It's been just over 2 months now of eating 100% low-fat, whole plant foods (eliminated ALL oil, avocado, nuts, seeds, chocolate, Durien. I've lost 11 pounds while eating all I want. There are other improvements too: I always used to enjoy cooking and trying new recipes, which went by the wayside once I got into "treating" myself with high fat foods. I have started opening my recipe books again! Yay!

I added up the calories from fat that I had been eating before the change; it was amazing how fast it added up! According to my calculator (9 calories per gram of fat) I was eating about 500 calories JUST from fat. I had been "justing" myself into gaining weight: JUST a 1/4 of an avocado on my salad,JUST one piece of Durien, JUST 1 ounce of chocolate, JUST 1/4 cup of unsalted cashews... as if saying "just" somehow magically takes away the high fat content.

There already has been a lot of research done on IGf-1 and plant-based diet. Dr. Michael Greger offers a number of presentations on it on his website: http://nutritionfacts.org/index.php?s=growth+hormone As we might expect, the low-fat plant based diet does in fact lower IGF-1 dramatically, without fasting.

Would you take Ancel Keys seriously, simply because he was a Scientist? What about his flawed Lipid Hypothesis?

All people -- Scientists, Doctors, English Majors -- are fallible. The person of value and integrity is the one that can say "In light of this new data, I can see that my previous position was wrong."

People all over the world thrive on a variety of diets. Stop placing people on a pedestal and claiming their way is the "only" or the "right" way.

A fact is only a fact until it's proven wrong.

So many things over the last 50 years (especially) have been proven wrong. Yet, we keep the misinformation alive in the collective psyche by continuing to regurgitate it without actually doing our own research.

Example: "Everyone KNOWS that saturated fat causes heart disease!" Right? WRONG!

I'm not trying to convince anyone to eat meat, not eat meat, or debate anyone about the ethics of eating animals. That's none of my business.

What I AM suggesting, however, is to become TRULY informed, before rendering a life-altering decision about what you put into your body. Then, living with the consequences of your decision.

This means going beyond the headlines of CNN and Yahoo. It also means going into the opposition's camp with an inquisitive mind and a desire to find what's true for you -- not simply for the sake of being "right."

In closing, no matter what path people follow, I hope they do it with enough information from ALL sides. Then, they become responsible for their own health, rather than abdicating it to others. When we get so entrenched in a position, we become more concerned about being "right" than being "correct." I wish for everyone to thrive.

Hey VegHead:

Yes, have seen that new one, which is a nut-industry funded study of a number of nut-industry studies, most of which studies actually had little to do with weight loss. In fact it "reviews" several of the same studies we already debunked, where nut-eaters were fed fewer calories during the study period when their weight started to go up, so that there would be no weight gain. In other words, it's another nonsense study from the free-spending nut industry.

A little busy right now, but we will be taking that one apart before too long. Meanwhile, Chef AJ has lost way more weight since this series of articles went up...doing nothing other than eliminate the "recommended" amount of daily nuts from her diet.

Nuts are great! They're healthy! But they're not "super foods" and the science, when it's actually examined and not just skimmed over, shows they do make most people gain weight if they simply add them and don't use them to replace.

Cheers.