I think it is important to remember that our bodies are equipped to deal with carbohydrate digestion as long as the quantities are reasonable. And I think this is the biggest difference between American and Asian cultures. A half cup of white rice per meal will never make anyone fat. But a giant plate of nachos followed by 3-4 pieces of pizza and a slice of cheesecake or half bag of chips and you have problems.

Michael Pollan’s most recent argument is that the healthiness of food is largely dependent upon our food culture that provides structure and guidelines for what, when and how much to eat. These have all been broken down in the US, and this may be a big part of the problem. I agree with this to some extent, and touch on it a bit in this article: Obesity, Bacon Worship and The Power of Food Culture.

Thanks for chiming in!

This isn’t about this post, but just wondering if you had any ideas on something I’ve been wondering about.

I stopped eating flour and sugar a while ago, and it is like night and day, I felt much better after doing this, so I started looking into the low-GI diet books to try to understand this more.

One thing that I always notice is that white rice is always a food that is to be avoided.

I’ve also read in Michael Pollan’s books that any traditional, pre-Industrial diet is likely fairly healthy.

So how is it that white rice is so popular in Asia, and yet obesity does not seem to be a major problem in these societies. I’ve spent time around Burmese people, for instance, and they eat a lot of white rice and they seem to be pretty healthy overall.

(If this is too complicated to answer, don’t worry about it, lol, just something that I’ve been wondering about and thought of reading through your blog. Thanks again!)

They other really good practice I started at my family holidays is a post-meal walk around the block. Not only is it great to help kick-start our digestion systems and ward off food comas, but walking and talking with my family is what I believe the day should center around. (I could care less about the imperialistic myths and football games.) Turning off the TV and playing board/card/poker games made my family holidays a hell of a lot better.

Enjoy!!

When you said slow down, I thought it would be good to remind people to drive safely and not rush to get anywhere…..so many on the road.