In the September and October 2012 McDougall newsletters, I presented readers with articles addressing the dangers of low-carbohydrate diets, which are also popularly known as Paleo and Primal diets and as Atkins-type diets. Please take this opportunity to read these articles.
In this article I look at some specific populations who lived before the globalization of the western diet and explore the health of a number of cultures that lived both on low-carbohydrate (meat, poultry, fish, egg, and milk) based diets and high carbohydrate (rice, corn, and potato) diets.
I present findings on the health of the nomadic populations from the Steppes in Central Asia and the Pampas in South America who lived the "low-carbers dream", subsisting on enormous amounts of grass-fed meat and milk. Their ways of eating did not protect them from obesity, heart disease, and cancer. On the other hand, I present populations from Asia-Pacific and Africa, subsisting almost entirely on plant foods (up to 95% of calories from carbohydrates), which were lean, muscular and largely free of heart disease, stroke and cancer.
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