Let’s take another look at an important subject:

Have you ever heard anyone say that all you need to do to eat a more nutritious diet is to get rid of the white flour and sugar? That seems pretty radical to most people. What’s the point? What’s wrong with white flour and sugar? And what would such a change accomplish?

If you follow YHIOYP regularly, you probably know me well enough to guess that I won’t say you can never eat white flour and sugar. I would never say never — moderation is my motto. I think that most people can tolerate a little treat now and then. But that’s not what’s happening. Let’s look at the standard American day, food-wise.

If your house is like more than 80% of American households, there is a broad selection of “breakfast cereals” in your kitchen. On a typical morning, you and the children all eat a bowlful. Then you head off to work, where you discover that your officemate Dora has brought in a box of doughnuts. You enjoy one with your coffee, to which you have added non-dairy whitener.

At lunchtime, the group heads down to the cafeteria and you pick the baked ziti.  It comes with 2 little meatballs, a skinny packet of parmesan cheese, and a small, anemic-looking salad consisting of iceberg lettuce, 2 thin slices of wilting cucumber and 1 semi-soft grape tomato. You add “a little” low-fat salad dressing.  The ziti entree includes garlic bread, made from white flour and margarine. Or maybe you decide on the burger and fries. Or a container of low-fat, peach yogurt, and a granola bar.

Later that afternoon, you head back into the breakroom hungry, and eat “just half” of the last doughnut. Or pretzels or chips. Or a peppermint patty. Or another granola bar. Plus a can of soda from the machine down the hall.

Dinner? Fish sticks, instant mashed potatoes, frozen peas and carrots. Chicken nuggets, tater tots, and canned tomato soup. Pizza and more garlic bread. I have nothing against pizza, but frozen pizzas are generally not made with a whole-grain crust, real mozzarella cheese, and tomato sauce that contains no sugar or corn syrup. Cookies, jello, or chocolate pudding for dessert.

We’re not eating just a little bit of white flour and sugar from time to time. We’re drowning in them. No wonder cruising the cabinets after dinner is one of America’s favorite pastimes. We’re hungry. Two-thirds of us are overweight or obese. Because the standard American diet is so nutrient-poor that most people are literally hungry all the time. It’s not about willpower. It’s about nutrition.

White flour and sugar are relatively recent inventions, and herein lies the problem. We didn’t evolve to eat them. We aren’t designed to eat them, and our bodies don’t work right when we do.

Recent inventions? In nature, carbohydrate is virtually always found within an intact fiber matrix. We’re the ones who figured out how to remove the fiber and eat the stripped carb that remains. The main industrial sources of sugar are dates (high in fiber), beets (high-fiber super food), and sugar cane, a grass. The sugar in these foods isn’t absorbed fast: We make it that way. On a long bus ride in Cairo many years ago, I once watched a man occupy himself for hours with a single 6-inch piece of sugar cane. The identical amount of crystalline sugar extracted from that piece of cane would have been eaten and absorbed in a matter of minutes. He was kind enough to offer me a taste, but I declined.

White flour is made from wheat stripped of its germ, its bran, its fiber-rich seed coat. The germ and bran contain valuable nutrients essential to normal gut function. Remove them, and rates of diabetes, obesity, and constipation skyrocket. Stripped white flour makes a great glue for papier-mache.

White flour is white, while whole-wheat flour is brownish. White flour has a longer shelf life because the fragile oils in the germs of whole grains have a tendency to become rancid quickly. White flour looks cleaner and lasts longer.  It’s a decision based on economics, not nutrition.

Remember that each and every purchase of white flour and sugar is a vote to manufacture more. If you stop buying them, the message will echo loud and clear. Your nutrition is on the line. Your health is on your plate.