4.5: Carbohydrate-The Staple Diet

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A high-carbohydrate diet is common for much of the world’s population. The typical American diet—high in fat, low in fiber—is the rather odd one.

People have been subsisting mainly on carbohydrates for thousands of years, ever since the development of crops made civilization possible and ended dependence on the hunt. According to archeologists and geneticists, rice was cultivated as far back as 8000 years ago.²

Some domestication of animals developed about the same time—some kept for milk and others for meat. But a lot of land was needed to supply food for each animal, land which could yield food for many people when planted with grains. The result wasn’t surprising. Animals as food became mainly the luxury of the rich.

The general situation hasn’t changed much. Except for the hunting peoples of the earth, the poor must live largely on plant foods. Most of the people on our planet are dependent on grain (rice, wheat, corn) and roots (cassava, potatoes) for most of their calories and protein.

It’s true that we find most of our real malnutrition among these people. But this isn’t mainly attributable to the fact that the bulk of their food comes from plants. Rather, the main problem is their poverty. For when the world’s food supply is short, or when local crops fail, prices rise and drive the poorest from the market. They stand last in line.

Poverty also tends to confine such people to narrow and monotonous diets, with the vast majority of their food coming from just one or two kinds of plants, such as cassava, sorghum, or rice. There’s an important lesson here: Much of their malnutrition provides eloquent testimony for the nutrition principle that variety is the best guarantee of good nutrition—and that monotony is the handmaiden of bad nutrition.

At any rate, it’s perhaps ironic that the typical American diet can be improved by eating more of the poor man’s carbohydrate-rich plant foods— foods which are generally low in saturated fat and calories, and rich in fiber.