James wrote:
>What do people think of this (very blunt) point.  If you eat a high red
meat diet, but little or
>no refined carbs, you should be okay cardiovascularly.  If you are
basically a total vegetarian,
>consuming little or no saturated fats and cholesterol, you should also be
okay in the same
>regard.  But if you eat alot of red meats, plus alot of highly refined
carbs, you are in the
>greatest risk group of all.  Does this make sense?  It would help explain
how two seemingly
>different diets (vegan and Neanderthin-heavy-on-red-meats) both seem to
promote increased
>degrees of health.

I'm glad that you brought up the issue of healthy vegetarians; it's
disturbing when the proponents of one diet try to invalidate the successes
recorded for competing diets.  Is it safe to assume, however, that the same
people can do well on both vegetarian and low-carb diets?  Admittedly, the
fact that most people who eat red meat also eat a lot of processed junk
confounds the issue, but there is clear evidence that individual needs vary
widely.  Healthy vegetarians abound, but some of us (including me) have
fared miserably with an allegedly healthy vegetarian diet.  There are
various kinds of healthy diets, but they aren't all healthy for the same
people. ;-)

Cheers,
-- Aaron Wieland