Mary,

First the reply, then the delurk:

I suspect that you're in a no-win argument.  The social pressures
to adopt the type of diet that your brother is on is so strong that it
seems to take very strong convictions of one sort or another to lead
someone to paleo eating.  Between the environmental community
which thinks (wrongly) that it would be better for the Earth to feed
everyone on grains, and the medical establishment which is stuck
on ridiculously oversimplified models of metabolism, the lo-fat/
high-carb message is omnipresent.

Now the delurk:
In my case, I've had problems with weight control, allergies,
and asthma since I was 8, and of course, always got the same
idiotic mimeographed hi-carb/lo-fat diet plans that the medical
establishment loves.  It was only a few years ago, when a new
raft of allergies broke out that I was tested for food allergies,
found to be gluten sensitive, which led me to the research that in
turn, put me on the paleo path.  I've been eating pretty strict paleo
now for about 3 years, and have lost weight, lost fat, and seen
my allergic symptoms disappear, along with a raft of autoimmune
problems I was having including joint pains, excema, and
costochondritis.


Still, with my family history of heart disease, if I tell people what I
eat, they think I'm insane.  They're just *sure* that eating a gram of
fat is like eating a tablet of cyanide.

I had a book proposal in with Keats Publishing on what I call
evolutionary dining (I'm a biologist/environmental scientist) and
they *loved* the proposal, but wanted an M.D. type to write it.
*sigh* So, I'll be sending it off to agents shortly, but if anyone on
the list has any leads, I'd be deeply appreciative!

Nice to know y'all!

Ken Green