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Actually that South Korean stat was from before the age of tablets and phones. All the studies I read said they stayed inside too much and studied too much... even so far as to conclude that reduced sunlight exposure was the main cause of the nearsightedness.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/k...

https://naturalon.com/sun-expo...

https://www.marksdailyapple.co...

https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Fair enough, I didn't cite it well and didn't back it up. My post wasn't meant to be an entire essay or statistics lesson. It was one of those things that I remembered from the various books / papers I have read on the topic. It was based on a fairly large set of data. And this is NOTHING NEW by the way.

Google turned up a few hits - please by all means look up more. They are out there.

dietheartpublishing

sciencedaily

The above were from 2009, and look like they may have some redundant data. And actually, this points to a higher percentage and focuses on LDL. But, my point stands that there is no definitive link between saturated fat and blood cholesterol and heart disease. You are correct, there are MANY factors, but our "scienticians" boil it down to good-cholesterol bad-cholesterol. Nearly any doctor in the country will tell you "raise your HDL, lower your LDL - here take these drugs to do it." It's not only quite wrong, it could be exacerbating the problem!

A really good one was a 10 part series by Dr Peter Attia around cholesterol. The series gets pretty deep into the topic, but here is a good summary: marksdailyapple

Here's some more:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com...

There have been many, many studies on this matter over the past couple decades. A couple of my favorite meta-aggregators of these studies are Rogue Health and Fitness and Mark's Dailly Apple (yeah, he's a paleo advocate, but he's also a former top competitive runner, Ironman winner, and currently a sculpted buff dude in his 60s -- and his wife only a few years younger looks like a fitness model). Even more interesting, look into guys like Art Devany. He and his wife are in their mid-70s, yet fitter than most people in their 40s.

Basically, the health promises of the 70s-80s were found to be false along several axes. The most notorious being recommendations for the low-fat, high-carb diet, but also the whole jogging/aerobics craze that started in the late 70s has been found to be empirically a failure. This is what led to the renewed interest in weight-lifting and other strength training. Long-duration, plodding exercise really isn't ideal to longevity. Running 10 miles a day used to be thought the peak of fitness, but really it results in muscle atrophy, heart strain, joint problems, etc...

And the problem with focusing on athletes is generally that they overdo it. Athletes are people singularly focused on *winning* not on health and longevity. Athletes will gladly trade a decade of life for a short-term competitive edge. This is what Mark Sisson (Mark's Daily Apple above) found. His competitive running had him constantly sick and/or injured. He scaled his workout way back, stopped the long-distance running, and focused more on short-duration high-intensity exercise to stimulate the hormesis/recovery cycle, and specifically worked on gaining muscle mass.

There is sort of a golden mean to exercise, recovery, muscle mass, strength, etc... And generally it looks about like the "fitness model" ideal for women and the wrestler physique for men. Muscular but not freakish. Slim but not skinny, low body fat, but not veins showing everywhere... you get the idea.

Side note: I was flying back from SCALE 13x last week, and ended up sitting next to a cardiologist who has been doing research in these areas. His synopsis: we should all be lifting weights, and lifting *heavy*.

There have been many, many studies on this matter over the past couple decades. A couple of my favorite meta-aggregators of these studies are Rogue Health and Fitness and Mark's Dailly Apple (yeah, he's a paleo advocate, but he's also a former top competitive runner, Ironman winner, and currently a sculpted buff dude in his 60s -- and his wife only a few years younger looks like a fitness model). Even more interesting, look into guys like Art Devany. He and his wife are in their mid-70s, yet fitter than most people in their 40s.

Basically, the health promises of the 70s-80s were found to be false along several axes. The most notorious being recommendations for the low-fat, high-carb diet, but also the whole jogging/aerobics craze that started in the late 70s has been found to be empirically a failure. This is what led to the renewed interest in weight-lifting and other strength training. Long-duration, plodding exercise really isn't ideal to longevity. Running 10 miles a day used to be thought the peak of fitness, but really it results in muscle atrophy, heart strain, joint problems, etc...

