One of the reasons you might have a good cholesterol count is that you already include nuts in your diet.
USDA, for unknown reasons, includes nuts with meat in the food pyramid.
Another unaccountable element in all this is that the American Diabetes Association still recommends that diabetics include large amounts of complex carbohydrates such as potatoes, pasta, and processed wheat in their diets even if it's quite apparant such a diet will kill them.
I've given up on all the nonsense and faced the facts that for a number of reasons my ancestors handed down to me the gene set best adapted to the Paleolithic diet. It only has 3 food groups, and NO complex carbohydrates are in there.
Simply imagine yourself out on the Long Hunt. Sometimes you get meat, and other times you find unripe, hard, green fruit (with little sugar or starch). Nuts and seeds are available, but you may have to chase away the animals to get enough of them. Finally, when times get tough out on the trail you get reduced to fresh greens, and maybe stems and leaves that can be softened over a fire.
There's no bread, noodles, rice, cornmeal, refined sugar in the Paleolithic diet. Such things are quite unnatural for the us.
Well, my trygliceride count was over 568 and I think under 150 is normal. The Doc said I was a heart attack waiting to happen. I can't claim the diet or exercise was my physical salvation. Nope longer life through LIPITOR! Took me from 568 to 168 in a matter of months with periodic liver testing. My liver is fine. I too have given up fries, and all alcohol and miss neither. I eat a lot of zero carb ice cream. More vegetables, too. I think I have just modified my eating habits in a healthier way. But South Beach worked for me, no doubt.