To Cure Obesity, “Eat Less Fat and More Starch”

Here’s an inter­est­ing arti­cle about the Pima Indi­ans of Ari­zona.

For about 2000 years, the Pima had been grow­ing corn, beans, and squash on irri­gat­ed land in Ari­zona. As a result, their tra­di­tion­al diet was high in starch and fiber and low in fat (~15% by calo­rie). After white set­tlers divert­ed the Pima’s irri­ga­tion water, the Pima had to fall back on the lard, sug­ar, and white flour sup­plied to them by the U.S. gov­ern­ment. After World War II, the Pima adopt­ed a diet that close­ly resem­bles the stan­dard Amer­i­can diet. It is low in fiber and gets about 40% of its calo­ries from fat. As a result, they have hor­rif­i­cal­ly high rates of obe­si­ty and type 2 dia­betes. In con­trast, their blood rel­a­tives in Mex­i­co who have kept more or less to their tra­di­tion­al diet have rel­a­tive­ly low rates of obe­si­ty and dia­betes.

Some low-carb gurus have tried to twist the Pima’s sto­ry into a jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for eat­ing less car­bo­hy­drate and more fat. In real­i­ty, it pro­vides strong encour­age­ment for peo­ple to eat more starch and fiber and a lot less fat.

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