Your Favorite Carbohydrates: Twice as Addictive as Cocaine

A nutritional crime has been committed. An ancient and healthful nutrient has been transformed into the most harmful substance ever known. It is now the main ingredient in the American diet. What is the violated substance in question? Carbohydrate.

Carbohydrate is one of only three kinds of food available for our consumption here on earth. The other two are protein and fat. We have been thriving on these three elemental fuels in various forms and proportions since the beginning of human time. Tragically, all three have been subjected to damage and defamation in recent decades. But carbohydrate, grotesquely deformed by commercial processing into sweet and starchy weapons of mass destruction, is having its revenge. It is igniting cravings that we cannot resist and destroying us as we succumb.

WHAT IS A CARBOHYDRATE?

Most people think that a carbohydrate is a starchy food like bread, pasta, rice, beans, or potatoes — and they're right. But carbohydrate also comes in sweet forms; as apples, grapes, sodas, and gum drops. Most foods contain some carbohydrate, but any food that is primarily either sweet or starchy is officially called a carbohydrate.

Why are these two types of carbohydrate lumped together under one name when their flavors is so different? These sweet and starchy sisters are composed of almost identical chemical elements. They're also identical in that both can very quickly be converted into our bodies' primary energy source; its gas. (More on this miraculous process shortly.)

Carbohydrate-containing foods in their original, undamaged forms are rich in nutrients and include the world's most beautiful and colorful edibles. Vegetables and fruits, which were originally our only sources of carbohydrate (as well as fiber) gave us all the reds, purples, yellows, and, of course, greens in our diet. They gave us myriad sweet and subtle flavors and many health benefits. Those of us who are still eating several vegetables and fruits a day have been found to be healthier (our cancer rate is lower, for example) and happier (our depression rate is lower). Unfortunately, we're now eating less than half the fresh produce that we traditionally ate before 1970. And I think it's fair to say that we're less than half as healthy and happy.

The foods highest in carbohydrate — fruits, roots, beans, grains, and, of course, sugarcane — also contain valuable nutrients. But it's their naturally high content of nature's sugars and starches that has made them the primary victims of modern nutritional crime.

THE CARBOHYDRATE-ENERGY MIRACLE — AND ITS DEMISE

Many of carbohydrate's natural properties are health- and pleasure-enhancing, but I have hardly begun to tout their most vital function. All sweets and starches contain, or can be instantly transformed into, the life-sustaining, cell-ready fuel called "glucose." Glucose absorption begins right in your mouth and continues in your digestive tract. The glucose released can be burned immediately or stored as backup energy.

Almost all sweet-tasting high carbohydrate foods like oranges and yams contain not only glucose, but lots of another natural sugar called fructose, as well. Glucose converts into energy immediately. Fructose is absorbed more slowly (you'll hear all about that process soon), but most of it eventually converts into glucose. High-carbohydrate foods like potatoes and pasta contain a starch called amylose, some of which is converted into glucose by the saliva in the mouth in milliseconds, the rest in the gut soon after.

Why all this focus on glucose? Glucose is your body's primary energy source; it is the vital fuel that keeps every cell in your body running. You can't build body parts out of it, though, any more than you can build a car out of gas. All of your body's structures, not just your muscles, but also your bones, organs, and everything else, are made from protein, fat, and water. But the miracle of carbohydrate provides the glucose that brings it all to life.

Our bodies require glucose twenty-four hours a day. Our cells can't ever turn off. Even when we're sleeping, they're still at work. But the precious glucose supplies we need are no longer consistently available to us. Despite the fact that our diet is higher in sugar and starch than at any other time in human history, these days, we can't count on the availability of glucose. That's because the unnatural, processed, carbohydrate concentrates we're now consuming so often can only fuel us with big, initially pleasurable, but short, bursts of glucose. In between bursts, we drop too low in glucose. We drop too low because excess insulin, stimulated by any high-carbohydrate foods, removes both any excess glucose and much of the needed glucose as well. The result: the low blood sugar crash called hypoglycemia. How do we know if we've become hypoglycemic? We crave carbohydrate.

Our hyper-carbohydrate diet has made us a nation of carb-craving hypoglycemics. Since so many of us now typically skip meals and often go without eating anything but sweet or starchy treats for long periods, glucose crashes just keep alternating with glucose overdoses. This roller coaster puts a strain on the entire body, distorts the body's natural hunger signals, and leads directly to the overeating of carbohyrates that ends up in fat storage. (That's where insulin disposes of all that excess glucose.)

THE CARBOHYDRATE-CRAVING CONNECTION

Do you crave garbanzo beans, blueberries, or acorn squash? Nope. Why? Because these ancient, healthful carbohydrates are only mildly pleasurable. As a result, they have helped fuel human life since the beginning of time...