In a message dated 98-05-11 11:06:29 EDT, you write:

<< In the book the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, on page 227 it states that
 following a high protein low carbohydrate diet is potentially dangerous
 because of substances released released into the milk by the mothers
 altered metabolism. >>

Kathy Dettwyler would be better to expound on this, but I know from my
anthropology experience that high protein low carb diet is how humans ate for
the roughly 2 million yrs of our hunter gatherer existence.  Only in the last
10,000 yrs have we become an agricultural-based species, and that's where
almost all of our carbs come from (grains, potatoes, bread, etc.)  Before then
it was whatever fruit you found and roots you dug (time/energy intensive) to
supplement a mainly meat and vegetable diet.

I find it hard to scare moms about behaviors in general that have been part of
the norm for our species during that 2 million yrs our bodies were evolving to
actually *expect* certain experiences:  co-sleeping, nursing for 3 or more
yrs, in-arms care, and things like this type of nutrition are all suspect in
the modern world, even though (perhaps because?) they were the NORM for all
but a pinprick of time (recorded history) on the timeline of human existence.

I have been researching this diet with an eye to lactation issues in the past
3 months, hence the verbose opinion!  I warn moms too about fad diets but
everything I have read and understand about this one, coupled with a little
knowledge about human history, combines to tell me this isn't a fad, but
rather a way of eating that was the status quo for at least two million years.

Hope this helps....I am sure there are lots of opinions on this one.

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Joy Berry-Parks
LLL, Central Arkansas
Attachment Parenting Group of AR
Anthropology Apprentice
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"Childhood Decides."---Jean Paul Sartre
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