And the problem with focusing on athletes is generally that they overdo it. Athletes are people singularly focused on *winning* not on health and longevity. Athletes will gladly trade a decade of life for a short-term competitive edge. This is what Mark Sisson (Mark's Daily Apple above) found. His competitive running had him constantly sick and/or injured. He scaled his workout way back, stopped the long-distance running, and focused more on short-duration high-intensity exercise to stimulate the hormesis/recovery cycle, and specifically worked on gaining muscle mass.

There is sort of a golden mean to exercise, recovery, muscle mass, strength, etc... And generally it looks about like the "fitness model" ideal for women and the wrestler physique for men. Muscular but not freakish. Slim but not skinny, low body fat, but not veins showing everywhere... you get the idea.

Side note: I was flying back from SCALE 13x last week, and ended up sitting next to a cardiologist who has been doing research in these areas. His synopsis: we should all be lifting weights, and lifting *heavy*.

Firstly, it's a caloric restriction issue, we agree on that. With high fat and high protein diets have been show via various studies to provide satiety, which is the key here in North American since our metabolisms are so screwed up. Japan, by the way, is closing the gap on heart disease and cancer due to their diet going to hell over the last 20 years.

Where I take exception:

Or, if you want, work out a hell of a lot (not this 3 hour a week BS, I am talking 10-15 hours a week of intense exercise). Then you can basically eat anything and your markers will be amazing.

This is laughable. You cannot maintain intensity (I do not think you know what that word means) for over a couple of minutes at a stretch, MAX.

Skip rope for ten minutes at high intensity. Then do this.
That covers cardio, legs, and the pushing muscles. Toss in a couple of sets of pullups and you're done. Twenty minutes.

Or, do what this guy did: Cheap simple fit.

Or, do what I do. I used the HIIT protocol for sprints twice a week, and practice compound lifts three times a week (personally, I do mainly squats, deadlifts, incline bench, weighted chins). Total outlay: approximately three hours.

I will say that those in the know know that abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym. In addition, the about cited HIIT protocol will bring your markers in line.

When I was in the military I ran 10ks and half marathons, and then I got out and realized that I didn't have unlimited time (like many of you I work in IT with a decently grueling schedule), so I adjusted. In addition, I love to mock distance runners because the majority of them that I know personally are sickly skinny fat with compromised immune systems.

My guesses:
1. More walking/cycling.
"The average distance travelled per person per year by car ranges from 6,190 km in Japan to 23,130 km in USA."
( http://www.fiafoundation.org/p... - p.3)
Of course, this could also mean that stuff is generally closer to the average Japanese person than to the average USian.

"The data collected showed that Americans, on average, took 5,117 steps a day, far short of the averages in western Australia (9,695 steps), Switzerland (9,650 steps) and Japan (7,168 steps)."
( http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/... )
I'm not sure about obesity rates and diet in Australia and Switzerland, though.

2. Societal pressure
Very few words need to be said about the pressure of Japanese society on its inhabitants. Be(com)ing fat is probably not easy in Japan.

3. Portion sizes
It takes quite some effort to go from 'eat until your plate is empty or you absolutely cannot eat more' to 'eat until you feel satisfied'. It can be done, but it is much easier to just start out with less on your plate. As I believe the Japanese do.

4. Different food flavoring
Very interesting and easily grokked graph:
http://www.nature.com/srep/201...

Not an exhaustive graph, but it's fairly clear that traditional Asian cuisine uses very different ways to add flavour to dishes. I wouldn't be surprised if the effects of consuming higher levels of soy (sauce) affects some obesity-causing mechanisms (insulin production, feelings of satiety, etc.).
When it comes to insulin production, milk also has a special place:
" In one study (PDF), milk was even more insulinogenic than white bread, but less so than whey protein with added lactose and cheese with added lactose. Another study (PDF) found that full-fat fermented milk products and regular full-fat milk were about as insulinogenic as white bread."
( http://www.marksdailyapple.com... )

"The daily per capita consumption of milk is about 105g, roughly one third of the daily per capita consumption in England and Denmark, and less than one-half of that in the U.S. and Australia"
( http://www.dairy.co.jp/eng/eng... )

I guess that really depends on what the root is for his antipathy towards women/people/mankind.

