On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Mary wrote:

> But the last chapter seems to switch tack. The Hunzas up to 1956 he says had
> no cancer either on an ovo vegetarian diet. ( In later years they added more
> processed foods to their diet as the population grew, and then disease came.)
>
> But prior to that, they had no cancer on a diet of GRAINS, vegetables, eggs,
> and dairy such as goat yogurt.

This is consistent with what Mary Enig and Sally Fallon say,
based on the investigations of Weston Price.

> He also states that a culture with no cancer is free of other degenerative
> diseases.

I don't know about that.  I would need more than Stefansson's
word for it.  Is osteoarthritis a degenerative disease?  The
Neanderthal appeared to be extensively affected by it.  What
about tooth loss?  I recently read Colin Turnbull's _The Forest
People_ and noted his description of toothless elders among this
HG people.

> Almost the entire book seems to imply that all meat/fat/fish is the most
> healthy, then at the end it's like a bait and switch. Sort of like, "heck
> you can have your dairy and grains anyway"
>
> What do you guys make of this?

But you have to look at the forms in which the dairy and grains
were eaten.  I don't think it should be taken as a license to
consume refined flour and processed milk with impunity.

> The Hunza diet also appears to be relatively high carb. He states that the
> Hunza ate lots of fruit both fresh and dried.
>
>  Isn't low carb healthier? Or were the Hunzas getting so much exercise that
> the high carbs  did not affect their health?

That may be part of it.  Or they may just naturally be more
efficient carb utilizers than some of the rest of us.

> he also mentioned that the Hunza ate lots of sprouts. Should we be eating
> sprouts?

Why not, if you enjoy them?  Sprouts are not a
technology-dependent food.

> Oh finally you guys both stone age cultures had almost no cooking. The
> Eskimo ate raw meat/fish /fat and the Hunza ate 80% uncooked. (only a small
> amount of roast mutton) Kind of an ad for raw??

It seems so.

> He also implies that what really prevents cancer is not the meat/fat but
> rather the antiscorbutic properties of both diets...so should we be eating a
> lot more lemon?

Only if Stefansson was right.  Do we know that?  Interestingly,
Linus Pauling had similar ideas about cancer.

> I'm wondering if the Hunza research means I can give my son
> more carbs?? So far he has more clarity on lower carbs.

Here's an instructive anecdote.  As you know, my son also has
autism/PDD.  We put him on a gluten and casesin free diet.  After
four months, we tried some dairy and saw no particular problems.
But we were sure that accidental gluten ingestion caused
immediate regression.  We maintained the gluten-free diet for 3.5
years, with a high level of vigilance.  About four months ago, on
a Wednesday evening Dylan (my son) said to us, "I'm not allergic
to wheat and flour anymore."  We asked him how he knew this.  He
told us that on the previous Sunday, while at Sunday school, he
had accepted some pretzels that had been offered as a snack.  The
Sunday School teacher was a substitute, and didn't know that this
was forbidden, so Dylan took advantage of the situation.  He
waited until Wednesday to tell us because he wanted to see if he
would get "sick."  Well, we hadn't noticed any problems, so we
couldn't very well tell him that wheat and flour would make him
sick.  So that was the end of the gluten-free diet.  I'll never
know whether the diet ever did him any good, or if it was all in
our heads.  But he has been doing just fine for the past four
months eating whatever he wants.  Like every parent, we still
have to work to get him to eat healthy foods.

The point is that kids quickly reach an age where they make their
own choices and you lose power to control them.  In this case,
Dylan did his own little scientific experiment.  If it hadn't
happened then it would have happened sooner or later.  Mary, your
son will *not* avoid carbs forever, so if you can get him to
acquire a taste for the healthier ones you are probably ahead of
the game.

Todd Moody
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