+1 #1176: Taking Out the Carbage

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another optimize plus one. In our last plus one we talked about the fact that 500 years ago we basically consumed no sugar. Then we started nibbling on five pounds of sugar per year a few hundred years ago. Now we vacuum up 150lbs of sugar on average per person per year. Crazy. All caps. Yet another example of where being average is isn't a good idea. One more time. It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. In her chapter on positive nutrition in her textbook Positive Psychology and the Body, Kate references the happiness diet by Tyler Graham and Drew Ramsey a number of times. She quotes them telling us, I quote, a large study recently published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found in that eating processed foods such as refined carbohydrates, sweets and processed meats increased the risk of depression by about 60%. Eating a whole food diet, on the other hand, decreased the risk of the disease by about 26%. Now we actually talked about exactly that Passage in this/1 linked in this one. On the happiness diet, you know what Graham and Ramsay call fast acting refined carbohydrates. Carbohydrate garbage, carbage for short. Here's how they describe it. I quote them. The word sugar is synonymous with carbohydrate. All plants are constructed of sugars and popularly we know these as complex carbohydrates. So whether we're talking about romaine lettuce or oats or asparagus, these are all complex carbohydrates. The opposite, of course, is known as simple carbohydrates or simple sugars. These are plants that have been refined and processed to create things like pasta, bread, pizza dough and fruit juice. Collectively, we refer to these foods as carbage or carbohydrate garbage. They make up the majority of calories in the mad, mad modern American diet lifestyle. Whether it comes in the form of soda or pasta, carbage is one of the main dietary culprits behind America's uptick in weight and downtick in happiness. Garbage is so new to our diet that our bodies don't have off switches to tell our brains when we've eaten enough of these simple sugars. But protein, fat and complex carbohydrates have these switches. When we eat meats, dairy and whole vegetables, they tell our digestive and nervous systems and that we've had enough and should stop eating. Your body knows when you've eaten your fill of whole foods. That's today's plus one want to be mad and sad and angry and depressed and chronically ill and all that. Keep on eating the modern American diet. Want to be happy and wise and energized and healthy and flourishing and all that. Consider the happiness diet. Step one. Let's take out the carbage today. Seriously, one of the most powerful ways to reboot your nutrition plan is to purge your pantry of all the junk. Then, of course, quit buying the carbage junk. And remember, rule number one of nutrition will always be quit eating poison.