In this case, I believe his social isolation was the root and getting him out of that with proper training and real-world exercise would have turned him into one of the many quite normal socially slightly challenged people in our society. If, however, some traumatic experience were the cause, then one would expect the result to indeed be a charming and doubly dangerous psychopath.

I think this whole episode yet again underlines that loneliness and social isolation can drive people to do terrible things.
From Mark's Daily Apple:
"As I’ve suggested before, there’s something to the ancestral context – the genetically wired, “expected” conditions that characterized our evolutionary history. Extended isolation meant almost sure death in our ancestors’ days." ( http://www.marksdailyapple.com... )

I agree with you. Completely.

For the rest of you:

What a bunch of pussies. Shave your head with a cheapass Atra cartridge on a Headblade every other day, get outside to get rid of the initial blinding whiteness via a slight tan (if you're a white guy) and suck it up. I'm early 40s, have been shaving my head for eight years, and get more Tang than a fucking astronaut. I'm just like a lot of you guys, MBTI INTJ, IQ third standard deviation to the right, geek for a living, etc. (Note: introverted.. extremely... but *not* shy).

Seriously, do that, then get your lame ass over to SimpleFit and do what this guy did and quit fucking whining. If that's too hard get a GymBoss and a ten dollar jump rope. Ten to twenty minutes of interval jump roping can fuck your shit up something proper. One variable you can control is the shape you're in.

And to those of you who are whining about not getting laid.. if you're under 30 with a horribly shaped cranium, I *might* say 'okay.. sorry about your luck, do what you can'. Over 30, the rules change. After shaving that noggin, you can (as previously stated) either do SimpleFit or some other physical activity (if I were a betting man, I'd bet the majority of you bitching have quite a bit askew aside from your follicle situation), dress a bit better, and.. I'm not making this up.. improve your posture. Chin up, chest out a bit (mainly by pulling those shoulders back, not physically sticking your chest out like a bird) and don't stare at the goddamned ground all the time. I'm no looker, but confidence will get you a looooong way, and the ones that count and are over 30 generally see through the shallow stuff (you did know that in most marriages that 'make it', partners are normally within 1/2 standard deviation of IQ of each other, right? And no, I don't have the cite handy). Short version: have something worthwhile to say.

I'm sorry if it's harsh, but so many of you live in your head and sit back while things happen, and I used to be like you. You can take corrective action at times. I grew up without much, joined the military, and went from full-on Iron Maiden mullet introvert 6502 jockey cracking Atari 800 software to completely dehumanized in the military (that first head shaving and cold shower along with an assload of med techs injecting you with inoculations while standing there cold and naked works wonders for the self esteem), to a professional software engineer with a career. It puts things in perspective; I worry about cancer, getting shot, whether or not some asshole on Wall Street is going to tank my investments, etc.. my hair (or lack thereof) is way down on the list.

And if somebody puts you down, always, always consider the source. At least once weekly I find myself thinking "metadata analysis indicates you're a fucking moron.. finished yet? I need to get more coffee?"

Guy at the water cooler: What's up, chrome dome?
Me: How original, that the best you got, Algernon? How's life on the tail end.. *snicker*

Rant over.. sometime during my hitch in the military I converted from totally introverted programmer to a Klingon. It's worked out for me at least. Even nowadays in Counterstrike or Team Fortress I never defend; I'm all about the invasion. I've worked with far too many of you that take shit you don't need to take, and attribute it to a red herring.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Again, it's obvious that vegans have serious health problems, and that vegetarians can be both high glycemic and low glycemic, not to mention whatever variations of lacto-ovo cheats they may have.

