Re: traditional foods and the glycemic index (was Re: Carbs and Physical Activity)

[Guest guest]

At 06:50 PM 8/15/02 -0400, Suze wrote:

you can eat low carb (inuit, masai), high carb

>(dinka, maybe swiss, maybe gaelic), med carb(maori?, others), etc and still

>be within the healthy traditional paradigm.

Swiss would be definitely high carb with the rye bread. Gaelic with the oats.

Wanita

[Guest guest]

At 02:09 PM 8/16/02 -0400, Suze wrote:

>so it should read:

>

>Are there traditional foods that are not healthy?

>

>maybe there are, but I can't think of any - at least not 'first choice

>foods' which are the foods we talk about all day long, and that most or all

>of us can afford to eat. when you get into the period of the broad spectrum

>revolution and the fact that people had to resort to second and third choice

>foods due to over hunting or the ice age die off of lots of prey species,

>then no, i don't think those second/third choice foods are that 'good.'

Couldn't grass fed beef be second choice to free foraging deer, bison etc.?

<g>

Wanita

[Guest guest]

Wanita-

>Couldn't grass fed beef be second choice to free foraging deer, bison etc.?

In an ideal world, maybe, but given that those foraging animals may be

grazing in corn fields, sucking up pesticides, etc., I'd rather eat the

animals raised in a more controlled and testable environment.

-

[Guest guest]

Suze-

>maybe there are, but I can't think of any - at least not 'first choice

>foods' which are the foods we talk about all day long, and that most or all

>of us can afford to eat.

So you'd call potatoes a first choice food, right up there with beef,

liver, wild fish, pastured raw butter, organic/biodynamic spinach, etc? I

guess that's where I differ with you.

I'm puzzled about your inclusion of cost in the classification,

though. Shouldn't the list of first-choice foods just be the list of the

very best and most desirable foods there are, irrespective of whether all

people can afford them? It's likely, after all, that there are simply too

many people on earth to all eat an ideal or even close-to-ideal diet, but

that doesn't change what's actually ideal.

More to the point, I'm suggesting that the fact that something is

traditional doesn't necessarily mean it's good. There are many different

traditions in the world, but when WAP searched the world, he found that

some were healthy and some were less so. There was a definite hierarchy.

Most of them were healthier than the modern diet, to be sure, but I think

there's a real danger of our standards being lowered and our perceptions

being skewed by the extreme lack of health all around us today. We

shouldn't just aspire to " healthier " but to " amazingly healthy " , to " the

peak of human possibility healthy " . And that's a degree of health that it

will probably take a few generations to restore even under ideal circumstances.

-

[Guest guest]

Wanita-

>Swiss would be definitely high carb with the rye bread. Gaelic with the oats.

Isn't this a relative measure, though? I doubt the Swiss traditionally ate

as much in the way of carbs as people on a modern high-carb diet did.

-

[Guest guest]

>maybe there are, but I can't think of any - at least not 'first choice

>foods' which are the foods we talk about all day long, and that most or all

>of us can afford to eat.

>>>>>>>So you'd call potatoes a first choice food, right up there with beef,

liver, wild fish, pastured raw butter, organic/biodynamic spinach, etc?

----------->hell no! LOL. where in the world did you get that idea? i was

referring to NT type foods in that sentence - all the stuff you listed. but

i think their wild, or early cultivated ancestors might have been 'first

choice' foods. i think yam cultivation began some 40,000 years ago and other

wild tubers appear to have been 'first' choice dating back to paleolithic

times. don't know about 'potatoes' specifically prior to cultivation by

peruvians - perhaps those ancient breeds were healthier? although, i read

that they had to breed out a portion of the protein (15%) that happend to

have some toxic substance (was it lectins? don't recall). anyway, no, i

don't consider 'modern' potatoes to be in the same category as liver, raw

pastured butter, etc.

>>>>>I'm puzzled about your inclusion of cost in the classification,

though. Shouldn't the list of first-choice foods just be the list of the

very best and most desirable foods there are, irrespective of whether all

people can afford them? It's likely, after all, that there are simply too

many people on earth to all eat an ideal or even close-to-ideal diet, but

that doesn't change what's actually ideal.

------>i think you misunderstood what i was saying. i didn't put cost in the

classification, i only mentioned that 'we' on this list who talk about first

choice traditional foods, can (for the most part) afford them. i think if we

couldn't, we'd be spending more time discussing second or third choice

foods, which we do to some extent already. but i bet if i went to the web

site and put 'coconut oil' into the search field i'd get a heck of a lot

more hits than 'acorn bread.' <g> (except that list search engines

SUCK. so you never know what you might get!)

>>>>>More to the point, I'm suggesting that the fact that something is

traditional doesn't necessarily mean it's good. There are many different

traditions in the world, but when WAP searched the world, he found that

some were healthy and some were less so. There was a definite hierarchy.'

-------->um, i said just that in my post (first choice traditional foods

using the characteristics of healthy traditional diets as outlined by WAP as

a general guideline). so i guess we agree on something

Suze Fisher

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg/

mailto:s.fisher22@...

[Guest guest]

I've just been reading " When Healing Becomes a Crime, " by Ken Ausubel. What

a story! - certainly worth reading. He mentions that only a small percentage

of people have the drive to want to take charge of their health (and

irritate their doctors in the process). By the same token I think only a

small percentage of people are willing to eat the healthiest way they know

how, and spend the money needed to do it. I don't think there will ever be a

mass movement away from junk food and cheap food.

Peace,

Kris , gardening in northwest Ohio

If you want to hear the good news about butter check out this website:

http://www.westonaprice.org/know_your_fats/know_your_fats.html

----- Original Message -----

From: " Idol " <Idol@...>

< >

Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2002 2:11 PM

Subject: Re: traditional foods and the glycemic index

(was Re: Carbs and Physical Activity)

> Suze-

>

> >maybe there are, but I can't think of any - at least not 'first choice

> >foods' which are the foods we talk about all day long, and that most or

all

> >of us can afford to eat.

>

> So you'd call potatoes a first choice food, right up there with beef,

> liver, wild fish, pastured raw butter, organic/biodynamic spinach, etc? I

> guess that's where I differ with you.

>

> I'm puzzled about your inclusion of cost in the classification,

> though. Shouldn't the list of first-choice foods just be the list of the

> very best and most desirable foods there are, irrespective of whether all

> people can afford them? It's likely, after all, that there are simply too

> many people on earth to all eat an ideal or even close-to-ideal diet, but

> that doesn't change what's actually ideal.

>

> More to the point, I'm suggesting that the fact that something is

> traditional doesn't necessarily mean it's good. There are many different

> traditions in the world, but when WAP searched the world, he found that

> some were healthy and some were less so. There was a definite hierarchy.

>

> Most of them were healthier than the modern diet, to be sure, but I think

> there's a real danger of our standards being lowered and our perceptions

> being skewed by the extreme lack of health all around us today. We

> shouldn't just aspire to " healthier " but to " amazingly healthy " , to " the

> peak of human possibility healthy " . And that's a degree of health that it

> will probably take a few generations to restore even under ideal

circumstances.

>

>

>

> -