From: Paul
Date: Fri Nov 11, 2005
Subject: Re: * * * A Visit to The Fountain of Youth
Ellis,
Your protocol seems to make biological sense. I know few in the medical community that have any relevance to your methods. Fountain of youth? Time will tell, optimizing our genetical potential is a possibiliy.
Your comment, however, "I eat no bread" is beyond me.
If your object in life is just to live long without pleasure, I can never live your regimen. I love food and bread, and I do my best to leave carbs alone.
[Hello Paul... You can't have BREAD and "leave carbs alone." Bread is 50% carbs. SUGAR is 100% carbs. So 200 grams of bread is exactly the same amount of
carbs as 100 grams of SUGAR... and you would only eat 100 grams of sugar purposely if you don't mind getting diabetes someday, down the road. - Ellis]
I see any dessert as bad, but bread?
[Of course: BREAD! Bread is much worse than many desserts, such as fruits. 200 grams of fruit, which is a pretty good portion, contains the same amount of SUGAR as 100 grams of bread, which is a pretty small portion of bread. So... if you eat bread, you will probably eat at least one bun of bread.... Please weigh it and you will see it weighs about 170 grams. That is 85 grams of SUGAR, according to the Carbohydrate Thermometer.
http://www.rajeun.net/carbotherm.html
BELIEVE ME, if I eat 85 grams of sugar, either through bread or through sugar or spaghetti or however it comes, it is going to raise my blood glucose to about 170 or 180...
So it is better for me to say Good Bye to bread. It is delicious, but almost everything that is "delicious" is BAD for me.
They asked Dr. Bernstein a similar question, and he answered to say that if eating bread means dying, he prefers not to eat bread. In his case it means dying soon. In my case, it
also means dying, but it means dying in perhaps 30 years, at
age 90, instead of dying at age 100 or more, which is my goal.
But there is no difference in Dr. Bernstein's goal and mine...
in each case it is to stay alive, because to be alive is better
than to be dead.
So it is easier for me to just forget about bread. It isn't
a gourmet dish anyways. I sometimes will eat an "empanada"
which is meat with a bread crust around it... but I try to leave
out as much of the crust as I can, and it really doesn't affect
teh enjoyment of the rest of the "empanada." - Ellis]
Yes, I am in the medical biz, studied my share of physio,
biochem, etc but while I subscribe to your theories I do think
one must "live".
[Me too. You think I'm not "living" because I don't eat
bread? What about the fact that I am 60 years old and I can
still have and do have good SEX? Wouldn't you prefer to be
alive and well and able to have SEX, than to be alive and well
and be able to eat bread but not have sex?
If you eat too much bread, you will not be able to have SEX at
an advanced age. Believe me, if you get diabetes, which eating
bread leads you to, you are shortening the years in which you can
enjoy good SEX.
Today I ate three eggs and chicken and salmon and papaya for
breakfast. Are you telling me I had to eat bread with that
breakfast or else I am not "living"?- Ellis]
I will eat as well as I can but I will never give up a few
vices such as bread.
[O.K., Life is a series of choices... I make my choices, and
I respect that you make different choices from mine. The value
of you having me be an extremist is that you will find out if
being as extreme as I appear to be from your point of view has
any merits or benefits in the long run. For some people, AGE 60
is ALREADY the "long run." I want to get to age 100, WELL, so
for me age 60 is barely beginning... I intend not to eat too much
bread in the next 40 years.
Some people will not give up smoking cigarrettes. That
is their choice. Golda Meir said she would not die YOUNG for
smoking tobacco. That seemed funny and witty to most people, but
the irony is that she was mistaken. She died of cancer, at age
80... so "according to Ellis" she died YOUNG.
Too bad, I'll bet she could have still been a great leader at
age 80 if she had not smoked tobacco. But it was her choice to
smoke tobacco, just like it is your choice to eat bread. O.K.
Eating bread is not as bad as smoking tobacco, but "according
to Ellis" not eating bread is better than both. - Ellis]
That is not living. Your no bread or whatever it shall be is
living to live not to enjoy. I hope your believers are able to
enjoy life and not give up all the "poisons". That is not
living.
Pablo
[I don't do what I do for "my believers" I do it for me. In two
weeks I will be in Can Cun sailing and maybe snorkelling and
riding horse or running down the beach. I am 60 years old.
Some of my bread eating classmates are 2 meters under ground
already, and some look old and they are tired.
I think I am living better than they are, and giving up most
"poison" has been a good thing for me, I think. I still enjoy
eating, I still have some poison, especially if it tastes like
chocolate...
But even when I eat my poison, I try to choose the least poisonous
of the possible poisons... a VERY THIN slice of chocolate cake
instead of a thick slice of chocolate cake... chocolate ice cream
or chocolate milkshake instead of chocolate cake... etc. I know
which is bad and which is worse, because I have tested them with
a glucose meter.
Thanks for writing, and stay with us. The important thing is
for you to do whatever you can that goes in the RIGHT DIRECTION.
If you don't want to give up bread, but you give up breakfast
cereals and marmalades and granulated sugar, that is a step
in the right direction, and it will help you to stay healthier
for a longer time.
I know, because the glucose meter tells me so. - Ellis]
