Oh, I wouldn't disagree with you -- I think there's an enormous variety within ethnic groups, and I'm not suggesting following any rigid plan. But I think it's an interesting question. I've often wondered why some of my friends will lose very well on low fat, or low carb, diets and others not -- obviously individual metabolism is involved, but I think genes play a part in individual metabolism.

There are ethnic diet fads, too -- the Mediterranean cuisine is the healthiest, for example. Well, perhaps not, if your people come from the Arctic circle, or even the Baltics. Inuit extremely high fat diets may be fine for them, but not for me. It's the mixing of these that interests me, and that I was trying to get at. Is it possible to inherit a metabolism that runs well on butter, but not on olive oil -- and vice versa? (And the problem that I'm getting at is that if one has the Butter and Red Meat Gene, but grows up in a household where the Cook, an olive oil and fish person, controls the cuisine, does this affect one's metabolism/weight.)