I`d also like to add the food-cost-per-gram factor. Carbs cost far less than protein or more healthy food.
For maybe 2$ you can cook the equivalent of 4-5 pounds of spaghetti (if not more). Meat can never match that. And meat deflates while cooking. Carbs swell up.
How many economically struggling families do you see at Wal-Mart stocking up (sometimes half a cartful) on torpedoes (2 litres) of Pop soda (not even diet) when it goes at a special price of 1$ ? Far too much.
That`s the same gang that buys chips and sweet stuff at rebate prices. Have you ever seen them apply the math on a consistent basis (and stockpile) healthy food? To ask the question is to answer it, IMHO.
Anyway, carbs are so new in the history of humanity that I am not surprised at all to see all the diseases that gravitate around it. The media and masses seem to think that fat/cholesterol is the killer. I beg to differ.
As the guy in the Blood Type diet suggested, only a minority can efficiently process carbs (that is, either without balooning up or experiencing long-term side effects).
People respond to incentives. Carbs costing less, and people metabolizing them far less efficiently, and I would add being healthy not being economically rewarded in the short term, I am not surprised of the current state of fatness in technologically advanced countries.
DAN C: Well thought-out and well-put posting. Eating healthy is expensive. Couple that with a bodybuilding diet and it takes some coin to put on muscle and lose fat.
It offers some thoughts on why obesity is so common among those that we would classically consider too poor to get fat.
DAN C - Carbs are new for humanity? Maybe the processed vareity. I just don’t buy the argument that carbs, in and of themselves, are promoting obesity, considering that, if carbs are new, then it seems that they’ve ramped up our life expectancy.
JAREDNFS: Take what you want. Just think about these:
Before agriculture, what lifestyle did people have? Hunter-gatherer.
Before agriculture, how easy and frequent were carb-loading periods? At best, periodical. Depends on where you lived, obviously. In North America, you could expect to fatten/carb-up at fall before winter when, for example, apples were ripe for the taking. Other than that, not too much constant sources (possibly berries and honey, and even there you had to physically work to get it). Southern or tropical weather patterns were probably easier for year-long fruit availability.
And most important:
In all the time that the human race has been around, what is the most overwhelming and lasting time period: pre-agricultural or (post)agricultural?
Given enough time and science, maybe a genetic, carb-friendly, makeup will become more and more the norm. For now, it is not the case. Escalating diabetes in the population is now a problem of society, big time.
Maybe, in your own personal experience, you metabolize carbs efficiently. Ad hominem tu quoque? I doubt it very much you would have the same speech if you were of Inuit, Eskimo or Tribal genetic makeup (which are even more susceptible to carb-related maladies).
DAN C - okay, say carbs are bad for us. Maybe we only know this because we’re living long enough to succomb to the diseases that they cause. Thus, the introduction of carbs coincides with an increase in life span. I don’t think there’s causation there, but I don’t see carbs (just carbs, not any type in particular) as a huge evil.
JARED NFS: You may be onto something with the lifespan thing. OTOH, Ill have to read the World Health Organization on topping carbs at something like 10% of ones caloric intake. Very surprising, whether by it`s precision or it coming from such a big organization. There must be reasons why this is so low.
I have noticed that girls seem to be developing MUCH younger. I am 23 and train with my 16 year old brother, and I must admit, that I wish I was in his shoes. When I was 16 girls weren’t built like that. Now that I’m 23 it’s flat out illegal for me to partake in any of the obvious enjoyment they offer. Ahh, to be 16 again…well then again, if they looked like that when I was 16, I’d probably have contracted an STD or be a daddy by now, so I take that back. I better watch out for my lil’ bro.
Our government thought that maybe it’s unfair than men be charged for statutory rape when they meet a girl at a club, take her home, and then find out later that she looked 19 but was really 15.
That and you don’t have to feel like a perv for looking. “What? She’s legal!”
