The history of the carbohydrate conspiracy and the fattening of America goes back to the depression and the meat shortage. The meals of America used to be meat-centric. When the depression came, the soup line and the scrawny, starving kids created a new need - cheap calories. Ovaltine, Chocolate powder with sugar to mix with milk were ways guaranteed to add "a pound a day." After the second world war the shortages just reinforced this style of eating and the power of the sugar industry. Candy bars and many sweets had their start in the depression. Due to the increased blood sugar of eating carbohydrates it creates a craving for food and processes fat faster.
Now with the Atkins popularity and enough folks actually losing substantial amounts of weight on meat-centric diets, the sugar industry has felt the pinch. The bread council has also churned out low carb grain products as fast as possible to make up for the lost sales of bread. Sadly, America bloated up on mega-carbohydrate diets filled with low-fat carbohydrate products. The result was much like the ads for the malnourished depression era kids promised--a pound a day. How many kids in America start off slim only to be fattened up by the time they reach the fifth grade on a typical carb-rich diet?
Don't believe me? Is that SDAI-Tech1 pulling the wool over my eyes? Take a look at this Hershey's candy bar wrapper from the early 1930's:
"More sustaining than meat" Hmmmm. You don't see that on Hershey bars today. I wonder why? Sustaining meant survival. "You poor parents have no meat and you and your family are starving--it's time to pack on the sugar pounds, it'll keep you alive until the meat is plentiful!" That was the message candymakers sold to families in America during the depression and again during the World War. It was a double whammy and it stuck. It was almost as sly as Camel cigarettes advertising that cigarettes aided digestion after a meal!
And so they did eat it. Thousands of new candy products that could be made cheaply in factories emerged in the two decades between 1930 and 1950. Most all of the sweet things you find at your local liquor store or gas station' mini-market had their origins in sustaining people after the great depression and during WWII. Sugar filled gum became popular during this time. Hostess twinkies and sugar filled products created an addiction much like nicotine--the blood sugar high.
The sales these product made were astounding. Kids wanted sugar cereal for breakfast and by the sixties, the sugar cereal had replaced the grapefruit, egg and bacon that used to be the staples for children. Yet cereal, too, had been designed as a substitute for meat and vitamins and yet in the land of plenty a whole isle in the supermarkets is devoted to the endless array of sugar cereals for kids to fatten up on. They drank Ovaltine instead of water or just plain milk. The sugar aids in processing the fat in that milk and putting on weight.
During the depression and again during the war, when food was scarce, this was understandable, but after the war was won the nations' kids were already sugar addicts.
So now, half a century later, we have a nation of complete sugar-addicts. Addicts seeking new highs in sugar consumption. Mix cookie dough into the ice cream, because regular ice cream isn't sweet enough! Better yet, mix caramel syrup and M&M's into the mix as well! A pound a day? Child's stuff! The products of today can be sure to put on several pounds in a day without even trying!
Yet we see these nutritionists and various doctors say the Atkins diet is dangerous. All that fat! All that fat passes right through one if one doesn't have an elevated blood sugar to process it. And, indeed, the Atkin's diet gives the body a chance to really break down the fat already processed and stored away by years of excessive sugar consumption. So why do they say it's dangerous. Why do they try to sabotage folks from losing weight and try to confuse folks with talk endlessly about the value of failed low-fat diets? Well, they make money off of selling the low fat approach. When someone tries Atkins or a similar low carb approach and lose 50 pounds after years of failed nutritionists suggestions and carefully planned diets - how many do you think go back to nutritionists? Zip. Losing perpetually fat customers is not in the interest of the bottom line.
Meat is good. Lean meat is best. Going low-carb should be done in a high-protein, minimized fat manner that emphasizes turkey, chicken, tuna, etc. The portrayal of the low-carb diet as a bunch of folks sucking animal fat out of the grease pan is a bit ridiculous. For those of us who never strayed from the old ways - meat for dinner with a small side of vegetables, we don't have to worry. We were doing Atkins long before it became an "official" diet. In 1900 all America was doing Atkins---they called it eating and it didn't involve massive sweets, sweet snacks or ever increasing sugar consumption alongside an ever growing calorie intake.
Another important note cavities can only form in carbohydrate residue. Folks eating low carb diets don't get as many cavities. CREST and all the kid-oriented toothpaste got a foothold in the marketplace because of the kids high sugar consumption and all these endless products. Don't believe me? This was discovered already way back in 1961:
(If you can't read it. Copy it to your computer and open full size)
Aha! So sugar is for all intents and purposes the sole culprit in tooth decay. No sugar--no cavities. So why don't we hear more often about that? The Dentists would go out of business! Certain tribes in Africa have sparkling white teeth and no cavity but they also have no toothbrushes. So what gives? Well...they also ate meat and milk and almost no sugars. They also have almost no heart attacks. All that meat surely should've been the end of them right? Click here to read their story. Yes, this stuff is old news among the most informed, but it is what is kept behind the curtains so you and others are kept in the dark.
Just another look behind the curtain. The sugar as a substitute for meat era should have ended sixty years ago. Just like nicotine, sugar is addictive. The blood sugar level excites the appetite and as a nation, the US has to stop the sugar madness cold-turkey. The sugar industry won't like me for saying it, but that's just the way it goes.
The medical companies are profiting as well. I don't know If Gary Taubes' book: Good Calories, Bad Calories was out when you wrote this article. But he has myriads of research that sugar is the culprit in diabetes, atherosclerosis and any other metabolic disease. Since grains (read: sugar) is touted as the savior of heart disease, more people continue to eat a high carb. diet and therefore you have more patients for the hospitals and pharmacies It's madness!!!
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