But beyond that any observational study is essentially worthless other than for speculation - http://www.marksdailyapple.com/will-eating-red-meat-kill-you/#axzz2chiATIP6

So how do we tell if Taubes is right, and that universally acclaimed "healthy" diets such as veganism (which kills babies), and vegetarianism aren't in fact, universally healthy?

We go back to first principles, and study the issue from the ground up :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat#Association_with_diseases [wikipedia.org] it doesnt really matter if i "believe" theyre bad for me. Scientific research seems to conclude saturated fats are linked to varying extents with both heart disease and cancer.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/saturated-fat-healthy/#axzz2cZ2Fmnln

Scientific research does NOT seem to conclude saturated fats linked to heart disease. It is still being highly debated. Just one side of the argument got support from a senator decades ago and popular culture embraced it.

Sure, there are papers that show correlations but as I said they are flawed. There are plenty of refutes and other papers that show saturated fats help in heart disease.

'tastes like grass' is an incredibly subjective assertion. the conclusion that fat 'brings out their flavour' is also baseless considering fermentation and roasting are readily available alternatives which have been used for centuries. Beets, Carrots, Corn and cucumber all have a distinctive flavour despite the lack of fat.

Fermentation and roasting rely on the starches and glucides. Vegetables high in starches and sugar tastes good raw. But, of course, in the modern food world with sugar, they can't compete on sugar. Vegetables that are low in both starches/sugar and fat can be eaten but cooked right with fat, they bring out the flavors of the vegetables. Yes, it's a highly subjective opinion but as someone who has cooked heaps of vegetables like broccoli and spinach that even kids have loved to eat, I stand by it.

hydrogenated oils go through chemical processing in order to introduce hydrogen. as for cream, or butter, not a single drop reaches a supermarket before being pasteurized at 'temperatures'.

I could make butter at home but I can't make corn/soyabean/canola oil at home. So, they are still industrial foods in my book.

No apology needed; thanks for the thought though. Glad if you found some of the stuff I wrote interesting or useful. Probably you finding anything I wrote interesting is explained by the psychedelics? :-)

Yeah, it's hard to know where to start sometimes, especially with complex interwoven stuff like this:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3862853&cid=44084615

Sometimes the best way to start is just to stop. :-)

I just came off a ten day water-only fast I started the evening after visiting someone I know who is in a hospice with an inoperable brain tumor. I've been meaning to get back to fasting for a while to reset my taste buds, and that (along with some other things) was enough to get me over some threshold. Now I've moved onto vegetable juices, and this afternoon had a bit of shitake mushroom and kale soup with wakame and some brown rice miso. Most of the fast fit over weekends or holidays. I would have fasted longer, but had to get back to various obligations that require moving around more (which is not that compatible with fasting, when your body tries to conserve energy so every movement feels harder). I've done one longer fast before about three years ago (31 days) which I had built up to after five or six other much shorter fasts. I got interested in fasting mainly from reading "The Pleasure Trap" book. I actually found Fuhrman's nutrition (and fasting) stuff while already fasting. But, there are many reasons why water-only fasting is not right for everyone. And ultimately the biggest benefits come from eating well, so fasting by itself may not help much unless it is part of a general shift.

I might continue some juice "fasting" or "feasting" for a time, but it is a totally different thing from water-only fasting.

In water-only fasting, the body switches into fat-burning ketogenic mode and does more garbage collection like of pre-cancerous stuff it is suggested. Basically, water-only fasting boosts the immune system in otherwise healthy people, which can help destroy pre-cancerous cells, plus the body is selectively breaking down problematical tissues it is claimed, and also cancer cells run off of sugar but when your body goes ketonic, normal cells go into self-protective mode and generally burn fat, but cancer cells don't and so still need sugar and so starve. Spending some time in the sun helps too, giving vitamin D to help the immune system do its job. Lots to learn, the most important thing is to break a long fast slowly on simple water-heavy foods like vegetable juice or part of an orange:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/fasting-cancer/
http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020127shelton.III/020127.toc.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Fasting-Eating-Health-Medical-Conquering/dp/031218719X
http://www.quickfasting.com/

