How Quickly They Forget...

Ran across a generally stupid and useless article , the jist of which was "carbs are good, but don't eat them before bed." Good advice, as far as it goes, but of course I don't eat them at breakfast or lunch, either. Or at mid-afternoon. Or at tea parties. Still, I didn't have to read that far to know it was a stupid article. It was clear from the first few sentences, which read:

Ah, carbs. Poor, misunderstood carbs. Carbohydrates probably receive the most bad press out of all the macronutrients and all the diet no-nos. Low carb diets and snacks are the hottest thing and have been for decades.

Cue Scooby Doo voice: Huh?

Are these people from some other country? No, their contact info indicates they're American. Are they travelers from another time, perhaps? Like, say, the late 1800s, when Banting's Letter On the Reduction of Corpulence was popular? Or even from my childhood in 1960's America, when it was common wisdom that if you wanted to lose weight you gave up potatoes, spaghetti, bread and sweets? You'd think they'd be more confused about the internet.

Have they no televisions? Have they missed the eleventy-million ads from various processed food companies, crowing about how their packaged food simulacra are all "a good source of whole grains!"? Have they missed the whole meme of "Eat more plant foods!" and "We need good carbs!"?

Perhaps these are very young people? They missed the whole second half of the 1980s and first half of the '90s, when the health-conscious were all chowing down on pasta salad with fat free mayonnaise, washed down with fruit juice, and maybe some fat-free frozen yogurt for dessert? Since there's a list of several contributors with MD after their names, I have to assume they've reached their early 30s, at least. They should remember some of the '80s, you'd think.

In the past few decades, I remember only about a year-and-a-half when low carb diets and snacks were the hottest thing, from late 2002 to early 2004. Then came the media cries of "Low carb is dead!" and the revisionism from the "complex carbs are good" crowd, saying, "Oh, no, we meant whole grains!", not to mention the big push from officialdom to convince us all to add even more grain to our diets. Overall, I'd wager that low fat stuff has outsold low carb stuff by a ratio of 100:1.

As for "receiving the most bad press of all the macronutrients," what is the most common criticism of low carb diets? "What about all that saturated FAT?! What about all that cholesterol? You'll have a heart attack!" If Americans know anything about nutrition, they know that saturated fat and cholesterol will kill them. That it's not true matters not a wit; they know it like people of the 1800s knew that disease was caused by breathing night air.

In short, to believe that carbs have received the most bad press of any macronutrient, and that low carb diets have been popular for several decades, requires a complete ignorance of every dietary trend of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.

The other possibility is that the author of this article has a fondness for rhetorical straw men. After all, straw is a plant food, and high in fiber.