i agree that sweet stuff etc. is bad for you, but is high carb really bad? i always put it down to fad diets (i.e. BS).
I'm getting into that dangerous territory of "this is what I've read", so usual caveats apply, I'm not a doctor etc.
But as I understand it, when we eat excess carbohydrates which we don't burn off, our bodies ultimately store them as fat. And it's that particularly bad type of fat which builds up around our internal organs and is linked with things like (you guessed it....) type 2 diabetes.
When the government, health lobbies etc go on about junk food, the emphasis tends to be on the dangers of the FAT content (they were even talking about taxing high fat foods, which
almost brings us back on topic to this booze pricing discussion..... :lol:). But when you go to McDonald's and they say "do you want to go large?", which bits of the meal are going large? The fries. The drinks (i.e. the cheaper things they make a bigger profit margin on). And I suspect its the carbohydrates (whether starches or sugars) in those supersize fries and drinks which are the
real cause of the obesity epidemic. Or at least, they're every bit as much to blame as the fat.
The idea that fat is bad and carbs are good is nonsense, but they keep pushing it on us.... All those "healthy" breakfast cereals.... full of sugar! Or those super low-fat yogurts Martine McCutcheon tells us about - if you look at the nutritional information the low-fat versions are almost always higher in sugar than the full fat versions.
Also nutritionally, starchy foods are a cheap source of calories - and therefore energy - but they're generally not particularly rich in vitamins or minerals. To a large extent, they're "fodder". To come back to McDonald's, next time you're in there (if indeed you ever do go there), take a good look at that soft white bun your burger comes in.... does that have
any nutritional value at all? Maybe in the sesame seeds on the top! :P
(Sorry, way off topic!)