Fasting is not something someone on any kind of prescription medication should do without coordinating it with their doctors, as medication needs will likely change, or the medication dose may need to be tapered off beforehand. Dr. Joel Fuhrman knows a lot about that sort of thing, and his group does phone consultations. The True North Health Center in CA is another great place (the authors of the Pleasure Trap help run it).
http://www.healthpromoting.com/

Anyway, it's a fine balance of psychology to navigate health and our society and possible addictions. Our lower level drives (as in the Pleasure Trap) to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and minimize energy use, are generally directing us to healthy ways to be (at least in a pre-historic world). But the newer part of our brain has helped make

"That's certainly a different way of looking at it. Primitive people had it good because they were unaware of how bad they had it."

Well, aspects of that are true. A Forrest Gump or "Being There" sort of happiness?

"To them it was natural to bear four children in hopes that one might mature to adulthood - although a fifth child was unlikely, as the mother's chances of surviving that many childbirths were not high."

Since just to maintain the human population requires two children per woman on average, that statement be correct as it. But yes, its been said that hunter/gather societies have higher infant mortality, but it is still nowhere near as bad as you say; see:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/life-expectancy-hunter-gatherer/
"On average, 57%, 64%, and 67% of children make it to 15 years among "untouched" hunter-gatherers, forager-horticulturalists, and acculturated hunter-gatherers, respectively. ... Of folks who hit age 15, the percentage of hunter-gatherers who make it to age 45 is higher than the percentage of forager-horticulturalists who make it to age 45, but not by much -- 64% to 61%. Acculturated hunter-gatherers excel here; 79% of their 15 year-olds make it to age 45. You might even say the study's acculturated hunter-gatherers were essentially Primal, eating and moving traditionally while enjoying access to modern medicine. From age 45, the mean number of expected remaining years of life is 20.7, 19.8, and 24.6 for hunter-gatherers, forager-horticulturalists, and acculturated hunter-gatherers, respectively. Give or take a few years, they could all "expect" to live about two decades if they were still alive by age 45 â" a far cry from a "nasty, short, and brutish" existence."

Just because people living in 1800s era crowded cities in England full of disease and starvation died young, and things have improved since then, that does not mean if you go back 20,000 years that it just stays the same or keeps getting worse. Consider:
"Skeletons in Our Closet: Revealing Our Past through Bioarchaeology" by Clark Spencer Larsen
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6812.html
"For instance, the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture approximately 10,000 years ago has commonly been seen as a major advancement in the course of human evolution. However, as Larsen provocatively shows, this change may not have been so positive. Compared to their hunter-gatherer ancestors, many early farmers suffered more disease, had to work harder, and endured a poorer quality of life due to poorer diets and more marginal living conditions. Moreover, the past 10,000 years have seen dramatic changes in the human physiognomy as a result of alterations in our diet and lifestyle. Some modern health problems, including obesity and chronic disease, may also have their roots in these earlier changes."

"People didn't die from the nasty age-related diseases like cancer or heart disease because they died much earlier due to injury, hardship, or violence"

It is true that many did die of injury, hardship and violence. But, our best science now tells us that cancer and heart disease are diet and lifestyle related (e.g. The China Study and others). Cancer and heart disease are not for the most part age-related (well, cancer a little). Kids are not getting cancer in the USA because they are old; they are getting cancer because of diet, lack of vitamin D, lack of iodine, and exposure to toxins. Old hunter/gathers essentially do not have these diseases (well, maybe some cancer but not like in the USA). Only people who start eating a Western diet get these diseases in appreciable numbers.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/HeartDisease.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article24.aspx

"So no, I don't buy th

As someone whose experienced how the body feels on the level of restricted calories required to trigger the effect that's been studied, its a life of lethargy and lack of energy. I used to eat twice a day, under 1000 calories, and my bodily functions followed (don't have a bowel movement but once every couple days, don't get hungry, etc). The side effects were I could barely work out hard for 20 minutes and couldn't enjoy outdoor activities because I simply didn't have the energy, wanting to sleep upwards of 12 hours a day when feasible.

