Combining foods with reasonable sugar content (I use Rapadura organic
sugar, not garbage like high fructose corn syrup) and very high
saturated fatty acid content (and low unsaturated fatty acid content)
has been great for me, plus the evidence demonstrates that oxidative
stress is the key to "chronic disease," not highly saturated fats like
coconut oil (Sri Lankans and others have just about no chronic disease
until they switch from coconut to the highly unsaturated oils in the
Western diet).  This is even true of heart disease, where oxidized
cholsterol (called oxysterols) causes a chronic inflammation in the
interstitial spaces in the arteries.  Saturated fatty acids don't
oxidized cholesterol, whereas polyunsaturates do, especially when
plenty of iron is present.

I ate a diet of legumes, whole grains, nuts, and seeds for years, and
it caused stomach discomfort, but I didn't think much of it, since
everyone else I knew had worse problems.  Then I lost the ability to
digest food, and went from 130 pounds to about 98 in less than a year.
Only by doing my own research (and I'm a professional researcher, so it
was easy for me) did I learn about the nonsense that "health gurus" are
preaching these days.  I'm currently writing a book about the so-called
French Paradox diet, which is what I'm eating these days.  I make
breads with butter, Rapadura sugar, unbleached organic flour, and
liqueur, for example.  I'd never go near whole wheat flour again.  You
don't need to protect your gut with "fiber" if there is no oxidative
(or other) stress placed on it.  So you can eat reasonable amounts of
quality sugar (after al, that's what your brain runs on), but replace
some of it with herbs and spices that are high in antioxidants, which
will help your gut, not hurt it.

And my glucose went from 94 on the supposedly healthy diet to 75 on the
French Paradox diet, though "saturated fat" is supposed to be "bad" for
diabetes.  As I've posted before, lard is 39% saturated, chicken/turkey
is around 27-28%, and even Brazil nut fat is about 25%, whereas coconut
oil is 92%.  People on coconut oil diets should be dying all over the
place of diabetes and heart disease, and yet according to WHO
statistics and other studies, it is virtually unknown in peoples who
use such fats as dietary staples.  However, refined olive oil and lard
are used in studies to test the antioxidant properties of herbs and
spices.  Why?  Because they go rancid so quickly.  You couldn't do this
study with coconut oil because you'd have to wait forever to go rancid,
and rancidity is the key point (lipid peroxidation).  This is why
vitamin C has been touted for many years now.

For example, from www.sciencedaily.com:

1/12/2005
Discovery Shows New Vitamin C Health Benefits

CORVALLIS - Researchers in the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State
University have made a major discovery about the way vitamin C
functions in the human body - a breakthrough that may help explain its
possible value in preventing cancer and heart disease.

The study, which explores the role of vitamin C in dealing with the
toxins that result from fat metabolism, was just published in a
professional journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It contradicts the conclusions of some research that was widely
publicized three years ago, which had suggested that this essential
nutrient might actually have toxic effects.

The new OSU study confirmed some of the results of that earlier
laboratory study, which had found vitamin C to be involved in the
formation of compounds potentially damaging to DNA. But that research,
scientists say, only provided part of the story about what actually
happens in the human body.

The newest findings explain for the first time how vitamin C can react
with and neutralize the toxic byproducts of human fat metabolism.

"This is a previously unrecognized function for vitamin C in the human
body," said Fred Stevens, an assistant professor in the Linus Pauling
Institute. "We knew that vitamin C is an antioxidant that can help
neutralize free radicals. But the new discovery indicates it has a
complex protective role against toxic compounds formed from oxidized
lipids, preventing the genetic damage or inflammation they can cause."

Some earlier studies done in another laboratory had exposed oxidized
lipids - which essentially are rancid fats - to vitamin C, and found
some reaction products that can cause DNA damage. These test tube
studies suggested that vitamin C could actually form "genotoxins" that
damage genes and DNA, the types of biological mutations that can
precede cancer.

But that study, while valid, does not tell the whole story, the OSU
researchers say.

"It's true that vitamin C does react with oxidized lipids to form
potential genotoxins," said Balz Frei, professor and director of the
Linus Pauling Institute, and co-author on this study. "But the process
does not stop there. We found in human studies that the remaining
vitamin C in the body continues to react with these toxins to form
conjugates - different types of molecules with a covalent bond - that
appear to be harmless."

In human tests, the OSU scientists found in blood plasma
extraordinarily high levels of these conjugates, which show this
protective effect of vitamin C against toxic lipids.

"Prior to this, we never knew what indicators to look for that would
demonstrate the protective role of vitamin C against oxidized lipids,"
Stevens said. "Now that we see them, it becomes very clear how vitamin
C can provide a protective role against these oxidized lipids and the
toxins derived from them. And this isn't just test tube chemistry, this
is the way our bodies work.

"This discovery of a new class of lipid metabolites could be very
important in our understanding of this vitamin and the metabolic role
it plays," Stevens said. "This appears to be a major pathway by which
the body can get rid of the toxic byproducts of fat metabolism, and it
clearly could relate to cancer prevention."

Oxidation of lipids has been the focus of considerable research in
recent years, the scientists say, not just for the role it may play in
cancer but also in other chronic diseases such as heart disease,
Alzheimer's disease, and autoimmune disorders.

The toxic products produced by fat oxidation may not only be relevant
to genetic damage and cancer, researchers believe, but are also very
reactive compounds that damage proteins. For instance, there's a
protein in LDL, the "bad" cholesterol in your blood, which if damaged
by toxic lipids can increase the chance of atherosclerotic lesions. In
continuing research, the OSU team plans to study the role of this newly
understood reaction between vitamin C and toxic lipids in
atherosclerosis. In clinical studies they plan to examine the blood
chemistry of patients who have been diagnosed with coronary artery
disease, compared to a healthy control group.

"In the early stages of atherosclerosis, it appears that some of these
toxic lipids make white blood cells stick to the arterial wall, and
start an inflammatory process that ultimately can lead to heart disease
or stroke," Frei said. "When we better understand that process and the
role that micronutrients such as vitamin C play in it, there may be
strategies we can suggest to prevent this from happening."

The new findings, the OSU scientists say, also point to new biomarkers
that can be useful in identifying oxidative stress in the human body.
They may provide an indicator of people who may be at special risk of
chronic disease.

No, the introduction of so much food into our mouths and decreased physical
activity are two of the problems. Natural or not, the body turns food in fat
if you don't use it up. There is no evidence that what you call "natural" is
any better than what you would say is not natural.

Incorrect. Sugar is sugar. And "high-fractose" corn syrup is just an extract
of something natural.

Jeff