Mmm. I just ingested a luscious bowl of food that was packed to the brim with carbohydrates.

It was a tasty and delicious SALAD. I’m going to get fat now, right?

Because that’s what my tv tells me every 12.5 minutes about the evil of CARBS! Muhahaha!

They’re out there, you know. Just lurking, waiting to pounce. Those evil, evil carbs. They’ll get us all!

Ugh.

On the news, on the commercials, it’s everywhere: you’re fat because you consume too many carbs. It’s not, say, because you never drag your ass off of the couch to exercise and eat a box of Snackwells a day. Nope, not at all.

Let’s get a few nutritional facts out there.

First, cutting any type of food out of your diet completely in order to lose weight is just a bad idea. Carbohydrates are supposed to make up at least 40% of a person’s daily diet. This is not new information.

When you cut out carbs completely, your body goes into a process known as ketosis. Ketosis is not good or pretty. It causes a high build-up of acid in the blood stream and causes your poor brain to run on fumes. Plus, some people in ketosis have been known to have a certain…odor on their skin and breath. Yum.

You’re also not just burning your fat stores, as Dr. Atkins would tell you if he hadn’t died of a heart attack. You’re also burning your lean muscle mass. Yay?

There’s also the 4-4-9 information. Carbs and proteins provide 4 grams per calorie whereas fat provides 9 grams. This means a that a fat takes about twice as long to burn away once you eat it, leaving you fuller longer. Unless you take fiber into account. I’m not here to give you a full nutrition lesson, but obviously, carbs and protein are fairly equal if you’re talking about complex carbs. Poor complex carbs are getting lumped in with the simples, and it’s just not fair. Was I alone in third grade when we learned the difference between the carbs?

Back when everything became LOW FAT!!! they pumped everything with sugar and people got really fat. Has it ever occured to anyone counting carbs that the same thing is likely to happen here? I know the banning of Ephedra in the U.S. is making some people lose their damn minds, but come ON. Why the proliferation of misinformation now?

Balance, moderate exercise, limiting of crap food and sugar: this is not a new or magic formula. There is no magic pill, no quick fix.

Which brings me to the most odious part of the whole EVIL CARB Brigade: the lack of responsibility. Twenty years ago, we were told that fats made us fat. Now it’s all the carbs’ fault.

You didn’t do it!

It was the bread!

And the salad. Lots of obese rabbits, aren’t there?