I have no experience with this diet so I am not speaking from experience nor knocking it from a scientific standpoint.
But over a billion people live on rice as their main food source, and they seem to be all right. They live longer than we do, that's for sure.
Many, many cultures live on bread as their main source of food. They've been okay for centuries.
Pasta I don't know about; but I haven't met too many unhappy Italians. Plus, they are good in bed.
So when I hear about cutting out main food groups of stuff people have eaten for centuries, I have to wonder.
When people talk about cutting out the stuff that has been developed recently (which seems to coincide with our recent fat-ass health problems), they seem to be making sense.
IOW:
"Don't eat rice"
What?
"Don't drink soda pop"
Right. Got it. Thanks.
From my own experience, I can say that I have gotten fat over the last couple years due to increasing my caloric intake, increasing my sugar intake, and decreasing my activity levels. As much as I'd like to think drinking maple syrup in water for two weeks is going to fix that, I know better.