Cake or Death?*

Two of my v. fave bloggers: Vin Miller at Natural Bias and Tom Naughton of Fat Head both happened to post about the one simple reason why Americans have been steadily getting fatter and fatter (and sicker and sicker) since the 1960s: sugar and carbs.

Vin talks about regular sugar: "Particularly in America, the modern diet is very high in sugar, and this is one of the primary reasons why obesity, poor health and disease have become so prevalent. Did you know that the average American eats over 100 pounds of sugar a year? One. Hundred. Pounds.

A large bag of dogfood generally weighs 40lbs. Over 2 of those. Of sugar. Per year. go to your pet food supplier of choice and take a look at 2 of those bags.  It will nauseate you.

And if you are saying to yourself: "Oh not me ... I hardly eat sweets!" Yes. Yes, you do. It's not just candy bars and cake. look at the ingredient lable for your katsup, your mayonnaise, your BBQ sauce, your spaghetti sauce. Hell, check out the lable of your Campbell's Tomato Soup!

Did you kow that the first ingredient of KFC's new "healthy" grilled chicken that you just congratulated yourslef on choosing over the fried is SUGAR?

Remember that refined grain products, like flours and high fructose corn syrup, are sugars, too.

"If you take a moment to consider how much processed food most people are consuming on a regular basis, the reason why so many of them suffer from obesity and poor health should be obvious. Sugar and refined carbohydrates are a major ingredient in nearly all modern foods and are being consumed in record proportions. Many people are unaware of the associated risks and even believe that highly refined foods such as bread and pasta are healthy choices! "

Sugars, starches, and carbs all do the same dreadful thing to our bodies.They spike our blood sugar, get stored as fat, trigger an insulin response, THEN, when your blood sugar bottoms out an hour later, you become ravenously hungry again ... starting the cycle anew.

Don't forget that your fat cells are not like jars of marbles. It's not like if you eat a second helping of Red Velvet cake only then will your body store it as fat - drop some marbles into the fat jar.

NO!  Your body constantly all day and night, no matter if you're fat or thin, moves those glucose marbles into and out of your fat cell jars. They are little dynamic systems, constantly gathering fat and releasing it. Your body cells don't wait until mealtimes to get their energy, they get it all the time. Energy is freed up one way or another - from the low-fat, organic, whole grain vegan snack bar you just choked down with a cup of soy 'milk', from the fat in your fat cells, even from the protein in your own muscles - to 'feed' all your body's cells.  All day and all night. No matter if you're Kiera Knightly or Michael Moore.

So how is it that some of us get fat?

Vin says: "Sugar is our primary source of energy, and when consumed, it can be converted to glycogen and stored for future use. However, many people consume an excessive amount of carbohydrates that significantly exceeds their storage capacity for glycogen, and when this happens, the sugar resulting from carbohydrate digestion is stored as body fat. The large amount of sugar and refined carbohydrates that exist in processed food is the primary reason for this excess and the people who consume it on a regular basis are often significantly overweight. "

But it's not that they're eating carbs, right?  I mean all that whole grain bread and low-fat wraps and lean meats are good for us, right?  It's because fat people just eat too much. America is fatter cuz modern Americans can't be trusted not to supersize, right?

NO!  Diet understanding FAIL.

As Tom says: "We don’t eat too much because we’re more gluttonous than our grandparents. We eat too much because in the 1970s the McGovern committee convinced us we need to live primarily on low-fat grains and other starches. We eat too much because our insulin levels are too high. We eat too much because we’re storing too many calories as fat.

In other words, we eat too much because we’re too damned hungry."

But you can't tell Carb Addicts that can you?  How many of you low carbers have seen people's eyes glaze over when you say : "no bread"?  I confess that I am just astonished that people just REFUSE to listen and believe all the proof that their cookies, cakes, crisps, crackers, bagels, pasta, wraps, crusts, rolls, and bread are not only making them obese, but damaging their health.

But they will look at those of us who have lost startling amounts of weight, see that we are thinner, healthier, have more energy  - but most of all are not hungry! - but they refuse to give up their Carb Crutch. From Vin:

"Minimizing the consumption of sugar and refined carbohydrates is truly one of the easiest ways to lose weight, but many people are unwilling to give up processed foods and choose to compromise their health even further by overexercising instead. "

It's sad, and what's worse is that the FDA could be helping rather than hurting the health of Americans, but won't. Vin pointed out: "As the food industry enjoys incredible profits from sugar, and the pharmaceutical industry benefits from all the health problems that it causes, the rest of us are stuck in a never ending cycle of wanting more sugar, gaining more weight, and becoming less healthy."

Tom summed it up best: "from a public policy perspective, emphasis should be shifted toward encouraging people to drastically reduce their consumption of carbohydrates; do that, and the “eating less” will take care of itself. But in a country where sugar, wheat and corn are all subsidized by the taxpayers, I don’t expect this kind of policy shift to happen anytime soon."

Unfortunately, I believe this is true. :(

Here, again, are the links to the posts of Vin Miller at Natural Bias and Tom Naughton of Fat Head that I quoted here. Check them out. They rawk.


*Thank you to the fabulous Eddie Izzard for this line which I snarked. It made the perfect blog title and he's an amazing person who deserves the linky love!