>    My 100% raw food vegan/hygiene friend asks this question of the Paleo list:

Uh oh. I smell another vegan troll under the paleo bridge. And I believe
that Ward Nicholson <[log in to unmask]> has made a compelling argument
for the limitations/errors of the dogma of so-called Natural Hygiene.

>    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?
...
>    
>    2. It is well documented in the medical and health literature that excess
>    fat in the blood and tissues makes the body "insulin-resistant" .

I would suspect that this "well documented" factoid in fact has little real
documentation to back it up. Might one presume to ask for citations
or a even a URL to follow?

Even if this statement were true (stipulate) then it would likely not
apply to strict paleos, who have a radically different enzyme system for
metabolizing fats & proteins. I'd wager that few to no researchers have
studied the biochemistry of long-term paleos... and that those who *are*
studied become those "discarded" data points in statistical compilations
that scientists are so fond of making.

I long for the day when a study announces, "In a five-year study of
5000 Paleolithic dieters...", but I ain't holding my breath.

>    It is well known in health literature that when diabetics lose weight by
>    changing to a low fat, no animal product diet and a unrefined, uncooked
>    sugar intake, that their pancreas recovers and usually they are off all
>    insulin in a couple of months.

This is frankly incredible. Which health literature is being cited here?
Can non-existant pancreas islet cells really be magically regenerated?

All this aside, then why can a diet of exclusively uncooked meat & fat
sustain a human almost indefinitely? Why aren't paleos all reduced to sick,
kidney-damaged, insulin-resistant, half-starved people? Because something
is being overlooked in the raw food vegan/hygiene view of the universe.