On Sun, 29 Mar 1998, Michele Shoemaker wrote:

> He is now completly vegetarian and says he's never been healthier--he still
> avoids the gluten containing foods. He still eats like a horse and is still
> fairly thin though not as emaciated as when I met him.
>
> I realize that this story flies in the face of most everything that has
> been posted on this list. Maybe someone out there can explain the anomaly.

It doesn't seem like such an anomaly to me.  It's no secret that
some people respond very well to vegetarian diets, and live to a
ripe old age.  Many people don't do so well, of course.  I don't
know that there's any way to predict who will do well and who
won't, except to try it and see.

It's pretty clear that anyone who has a high insulin response to
carbohydrates is likely to have problems as a vegetarian, but not
everyone has such a response.  Barry Sears estimates that about
25% of the population have adapted to such a diet.  I don't know
where he gets his figures, but it seems about right.

As I mentioned in another post, I personally know plenty of
vegetarians, most of whom are committed to healthy whole-food
vegetarian diets.  Most also eat dairy and eggs.  I can think of
12 such people off the top of my head.  Of that 12, six appear to
be overweight.  The other six are, to all appearances, in
excellent shape.  None are vegans.

My own grandmother was an ovo-lacto vegetarian for the last 50
years of her life.  She was thin, never sick, and died at age 93.
Her staple food was beans and rice with butter, but she ate
plenty of cooked greens with it.  And she always saved and drank
the water that she boiled the veggies in.

When I tried to emulate her diet, I gained weight rapidly and was
constantly hungry.  Maybe I wasn't doing it right.

Todd Moody
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