[otabdeveloper1]

> We've had a carb rich diet since the neolithic revolution.

This isn't true.

The modern diet gets 90% (asspulled number, sorry) of its energy from sugar, white flour and potatoes.

None of these three really existed in any measurable quantities three hundred years ago.

Sugar especially is something only very modern people started to eat in huge quantities.

[pygy_]

Bread was the staple food for most of that period. GP was contrasting modern and paleo diet.

It would be wiser to contrast 1918 with 2018 (and I agree with you that refined sugar and starch are most likely involved in the current mess).

[otabdeveloper1]

> Bread was the staple food for most of that period.

No, not really. The refined white flour we eat today basically didn't exist until very recently.

Their bread wasn't like our bread. It was coarsely-ground and made of bran, barley and rye. Compared to what we eat today, it had much higher fiber content and more fat. It would have been much harder for our ancestors to mainline pure carbohydrates by eating bread like we do.

Carbs in themselves aren't so bad, but the problem is that your body won't ever be sated by eating carbohydrates. (Kids around Halloween will attest.) Eating pure carbs is a very bad idea.

[pygy_]

I never said it was white bread... Besides, I agree with the rest of your comment.

[everdev]

I'm not sure potatoes are the problem.

The problem is carbs give you short term energy. It's great and healthy if you're doing manual labor, playing sports, lifting weights, etc. or otherwise burning that caloric intake.

If you're watching TV and eating carbs your energy boost is wasted and can get stored as fat.

And sugar as far as far as I'm aware is never healthy but can have less of a health impact in very small doses.

[ip26]

Yeah, I begin to wonder if we need to be a little more specific when talking about this, e.g. not just "carbs" but "simple carbs" and "complex carbs", or "refined" & "unrefined". We've dealt with this once before with saturated & unsaturated fats, vs trans fats.

[otabdeveloper1]

Carbs are carbs. The biggest problem is that you won't feel full or know when to stop if you're eating just carbs. You need fats or fibers to stop eating, hence "unrefined".