>Atkins = very low carb + high fat
>Neanderthin = low to medium carb + normal fat (Ray suggests in his book
>that his diet is lower fat)
>McDougall = high carb + very low fat

my take on all this (no science just my gut opinions) is that many folks can
eat fats or carbs but not both.  If you are eating a reasonable mix of
complex carbs and minimal fat its hard to eat too many calories.  If you are
eating high fat and no carbs you don't produce enough insulin to push the
fat into the cells.  But eat lots of simple carbs or carbs and fats and the
insulin reactions will nail you.

Now having said that.  There are lots of us who for various reasons cant eat
carbs.  Carbs set off my yeast infection (the only way to *really* keep a
yeast infection under control is to starve it) and before long I'm reacting
to all kinds of common chemicals in the environment.  Other folks have
syndrom X symptoms get out of control in a hurry.  I've got two type 2
diabetic aunts who control their problem via low carb (and a fat uncle who
injects insulin).  So, those of us who get nailed by carbs have no real
choice but to get our energy from fats and then to keep from adding body fat
we have to limit carbs even more.   I've talked to so many folks on atkins
who claim to eat a surplus of calories from fat and no carbs and not gain
weight that I believe that you can pig out on fats and not gain.

The biggest problem I see with McDougall was very pronounced in a gal I
know.  She was eating so little fat that she was not producing all the
normal female hormones and repeatably miscarried.   At least the last time I
looked at anything written by McDougall it was much too limited in EFAs.  My
friend finally used hormones to stay pregnant, but the baby had some health
problems.  She got *fatter* before her next pregnancy so she did not need
the hormones and had a much healthier baby.  Maybe someone who is too fat
can get along for a while without concern about EFAs, but even on my current
*high* fat diet, I find I do alot better if I force a couple of tablespoons
of flaxseed oil down every day.

I dont (yet) agree with don about the number of folks who react to gluten,
but I'm starting to think that a lot more folks have gluten problems than
realize it.  After talking to lots of folks with allergies, I'm also sure
that many folks have minor reactions to nightshade (potato's are in that
family).  I think it would be really tough to eat high carb without wheat
and potato.

I'm wondering if McDougall or Ornish diets (with good suppliments and
reasonable levels of protein) might be OK for the folks who need to lose
lots of pounds of fat.  But then switch to something like the zone or
protein power once body fat gets low enough that the body really holds on to
it.  Long term I think the diets are unhealthy and its quite a switch for me
to even agree that they might make sense as temporary part of a weight loss
system.  I think that folks need to settle on a diet that is more of a long
term life style than something they do until the have dropped xyz pounds.  I
think we all know by now that yo yo dieting is more unhealthy than just
staying fat.  BTW, even tho cholesterol tends to drop on McDougall or
Ornish, triglycerides are almost always higher than on low carb and the
current dogma is that we need to watch them.

My problem with neaderthin (I dont have the book) is that I feel that it is
impossible to get the nutrition we need from most foods and we are going to
need some type of supplimentation.  To me it looks like another simplistic
idea like macrobiotic diets, they may work for awhile but then various micro
nutrient shortages will start to nail us.  Our soils have been depleted and
there are so many chemicals just floating around in the environment that we
are kidding ourselves to think that anything we eat has not been affected by
them.  I've often written that large farms test *every* load of livestock
feed and then the supplimentation is adjusted for what is really in the
feed.  Its expensive to do the tests and its extra work to change
suppliments so you can correctly assume that it would not be done if it was
not cost effective.  Its simplistic to think that human food raised under
the same type of management is going to be better nutritionally than the
animal feed.  It's wonderful that Ray has the time, talent, and energy to
take his hawk hunting, but most of us are going to have to hit the local
supermarket for most of our food.  I might be healthier if I'd go hunting
with a hawk, but I dont have either the time or talent.