Then you're doing it wrong.

The things that will make you fat:
Wheat
Corn (including HFCS)
Rice
Oats
Potatoes
Sugar
Too much Dairy
Too many fruits

Things that won't make you fat are on this shopping list. 80-90% of what goes in your mouth should be animal proteins and fats and lots of vegetables.

Look at the list of things that makes people fat and think about fast food.

Any burger/sandwich place: Fries or chips, Soda pop, and the bun on any burger or sandwich are a recipe for weight gain. Get a salad and the insides of any burger/sandwich, and drink water, and your weight will move toward a healthy equilibrium.
Fried food: What gets you fat is not the oil that it's fried in, it's the breading on the outside. Get something unbreaded.
Pizza: All kinds of bad things about the crust.
Mexican: Tortillas and chips (plus Chipotle's rice) are the killers. Get a taco salad but skip the chips/shell. Have salsa, meat, lettuce, sour cream, cheese, guacamole and enjoy a supper healthy meal.

Or as you recommend, get some unprocessed meat, add 2-3 vegetables, and you can't go wrong.

The items on that top list down to and including sugar all act like sugar in the blood stream. Anybody who really wants to learn about weight gain should go look at the website the shopping list is on, marksdailyapple.com.

Mark also recommends moderate exercise totaling about 1 hour a week (1 20 minute cardio, 1 20 minute weight carrying, and a small amount of functional exercises like squats and pushups) to stay fit as opposed to the 30 minutes a day. He does recommend averaging 10,000 steps a day. Although Mark recommends the exercise, he says that weight gain or loss is 80% what you put into your body and 20% activity level.

Check out the Friday success stories to see how others have benefited from this lifestyle.

Observational studies are almost always behind these news reports. Please ignore them. They don't prove causation. Here's some detailed analysis from the latest "red meat causes x" articles to get an idea why they're so unreliable:

http://garytaubes.com/2012/03/science-pseudoscience-nutritional-epidemiology-and-meat/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/will-eating-red-meat-kill-you
http://waroninsulin.com/nutrition/is-red-meat-killing-us

It may be too late, but you could tell your friend about vitamin D, iodine, and vegetables, fruits, and beans, as well as fasting, in preventing and sometimes curing cancer. I've posted many links on that stuff here in the past. Just google on those term and cancer, and look up Dr. Joel Fuhrman's work and Dr. John Cannell's work. Unfortunately, the best way to deal with cancer is to prevent it by helping the human immune system deal with individual cancer cells before they proliferate. Once you have cancer, things are pretty iffy. Fasting can also help in reducing nausea from chemotherapy. Good luck to your friend. Assuming the surgery is a success, exploring these things may help prevent a recurrence. Some links to start:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/cancer/
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article24.aspx
http://iodine4health.com/disease/cancer/cancer.htm
http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20080331/fasting_may_improve_cancer_chemotherapy
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/fasting-cancer/

Unfortunately, instead of scientists studying what is proven to work (nutrition, fasting, and lifestyle) and then people lobbying to make good support for healthy choices readily available to all, scientists seem to be creating what could become the basis of a weaponized plague that evades the human immune system. :-(

Don't be fooled by the government and big ag companies, the human body was never adapted to eat the amount of grains that people eat today, whole grains are not good for you. They certainly aren't as bad for you as junk food, sugar, and some other things.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-grains/#axzz1ndH8SAzF
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-primal-blueprint/#axzz1ndH8SAzF
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-to-the-primal-eating-plan/#axzz1ndH8SAzF

Don't be fooled by the government and big ag companies, the human body was never adapted to eat the amount of grains that people eat today, whole grains are not good for you. They certainly aren't as bad for you as junk food, sugar, and some other things.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-grains/#axzz1ndH8SAzF
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-primal-blueprint/#axzz1ndH8SAzF
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-to-the-primal-eating-plan/#axzz1ndH8SAzF

Don't be fooled by the government and big ag companies, the human body was never adapted to eat the amount of grains that people eat today, whole grains are not good for you. They certainly aren't as bad for you as junk food, sugar, and some other things.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-grains/#axzz1ndH8SAzF
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-primal-blueprint/#axzz1ndH8SAzF
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-to-the-primal-eating-plan/#axzz1ndH8SAzF

But, hey, since it's so easy you should get a grant for your ideas and make billions (yes with a B). You could show all these dummies in the several buildings around where I'm sitting (major university biomedical research departments) how easy it all is. And to think, they had to get PhDs and work for decades in biochemical and medical research. The fools.

