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.  

It impresses me how effectively the processed-food industry uses words to influence consumer preferences and purchasing behaviors.

Remember that the individual or entity who supplies the vocabulary sets the agenda. So you can set the agenda if you pick the words. The processed-stuff-industry’s agenda is not, however, the same as mine. My agenda has to do with wellness, while the purpose of marketing is to increase sales. Now, as long as you’re asking, I don’t have any objection to increased sales. What I object to is covert influences that increase sales at the expense of our health and well-being.  

Here is an example for you to chew on: If I want you to buy white yogurt, simply yogurt through and through, without any additives of any kind, I’m going to call it PURE yogurt. Would you prefer the PURE yogurt or its opposite, the ADULTERATED version?  I’ll take the PURE, thank you very much.

But if I want you to pick up the flavored yogurt, usually sweetened with the equivalent of 4-5 teaspoons of sugar as high-fructose corn syrup, I’ll call that white yogurt PLAIN. Corn syrup is cheap cheap cheap, a lot cheaper than yogurt itself, so that means you can expect to see a higher profit margin for the sweet version. Do you want the PLAIN yogurt or the FANCY? Ooooooh, I want the FANCY yogurt!  See what I mean?

Here’s another example: If I want to increase sales of flour that no longer has its germ and bran, I’ll call it REFINED, which means that it’s somehow better because the so-called “coarse impurities” (i.e., the germ and bran) have been removed. The alternative to REFINED flour would then be the cumbersome, hyphenated WHOLE-GRAIN product.  But if I actually want you to buy bread made from INTACT grain, which has not been STRIPPED of its germ and bran, well then yes, that grain has an INTACT matrix.  

Let’s see it for what it is, call it what it is, and choose terminology that supports values of our own choosing, namely the health and wellness of our friends, families, and communities. Don’t use words selected by marketers expressly to influence our purchasing patterns. 

One last thing: There’s a special name for the information found on packages of processed food items. It’s called advertising.

Follow Dr Sukol’s posts on Twitter @RoxanneSukolMD and on Facebook at Roxanne Breines Sukol and at Your Health is on Your Plate.

Science writer Rob Dunn’s article, The Hidden Truth About Calories, recently published in Scientific American, explains why two people could each gain different amounts of weight even though they eat the same diet.  It looks like our visible, apparent differences don’t even begin to scratch the surface.  For just one thing, it turns out that individuals of Russian descent have guts that are five feet longer, on average, than those whose grancestors (okay, I made that up —  I intend it to mean just a few generations ago) came from Italy.  

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Dunn points out that our bodies weren’t designed to eat processed items that have already had much of the work of digestion completed before we eat them.  In nature, there is no such thing as plant-based carbohydrate without its fiber matrix.  Think about it: Vegetables, beans, fruits, and grains are the four classes of carbohydrate.  And if you pick them from a tree, or a garden, or a meadow, you find yourself holding a fiber-rich source of calories in your hand.

Dunn says that “Over the last thirty years the number of calories we eat has increased, but so has the number of those calories that come from highly processed foods. In this light, we would do well to eat fewer processed foods and more raw ones.”  Okay, I buy that.  He’s right, but not because of the calories.  He’s right mostly because of the nutrients.  

It’s not just the fiber that’s missing in stripped carbs.  It’s the nutrition.   He mentions this in passing (and in parentheses) with “Such foods, after all, tend to have more nutrients such as B vitamins, phytonutrients and minerals and so are good for reasons having nothing to do with counting calories.”  And therein lies the pearl.  

It’s not just that processed items are easier to digest and so provide more calories (and weight).  It’s that they are relatively bankrupt in nutrition, so our desire for Food (with a capital F!) is not satisfied.  Which keeps us hungry, all the time.

This is why we can easily scarf down several large bags of Doritos over the course of a ball game, or tip a full sleeve of thin mint cookies right down our gullets.  And yet we can’t finish all the lettuce at the bottom of a giant-sized chef salad, or feel good about draining even just a teacup filled to the top with first-press, extra-virgin olive oil.  Nutritious food is filling.

It’s not mainly about the calories, Rob Dunn.  It’s about the nutrition.

Follow Dr Sukol’s posts on Twitter @RoxanneSukolMD and on Facebook at Roxanne Breines Sukol and at Your Health is on Your Plate.