I learned long ago that arguing about diet is like arguing about religion. I have been a vegetarian since 1973 and a vegan for nearly fifteen-years. I do not take any medications nor do I suffer from any chronic medical conditions. I take a B12 Methylcobalamin tablet once in a while as a precaution, although my blood tests indicate that I have no vitamin or mineral deficiencies. I cycle hard daily and do very strenuous work around my property. My father was dead before the time he reached my age - heart attack. His diet and lifestyle was the opposite to mine. In my little town I am surrounded by unhealthy people who are daily taking multiple pills and can only dream about riding a bike for more than five-minutes, most would never make the attempt. Many of my friends and acquaintances have died from various cancers or heart attacks; many others suffer from debilitating conditions such as diabetes. These are the same people who get angry when they hear that their diet is to blame - most expect the doctor to cure them instead of changing their dietary and boozing habits.
Zynster wrote:I thought I'd add a few things to this discussion.
Humans evolved eating meat, veges, fruit, nuts and seeds. This is our native omnivore diet.
"Human Ancestors Were Nearly All Vegetarians..."
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/gue ... getarians/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
So you're looking at a low carb diet if you want to lose weight. Forget Atkins. He's old school. Instead check out the Paleo diet. Check out information from people like Mark Sisson, Jamie Scott, Dave Asprey, Rob Wolf and Gary Taubes.
From above cited article:
"...Which paleo diet should we eat? The one from twelve thousand years ago? A hundred thousand years ago? Forty million years ago? If you want to return to your ancestral diet, the one our ancestors ate when most of the features of our guts were evolving, you might reasonably eat what our ancestors spent the most time eating during the largest periods of the evolution of our guts, fruits, nuts, and vegetables—especially fungus-covered tropical leaves..."