
> >
> > The average American has been brainwashed by years of
> > Corporate/Gov-controlled media talking about the "evil" of fatty meat, while
> > lauding carbohydrates, with their penchant for increasing blood
> > sugar...which can then be "fixed" by a variety of obscenely-priced
> > corporately-produced and marketed pharmaceuticals.
> >
> > BTW, are the skinny Japanese who eat lots of rice analogous to the fat
> > elephants who eat peanuts?...or maybe it's the skinny snakes who eat mice?
> > ;-)
> >
> > There is a reason that "comparing apples to apples" became a famous
> > saying...even amongst Meateaters.
> >
> > Barnaby
> >
> >
> >
>
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