Stripped carb comes primarily in four different varieties.  These four categories of carbohydrates have been exploited by the “processed-edible-items” industry more than any others.  They are wheat, sugar, corn, and rice.  

With the removal of its bran and germ, wheat becomes stripped.  Or refined, according to the advertising.  Or enriched, which means that a limited number of nutrients are replaced to prevent rapid-onset nutritional deficiencies caused by the removal of iron and thiamine (vitamin B1), among others.  This issue is of no relevance in whole grains.

Sugar is extracted from cane.  This invention was the first example of carbohydrate stripping, and has been going on for several centuries now.  I’m not advocating that you stop enjoying all sugar from here on in.  But it’s a treat, and treats are for special occasions.  Like Friday nights, or Sunday dinners, or birthdays, or weddings.  Dark chocolate is food by the way, not a treat, so you can eat an ounce every day if you’d like.

From corn we get high-fructose corn syrup, corn syrup solids, corn starch corn chips, and so on.  To say that these items, for they most certainly are not food, are found extensively in the Western diet doesn’t begin to express their pervasiveness.  Bottom line?  We’re drowning in them, and they are making us sick.  This is not an overstatement.

Finally, we get to white rice, which is a polished (the industry’s word, not mine) version of rice that grows with its husk.  The husk is rich in, among other nutrients, thiamine.  That’s what caused the epidemic of deaths due to beri-beri in southeast Asia in the last century, and it’s why rice, too, now comes “enriched.”

Remember your influence, and vote with your wallet.