Why Carbs Got a Bad Rep. And What you Can Do About It.

My home-baked, white flour challah from last night.
(Today's french toast!)

 It’s all fat’s fault. It started with fatphobia, a fear of fat. Yes, back in the 80’s when Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Sinatra’s New York, New York were hits, Americans were instilled with a near fatal fear of fat-containing foods.  Meanwhile, carbohydrate was deemed safe and free to consume, without restraint. Ah, the good old days.

Heart disease became linked to saturated fat, and the message got oversimplified. Instead of saturated fats, the true culprit, all fats were grouped together as unacceptable.

And so food companies, ever interested in meeting consumer demand, supported our desire to eliminate the fat from most food products. Welcome Snackwell fat free cookies, fat free ice cream, reduced fat peanut butter—you name it.  Clients would declare, so proudly, that they had eaten 5 or 6 fat free sandwich cookies, clinging to the “free” part of the description. That they had consumed as much from these ”safe” cookies as they would from regular Oreos, never crossed their minds. They simply homed in on the fat content.

As fats were vilified, intake of carbohydrate-rich foods expanded, as did our waistlines. As you eliminate one of the three main building blocks of foods (fat) you are left with only two others (protein and carbohydrate) to fill the void. And we were given incentive to increase our intake of these items—they were “free” (of fats) and seemingly good for us. And their portions increased as well, as our guilt for eating them bottomed out.

So obscenely large I had to dig out my food scale and see what it weighed. Yes, 7 oz!

Unless you grew up in Brooklyn (which I happen to) a bagel was something Lenders made. It weighed about 2 ounces, the equivalent of two slices of pre-sliced bread. But even commercially baked bagels bulked up to 4 and 5 ounces, as in Dunkin Donuts, Finagle a Bagel, and Einstein.

No, not all bagels weight this much!

The thought of energy balance, of eating to meet your need, was absent, as larger amounts of carbs were eaten, regardless of hunger or need.

Finally the reality hit. Americans’ weight was climbing. In spite of having cut the fat, our weight, as a population, was increasing. (By the way, for those of you still fat phobic, this only further supports the fact that fats don't link with weight gain.) The culprit? Well, according to such authorities as Barry Sears (The Zone Diet) and Dr. Atkins (of restrict-carbs-to-make- ketones fame), the obvious conclusion was that carbs were bad. 


And boy did that message take off! They reinforced their messages with a distortion of a truth about carbs—that they increase insulin levels in the blood stream. They pathologized this situation, making it seem like a bad thing. Yes, insulin levels increase upon eating carbs. But a healthy body handles carbohydrate quite well, thank you. Yes, even diabetics can and should include carbohydrate as a chunk of their intake. (I say this as both an RD and a Certified Diabetes Educator.)

When panicked, we tend to not trust ourselves, instead latching on to information, even illogical and incorrect information.

Carbs don’t increase your weight. Period. 

Excess calories do. And the way we were eating carb-rich foods clearly resulted in taking in too many calories. And by choosing more processed, less filling carbohydrate-rich foods, it was quite easy to over consume them. For instance, eating a 5 oz. bagel was a breeze. But could you easily eat 2 ½ cups of cooked oatmeal? Because they’re the same, calorically.  And a 12 oz. can of apple juice? That’s about 3 ½ whole apples. Which would fill you up more? See the point. And the bagel pictured on this page (purchased from local bagel shop)? That’s like having 7 (yes, seven) slices of bread! But we tend to see foods as units—a sandwich, for instance, or a bagel, failing to recognize just how large the portion really is.

That isn’t to say that you should only eat high fiber grains, though. Truly, it’s simply about the portion. They eat white, processed pasta in Italy, and white baguettes in France, as part of their healthy Mediterranean diet. And the record shows it doesn’t cause weight gain. But they also include legumes, and fruits and vegetables on a regular basis. And they rarely eat in their cars, or on the train. And they tend to take time to eat. And I suspect they really enjoy those crusty baguettes and croissants. Get the picture?

Still struggling to trust the carbs? Make a substitution for a protein source, not an addition, just to prove it’s okay. Take baby steps. Once your worst fears don’t come true, do it more frequently. Start with foods you might see as healthier, to get started.

This one was too cute to cook. The rest got tossed with olive oil and baked!

Go ahead. Give it a try. You’ll see that bad things don’t happen. I promise!