Just how much or how many carbohydrates must we eat every day in order to sustain ourselves? - Letter
to the Editor, September 23, 1999 - re: New York Times Article "“Increasingly, America's Sweet Tooth Is Tied to Sour Health” (NY Times, September 21, 1999)
September 23, 1999
Jane E. Brody
Personal Health
The New York Times Company
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
Dear Jane:
I read with interest your article entitled “Increasingly, America’s Sweet Tooth Is Tied to Sour Health” (NYT 9/21/99). Though the facts you presented may be correct, you offer only a small part of the sugar story.
Allow me to refer you to a Best Selling Book entitled “Protein Power” by Drs. Eades where you will see that though sugar is doing what you say it is doing, it is only one of many carbohydrate forms that our bodies digest and reformulate into sugar and with which our pancreases must deal.
Sugar is a carbohydrate. But all carbohydrates are not sugar. That is, not until we eat them. So, the focus of your story needs to be broadened if you are to really raise red flags for your readers as a warning to them. Carbohydrates are everywhere in our diets: Potatoes, Pasta, Breads, Cookies, Sweet Wines, Beer, delicious fruits and so many more. And, to the extent that we continue to ingest them as we do, we will continue to suffer and die from diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and other maladies as so interestingly put forth in “Protein Power”.
Those who foster the myth that fat makes us fat have led us astray. We fatten ourselves the way cattle are fattened for the slaughter; by being fed a diet rich in carbohydrates. The more they and we eat of it, the fatter they and we get. But they don’t get much of a chance to develop and suffer from the “killer” diseases that we do because they get slaughtered and butchered to become part of the protein side of out diet.
The question and answer that should resolve the issue for all of us is:
Q - “Just how much or many carbohydrates must we eat every day in order to sustain ourselves; i.e. for us to live?”
A – “None.”
We don’t need it (carbohydrates) to live. Please read the book if you have not read it already, and then implore your readers to read it. Thin or fat, sick or sound, young or old, your readers may resist the news but, if they read “Protein Power”, they will at least be that much closer to protecting themselves from the carbohydrate rich diet that is probably killing them slowly as they eat it.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
Drew Kopf
