I have not read "The Zone" or "Protein Power", so I will not comment on
those books.  It is entirely possible that they make the same kind of
statements.  It is unfortunate if they do, as I don't really think it's
necessary.

Let me ask you a question:  are you, or have you ever been 50 lbs or more
overweight?  The reason I ask is that this discussion sounds as though it's
purely academic to you, as though you haven't proven it to yourself.  The
reason I'm a little biased toward the "refined carbohydrates are the cause"
argument is because I have _unquestionably_ proved it to myself, using
myself as the experiment.  I used to eat a diet high in refined
carbohydrates.  I used to gain at least ten pounds every year.  (I was well
into the throes of the insulin-cycle by the time I changed my diet; I was
eating low-fat, high-carb and wondering what the hell was going on.)  Later
on Neanderthin, I literally tried to make myself gain weight by eating as
much as I could without making myself sick, all low-carb foods.  Eggs,
meat, seafood, etc.  Because I couldn't believe it either.  Surely fat
makes you fat.  Well, not only did I fail to prove Neanderthin wrong by
gaining weight, but in the week where I ate like that intentionally, I lost
2 pounds!

I feel that I HAVE seen the arguments from both sides.  We have seen the
arguments from the other side all our lives, most of us.  We've been
brainwashed with them, lied to with them, made unhealthy, fat and sometimes
killed with them all in the name of the almighty dollar.  What more do I
need of people telling me to eat more grain when grain makes me painfully
ill, eat more refined carbohydrates when refined carbohydrates make me fat
and put me on the road to diabetes, eat less fat when from my own personal
experience everything I've been told about dietary fat becoming body fat is
a lie?   Not too much!  (I'm not even sure I can believe that the
relationship between cholesterol and heart disease is being reported
correctly.)  Having said this, though, I am more than willing to entertain
medical studies that fit the following criteria:

1.  Funding comes from a source independent of government (FDA),
food-producer, medical, or pharmaceutical corporate interests
2.  Variables are removed in the area of carbohydrates as we discussed
earlier, or better yet...
3.  The study is done on people eating a diet that is comparable to ours,
or the subjects are primitives eating their natural diets

From what I've seen so far, these are few and far between.  So I have a
very difficult time accepting the resultant data as being relevant to me or
to this group in other than a strictly informational capacity.  For the
studies that are funded by questionable sources, I generally consider the
results to be possible but not necessarily believable.  For the studies
done on people eating the SAD, I see the data as again being possible, but
no more relevant to us here (those who are trying to follow a paleo diet)
than studies on animals.

John Pavao

----------
Of course. That's the standard argument concerning statements like
"Japanese
immigrants in the US have a higher incidence of CVD than people who stay in
Japan". There are too many variables. But notice that this kind of
arguments has
been used by Barry Sears in "The Zone" and Micheal Eades in "Protein
Power",
when they say (roughly): "we are eating more carbohydrates than in the
past, yet
we are overweight; therefore, obesity is due to an excessive intake of
carbohydrates".

<snip>

>  And again, I ask what relevance does this have here?

A statement convinces me only when I see arguments from both sides.
Usually,
there isn't a clear-cut truth, and the truth is more complicated than you
would
it like to be.