Those grants are the reason for the bad advice in the first place. Government (and government-funded) nutritional advice is slanted to favor the special interest groups who are most successful at lobbying.

Alternative information is available to anyone who wants it so there isn't $billions to be made. I benefit personally in the form of improved health but I can't make choices for other people so all I do is point out that the information exists and works.

You're right, many foods are difficult to digest raw, but it's a matter of severity. Eat enough legumes (the seeds/bean part) raw and there's a good chance of death. Even when soaked and cooked they're still toxic, but then again, so are mushrooms.

Meat is relatively easy to digest raw. I've already mentioned sashimi, but red meat is too. Cooking accomplishes three things: it increases the caloric content, it alters/improves the flavour, and, important to industrial agriculture, it kills pathogens. Cooking, however, is not necessary from a digestive standpoint. Most people have no difficulty digesting a rare steak.

Many grains lack some of the essential amino acids. Carefully combining grains can provide all the essential amino acids. It's more nutritive to let a ruminant eat the grasses/grains and then eat the ruminant (not to mention the energy and input costs involved with industrial crop growing).

When it comes to the toxicity of grains, I'll skip the fungi that may be present. Phytic acid can interfere with the absorption of minerals, including calcium, magnesium, iron, copper and zinc, which are the main non-caloric nutrition in grains. Gliadin, a gluten protein and the cause of celiac disease, is an indigestible protein that gets trapped in the villi of the intestines causing inflammation, even in non-celiac individuals.

The high carbohydrate concentrations of grains wreak havoc on the metabolic system. Here's a good sumary of the trouble with eating high amounts of carbohydrates.

I'd say an ideal diet consists primarily of vegetables. Fruits, while nutrient dense, shouldn't make up a large part of the diet due to the high carbohydrate content. Calories should come largely from fat and animal protein. I avoid industrial agriculture products when possible. The pesticides, fungicides, antibiotics, colouring, preservatives, etc., present are obviously not good for you. Furthermore, much like a poor diet affects human health, so does a poor diet affect an animal's health. Corn-fed animal meat is far higher in omega 6 fats, and far lower in omega 3 fats than optimal. A high omega 6/3 fats ratio in the diet promotes many diseases and should be avoided.

I see no reason not to cook. I simply suggest eating only foods that are okay to eat raw. I would, however, avoid charring food as doing so creates carcinogens.

And of course, to each his or her own. :-)

No problem. Here's a clinical trial of the paleo diet for treating type II diabetes:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17583796
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00435240
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19604407


Some practical advice (books/blogs) you can follow to get you started:
http://thehealthyskeptic.org/diabesity
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search/label/diabetes
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/
http://thepaleodiet.com/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

I wish your wife luck. Definitely read as much as you can before trying this. The links above will just get you started.

Do some reading in the Paleo and low carb communities, there is no data that exercise leads to weight loss (it is good for health reasons, etc, but it will not make you thin). Unless you really want the goal (winning aerobic fitness based events, ie tour de france or just a marathon), high output aerobics seems to be harmful (check out Mark's Daily Apple, he made his living in that world for two decades).

Low output aerobics, occasional max effort work, seems to be what people are made for. The Army has moved from long runs to sprints, a sprinter can do the runs, and you spend less time and fewer injuries than the runner training.

Links:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/
http://robbwolf.com/
check out who they link to.

It's even better to just avoid the carbohydrates in general -- we didn't evolve eating them and are better off without them:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-grains/