One of the recent headlines has been about how the government agencies have redrawn the nutrition pyramid. There’s a lot of talk about how it has been inverted. I watched one “Doctor” on the Internet until he got to his commercial, and he was excited about the fact that grains and carbohydrates have been taken from the position of king and foundation to a fringe group. He had a lot to say about how destructive carbohydrates are and so forth.
While I will accept the fact that we eat too many carbohydrates it is not a problem of the carbs themselves as much as it is our lack of discipline and moderation. One reason people eat a lot of carbs is that they are less expensive than the other things on the chart such as red meat and fresh vegetables. I sometimes wonder if the people telling us how wonderful this will be have ever actually gone to a grocery store or had to balance a budget. Pasta is cheap. Porterhouse is expensive.
Another reason that I am not jumping on this bandwagon is because of a point that was made years ago in a book called The Weigh Down Diet. The author pointed out that God had designed our bodies and designed hunger and appetite as a way of the bodies knowing what they should take in. Her point was to eat what you craved, but do it in moderation. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have the kind of discipline necessary to do that, but the principle of God building in a craving for certain foods resounded with me.
I’m not ready to reject carbohydrates as being the major problem in diabetes, and, according to the good doctor, all major illness. My reason is theological. I can give you a reason from the Bible in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. For instance,
(Mat 6:11 KJV) Give us this day our daily bread.This is a clear statement about bread. I’ve seen other click bait on YouTube about how the bread they ate in those days was different than the bread we eat today. That’s probably true. The answer is not to throw out bread, but possibly to stop putting pesticides on the grain. I’m not ready to reject what is a staple across almost all cultures just because the FDA decided to revise the food pyramid. I am not ready to reduce the population of the world in order to give everyone the amount of fresh vegetables and fruits needed to follow the fruits and nuts.
I have been tracking certain things in nutrition for years. Bread, and starches like potatoes, contain fiber, protein, and a bit of fat as well as carbohydrates. Government agencies have a tendency to take extreme stands. They tend to throw the baby out with a bath water. While their advice is something to be considered, each of us needs to be our own advocate and walk our own path.
Shamblin, Gwen. The Weigh Down Diet. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
homo unius libri
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Comments are welcome. Feel free to agree or disagree but keep it clean, courteous and short. I heard some shorthand on a podcast: TLDR, Too long, didn't read.