Carmen wrote:

> Hannah Gruen wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 22 May 2006 19:53:12 -0400, Dana Carpender
> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>What have I said that's cultish? I haven't said that no one should
>>>grains. I haven't advocated zero carbs, or suggested that everyone
>>>should eat the same way. I haven't said that no one should ever eat
>>>grains. I haven't said that everyone needs to eat a low carb diet. I've
>>>asserted that grains -- and concentrated carbs in general -- are
>>>unnecessary foods, and that carbohydrate is inessential.
>>
>>As to Carmen's argument about whether proteins are essential or not -
>>well, all I can say is that she is doing a great job of demonstrating
>>that she's reached the sophomoric stage in her education. Here's
>>hoping she finds her way out of it. Switching back and forth between
>>colloquial and technical term usage, to support whichever side of an
>>argument you're favoring, isn't exactly useful here on usenet. Nor is
>>using that technique to set up straw man arguments. And she was doing
>>both.
>
>
> No, if you'll go back and check Dana started the entire argument by
> creating a strawman. It was also Dana who switched between colloquial
> and technical teminology. She created an argument by saying this:
>
> "And yeah, since grains and beans in any quantity have only been part
> of
> the human diet for 10,000 of the 2 million or more years we've been
> around, it's really hard to see how they're essential."
>
> Nobody had said squat-all about them being essential. She created her
> own argument. Later on she herself brought up the shift to
> carbohydrates - not me. This is where she did it:
>
> "Except that they are exactly that -- inessential. Carbohydrate is
> inessential. In nutrition-speak, "essential" is defined as something
> the body cannot make for itself. Given protein and fat, the body is
> perfectly capable of making all the glucose it needs."
>
> As you can see above, it was Dana who was responsible for the
> sophomoric behavior you accused me of. I would think that after all
> these years you'd know me better than that. Perhaps not.
> As far as the protein argument goes, I used Dana's own "inessential"
> parameters to make that argument.

They're not my parameters. The word "essential" has a very specific
definition when it comes to nutrition -- something the body needs, but
cannot create. I didn't make up that definition; it's standard.

Dana