----- Original Message ----- >
> The term 'balanced diet' is one of the worst of the so-called 'weasel
> words'.  Not only is the nutritional concept wrong, but it is
>
>
> Keith


I'm with you Keith.  Friends and colleagues are forever saying that my diet
is wrong because it is not "balanced".  It makes me nuts.  I guess "balance"
refers to the midpoint of the typical diets in your society.  So the Inuit
would have said: "Your diet is not balanced - you don't eat whale blubber."
A traditional Aborigine would have said: "Your diet is not balanced - you
never eat insects."  Asians would argue that without a lot of rice each day
our diet isn't balanced etc. etc.  Since all humans are genetically almost
identical, each society cannot be correct.  When I suggest that the only way
to measure "balance" is to look at the diet we ate as we evolved for two
million years, my friends get really unhinged (except for a few converts I
have made).  I have pretty much given up arguing though.   In 10 years the
things we are talking about on this list will be main stream science.  We
can just relax and wait.   Ken