This is something of an odd post. Originally published on 8 August 2006, I am republishing with today's date because it doesn't make sense to bury it in the back then. Back then, I weighed 10 kg than I do today and I credit this book — which is not a “diet” in any meaningful sense of the word — with much of that change. I’m not doing it any more, but I know I can go back to it if I feel the need, and it will get to work within a day or two. Seth Roberts was a fascinating person, and he is responsible for much of my interest in tracking aspects of my being. So, here’s the review …
Full disclosure: I started dieting a la Shangri-La a while ago, based on what I had picked up from various web sites. There wasn't an awful lot to it (more on that later). I certainly saw no need to spring for the book. But when Seth Roberts announced on his blog that his publisher was willing to give copies to bloggers to review, I leapt at the opportunity. The book duly arrived; I devoured it. Now to keep my side of the bargain.
When women gathered and men hunted, there wasn't always a lot to eat. Much of what there was would have struck modern palates as boring in the extreme. Nuts, roots, tubers, grass seeds, maybe sometimes ripe fruit or a bit of meat. The things that taste really good to us today -- sweet things, and salt and fat -- were in short supply. In fact, maybe that's why they taste good. So that they would be rewarding, so that we would seek them out, so that when they were available we would eat them to excess. Any calories we didn't use today we stored, as fat, till tomorrow, when food would once again be scarce. And when food was scarce, how much better it would be if we weren't ravenously hungry and focused on food all the time. We could cruise along, eating enough to stay as healthy as possible without going crazed in search of those sweet and fatty treats.