Larelle wrote:
>
> My 100% raw food vegan/hygiene friend asks this question of the Paleo list:
>
> 1. Given that glucose is the fuel for the energy production of the
> trillions of cells in the body, why does the paleolithic diet, limit
> carbohydrate intake to less than the protein and fat intake in the diet?
> It is a fact that the body does not store excess protein, so if you have a
> high protein intake, one stresses the liver and kidneys in metabolising and
> eliminating the excess protein/waste products from protein metabolism.  The
> body can store excess fat in the fat cells throughout the body and in the
> lining of blood vessels as fatty plaques. The body is less efficient
> however in converting fat to glucose for energy production.  Why force your
> body to engage in an energy expensive process of converting fat into
> glucose when one can provide the body with simple sugars by eating raw
> fruits and succulent vegetables?  The fructose in fruits hardly needs any
> digestion and thus is a readily available fuel source for energy
> production.
The basic answer is that your friend is making an assumption:
he thinks that the problem with fat is that your body is converting
it into glucose, etc. Your body is using fat without converting it
to glucose and does it rather well. So, on a typical paleo diet the
bulk of calories comes from fat, there is no 'lack of glucose' problem.
The body adapts to need only about 40gms of glucose per day. Considering
that a substantial fraction of protein you consume gets converted to
glucose anyway you would get enough glucose (at least 40gms) even if you
didn't eat any carbs at all, provided your protein intake was appropriate
for you size/level of activity.
Tell your friend to pick up a copy of Protein Power by Eades and Eades.
It spells all this out in a rather easy to read manner.

Ilya