One argument commonly used by people wishing to defend a very-low-carb diet or a zero-carb diet is that ketosis is a natural state that we fall into every night as we sleep. Which is true enough.

But can the waking state be compared with our sleeping state? I think this is a fallacy: our bodies are operating with completely different sets of chemicals whilst we are asleep.

When awake, we always have a certain amount of adrenaline running around our system, regardless of whether we are in fight-or-flight mode or not. Whilst asleep, this hormone is switched off, unless we have a hypoglycemic episode whilst asleep, in which case adrenaline is used to kick our glucose-making systems into action (ever had those nightmares when you wake up with your heart thumping madly? That's a dream caused by an adrenaline rush!)

So, to say that it is perfectly OK for the body to do something during the day that it would otherwise only do during the night is not necessarily true, in my humble opinion.

However, I do believe that if you are weaned straight onto a VLC diet, then your body will adapt to cope with it, and that it can be a totally healthy diet. But I do not believe it is the only healthy diet for humans. The writings of Weston A. Price, as well as other testimonies on hunter-gatherer diets, prove ample evidence that humans can thrive on many different diets. Human beings are omnivores, not carnivores - our teeth prove it - and we are equipped with the enzymes and teeth to eat a wide variety of foods.

The trick is finding the right balance of foods and learning which balance is right for your own metabolism: there is no "one size fits all" for most adults.

What's more, as NancyLC pointed out somewhere, most of us have had our metabolisms and bodies damaged to some degree by the modern diet they ate for most of their lives before coming to LCing, which has differing consequences for different people.

amanda